Daughters
Chapter Twelve: Hand Me Down

The sun hid behind clouds. It looked as if it were going to rain. Kagome Higurashi sat at the kitchen table, scribbling away at her homework. Souta sat playing with his Game Boy. Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the three of them—four of them, supposedly, if her father ever returned from wherever he was.

Save for Souta's giggles, pencils hitting paper, and knifes slicing through vegetables, the apartment was completely silent. There seemed to be a tension in the air that Kagome couldn't place. Perhaps she didn't want to place it.

She wasn't sure what it was, but she didn't like it.

It'd been happening for what felt like months now. There was always this thick, tangible tension in the air, suspended on strings. Kagome could always feel its presences whenever her mother was alone, or in the presence of her father. It was becoming unbearable, especially when her two parents started fighting in the middle of the night when they thought their children were asleep.

Kagome wet her lips and decided to break the silence. She was hungry.

"Where's Dad?" Kagome questioned as she glanced down at her homework. She hated math. But she had work to do. The thirteen-year-old scrunched up her face and scribbled out her answer, knowing that it was wrong but unsure how to make it right.

"Out," her mother responded, her back rigid. "With friends, I suppose."

"I thought it was his turn to cook tonight," Kagome supplied and watched her mother cut vegetables curtly. "Mama?"

"Yes, Kagome dear, your father was supposed to cook tonight," Mrs. Higurashi said tensely. Kagome felt that she'd made a mistake bringing her father up. Her mother was always on edge, and naturally a very nervous person.

Souta laughed again. "I win!"

Kagome turned in her chair to look at her little brother playing on the hand-held video game. He looked up at Kagome, pride glowing in his eyes. He smiled brightly, revealing a lost tooth in the corner of his mouth.

Kagome loved her little brother. He was a sweet, well-mannered little boy. He was always smiling. Nothing ever seemed to bother him, nothing at all. That's why, more than anything else, Kagome hated to see her parents fight. It confused and worried Souta, and the little boy was not someone who was supposed to feel confused and worried. Souta was a boy who was supposed to always be happy and to always be smiling. She prayed that her parents wouldn't fight tonight.

"Good job, Souta," Kagome said lightly, flashing him a large smile. Souta chirped happily, his eyes glowing warmly.

Kagome turned back to her homework, realized she'd never understand the math, and closed her math book. She'd ask her teacher tomorrow morning before school started to see if she could get a little bit of help. If not, she'd ask her best friend, Sango.

They heard a key enter a lock.

"Daddy's home!" Souta declared loudly, scrambling to his feet. Game Boy forgotten, Souta raced from the room towards the foyer, where their father was making his grand appearance. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

"Hey, Souta," his father said warmly, scooping up the little boy and giving him a bear hug—as he was opt to do whenever Souta tumbled his way into his arms. After a brief moment, Mr. Higurashi set down his son and patted his back, urging him to return to the kitchen where dinner was ready.

"Honey, you're home," Kagome's mother said. Kagome couldn't miss the anger she barely concealed. "How was work?"

"Same old. Traffic was horrible. I would have called, but, I had no service," Mr. Higurashi said with a shrug, ignoring his wife's terse reply. He slipped off his jacket and hung it on a hook. He saw Kagome, staring at him. "Hey sweetie."

"Hello, dad," Kagome said evenly, staring at the man she barely knew. Her father seemed to never be around. He was either out, with friends, on business trips, or working long hours.

For years, her father had worked out of the country for a company in America. Mrs. Higurashi, who didn't want to leave her home and take her children away from their schools in Japan, stayed behind to watch the children. From the time that Kagome was four to the time that she was twelve, she only saw her father on holidays, if that.

But his job returned to Japan and he, with it. But she still rarely saw her father. Truth was, she didn't know a single thing about the man. He was like a ghost that drifted through her life every so often and she was stuck watching him float through walls and through her mind at random intervals.

She didn't know her father. And she never would want to know him again.

Kagome felt as if she would never sleep again. It happened occasionally. She'd be peacefully sleeping when, all of a sudden, her parents' screaming would awaken her. Her mother and father fought a lot, especially recently. To her, who had a much bigger bias towards her mother, believed her father was a bit on edge recently, and a bit more conceited. Her mother, on the other hand, rarely had enough nerve to stand up for herself completely, unless pushed.

Tonight, it seemed, she'd been pushed.

"Why the hell do you mean you have to leave?" Kagome heard her mother scream through the walls. She huddled into a corner of her bed, hiding beneath her blankets. Outside, the thunder rumbled and lightning struck in the distance. Kagome shivered and whimpered, wishing that her parents would stop fighting. "Where the hell do you go every night? Huh?"

"What the fuck, woman? Can't you give me a moment's peace!" her father's voice roared, his words rumbling Kagome's soul far more effectively than the thunder and lightning ever could. "Just leave me the fuck alone!"

"You're never around when I need you!" Mrs. Higurashi pressed, her voice cracking as she forced down some tears. "You're always out somewhere. Do you even care about the life you have here? Do you even care about your children? Your wife?"

"What is with the third-degree, woman?" her father snapped. "I have work to do! I'm supplying money to the family."

"I find it very interesting that, with the amount of days you work, we rarely see a cent of that money. Where does it go, huh?"

"That is none of your fucking business! I'm taking care of the money. You've got plenty of it, why do you need to take my money away from me? Why can't you just butt the fuck out of my business and let me live in peace? I get money. I keep the money. It's my damned money!"

"But what about your family?" Mrs. Higurashi stressed. "Don't they mean a thing to you?'

"Don't be stupid," Mr. Higurashi snapped. "Of course they matter. But I matter, too."

"Who's more important? The family? Or yourself?"

Kagome almost heard her father release a chuckle, but it was so soft that Kagome couldn't say for sure that she'd even heard it. She hated it when her parents fought, especially over money.

"You have money to take care of the kids. That's all you need, right? Why should I even bother coming home?"

"Do you even care about your children? Kagome rarely sees you anymore!" Her mother was growing more and more hysterical and Kagome could hear it in her wavering voice. "You spend all this time with Souta. But never with Kagome. Kagome doesn't even know you."

"Who the fuck cares about that kid?"

That kid.

That kid…?

Kagome sniffled, finally feeling the tears collect in the corner of her eyes and spill down over her cheeks. That kid. That was all she ever was to her father. She didn't even know her father. At that moment, she could have hated her father; she wasn't sure what it felt like. She wasn't sure what hating her own father entailed.

"That kid?" her mother screeched, voicing Kagome's thoughts. "What kind of father are you? She's our daughter! Kagome is our daughter. She's not just some kid, you asshole."

"I've got more important things to do than to come home and listen to you give me shit about having a social life. Unlike you, I do have friends!" Mr. Higurashi roared angrily.

"How dare you? I would have friends too, but my children are far more important to me than having a couple beers with my buddies, you know!"

Kagome inhaled deeply, releasing her breath one shaking sob at a time. Tears rolled down her cheeks and blue eyes stared at her toes wearily. She hated to hear her parents fighting. Sometimes, like now, it got so bad that her parents seemed to forget that she was still in the house, no longer sleeping.

She swallowed a lump that lodged itself in her throat and tried her best to breathe through her heart-wrenching sobs and her sharp intakes for air. She didn't like her parents fighting. What about little Souta? Thank goodness he was at a friend's house tonight or else he wouldn't be able to sleep at all.

"Are you implying that all I ever do is sit at a bar and drink alcohol?"

"Well, if not that, then what?" Mrs. Higurashi questioned tensely.

"Fuck you, woman, fuck you," the man snarled and Kagome heard the distinct noise of a hand hitting against flesh. Kagome wasn't sure who threw the punch until she felt a soft body collide with her wall and the sounds of her mother sobbing on the other side, just on the other side of her wall...

"Just back the fuck out of my business," she heard her father snarl, "and we'll both be happy."

Kagome didn't sleep for weeks after that. Every time she tried, she remembered the terrifying sounds of her mother's sobs blended in with the sounds of thunder as her father slammed the front door shut.

"Kagome, get me a glass of water?" Abi questioned, gazing squarely at her almost-stepdaughter. Kagome paused in her thoughts and tapped her mechanical pencil against her homework. She was stuck spending the first weekend of her summer vacation watching over her almost-stepmother who, supposedly, couldn't walk on her own on account of her swollen ankles.

Kagome obeyed, unable to say anything against the woman for fear of what she might tell her father. She swallowed and filled a large glass with tap water before retreating to the living room where the young twenty-eight-year-old sat. Kagome hated Abi. But she especially hated the fact that they were only ten years apart.

Her father, a man of fifty-two, marrying a twenty-eight-year-old, was wrong on so many levels for Kagome that she wasn't sure how she could function properly knowing that her father was practically a pedophile. And for Abi to marry a man who was twenty-four years her senior…

"Oh, is this from the tap?" Abi questioned, observing the water.

"Yes," Kagome said, already knowing what Abi would say.

"Could you get me bottled water instead?" Abi asked, smiling charmingly at the girl.

Kagome said nothing, simply snatched the glass from her father's fiancée's hands and spilling water all over Abi's lap. Abi released a tiny squeak of surprise as her fat belly moved in an attempt to get away—as if the water would injure her precious unborn child.

"Kagome!" Abi demanded, her light tone instantly dissolving into a menacing and annoyed tone. "Be more careful!"

"It's only water."

"Kagome," Abi hissed.

"Sorry," Kagome mumbled, wishing that she could say the things she wanted to say. She carried the water to the kitchen and threw the glass into the sink. The glass shattered, releasing a large-scale crack that reverberated throughout the entire apartment. Glass shards danced in the sink, twinkling in the early morning sunlight and the stray water left in the white sink.

"Shit," Kagome cursed quietly, then prayed that Abi hadn't heared; Abi had a thing about swearing in front of her child.

"Kagome!" Abi demanded, sounding just as mean as before. "What the heck do you think you're doing?"

"Sorry," Kagome whispered, "it slipped."

"I can't hear you, young lady!"

"I said you suck," Kagome muttered to herself. She cleared her throat. "I said," she called out, louder this time, "that the glass slipped."

"Well, be more careful next time, you clumsy girl."

"Yes, Abi," Kagome said with clenched teeth, her hands rolling into fists as she tried to banish the ill thoughts she felt for the young woman. The young woman who was going to be her mother as soon as Kagome's future little half-brother or half-sister was born.

Kagome felt terrible about the thoughts she harbored for her stepmother, but it couldn't be helped. People often scoffed at her tales of an evil almost-stepmother, thinking that she was imagining things and just hated the idea of her father being with someone other than her mother. And Abi did have her moments, and she seemed to make her father happy. But she wasn't happy. And neither was Souta.

Why did things have to be this way?

Abi was never outwardly mean, she was just condescending and gave her looks that suggested Abi believed Kagome to be a mere, immature little girl.

Kagome sighed and brushed her long, black bangs from her eyes. The blue orbs observed her father's pregnant bride-to-be.

Happiness seemed almost impossible at this point.

"Mama?" Kagome murmured as she heard a door slam open just outside her own door. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, yawning. She'd fallen asleep doing her homework again. Her mother was working late that night, so maybe she was home at this point?

She glanced at her clock on her desk. The second hand ticked by slowly, showing her that it was a bit after midnight. Shielding a yawn with her small hand, Kagome scooted away from her desk, standing.

"Mama?" she said again, opening her door and stumbling out into the hallway like a drunk did after one too many beers.

"Kagome, don't come in," her mother demanded.

Kagome didn't listen and peaked her head in and stared in shock as her father pulled on a pair of pants, trying to shield the young college intern lying naked in his bed from his middle-aged wife. Mrs. Higurashi stared in shock as the twenty-two-year-old Abi rose from the bed, the sheets pooling away from her and revealing the shapely body of a young woman—free of wrinkles, sagging, or aged spots.

Mrs. Higurashi stared in horror at her husband.

"In my bed," she wheezed out, tears pooling into her eyes.

Mr. Higurashi seemed unfazed. He watched Abi as she lazily began dressing herself. His eyes roved hungrily over the young woman's body, taking in every dip and curve he'd already memorized by that point.

Kagome wasn't sure what to make of it, but she'd watched enough sitcoms and movies to know that something was seriously wrong. The thirteen-year-old knew that Abi was not her mother, duh, and she also knew that her father had done something terrible; her father was having an affair with her mother.

"In my bed," Mrs. Higurashi repeated, tears spilling down her eyes.

Mr. Higurashi said nothing in his defense. In fact, his eyes never left Abi, even after the woman was dressed and, with swaying hips, slipped up next to the man, her hand trailing lazily over his bicep.

Kagome's mother seemed to curl up into herself. She backed away, her back falling against the wall and she bowed her head, releasing the tiniest of sobs as she tried to muffle her cries. Kagome watched, horrified, as her mother died right in front of her, watching the only man she ever loved being caressed by a woman over twenty years younger.

Kagome watched in horror as the new couple stared at one another lovingly and the sobbing, broken figure of her mother wrenched itself away from the wall and ran from the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

Kagome would never see her alive again.

"I got a letter from Souta today," Kagome said over dinner, swallowing Abi's disgusting food with bitter difficulty. Kagome's father perked up, seeming genuinely interested in his son's wellbeing. Abi picked at her food, seemingly unimpressed with her own culinary abilities. "He seems to be doing well."

"He'd better be with all the money we're putting into his reformation," Abi said with a tiny hint of bitterness. She hid her grimace behind her water glass as she took a deep drink from the glass cup. Kagome barely hid a hideous glare at her father's fiancée.

"How is Souta?" Mr. Higurashi questioned, ignoring Abi's comment and Kagome's poorly masked glare.

"He's doing well," Kagome repeated, setting down her fork and frowning thoughtfully. "His grades are good."

"It's a good thing we sent him to that school, right honey?" Abi asked lightly, touching the older man's arm. The man nodded and smiled at the woman, seeming genuinely happy for the woman's company.

Kagome silently scoffed, staring at her dry slab of chicken breast.

"He's making friends."

"We didn't send him there to make friends," Abi said airily, drinking from her glass again.

"It's only natural," Kagome said tensely, trying to control her temper; screaming at Abi would only get her in trouble, after all, "that Souta would want to make friends, Abi."

"But that is not why we sent him there," she countered, seeming to pick up on Kagome's patronizing tone. She gave Kagome a rather ugly look that seemed to remain unnoticed by Mr. Higurashi. "We sent them there so he could work out his behavioral problem."

"The nonexistent one," Kagome muttered.

"What was that?"

Kagome lifted her head and felt the tension ripple between the two women. How dare this woman march into her life and pretend to be her mother? There was barely an age difference between them. Kagome felt Abi's dark looks but chose to ignore them as best she could. She felt anger bubble within her gut and her heart wrench painfully in her chest, thumping against her ribcage like a snare drum.

"I said that Souta doesn't have a behavioral problem and he never has," Kagome whispered.

"Is that so?" Abi said, feeling anger and her own turbulent hormones dance around inside her, doing a dreadfully dangerous tango.

"Yes," Kagome said again, feeling her fists clench under the table.

"Souta had a terrible behavioral problem, and your father made the right decision to send him away. I don't think he much appreciates your snobbish tone about his decisions. It would be better to thank your father for having your best interests at heart. You're lucky to have him as a father. Souta should be grateful. Such a problem child, nothing was ever good enough for him."

"Will you just shut up?" Kagome demanded before she could stop herself. She stood up, her chair scraping against the ground and her hands planting on the wooden table. Abi and her father stared at her, shocked at such an outburst.

"Excuse me?" Abi looked properly scandalized.

"I am so sick of hearing you preach about how ungrateful we are and how great everything is! Nothing is perfect. Souta was fine just the way he was! There was nothing wrong with him. So he didn't like you? So he didn't listen to you? So what? At least Souta had his own will to realize a witch when he saw one!"

"Kagome!" her father gasped but Kagome ignored him, so deep in her own anger.

"Souta didn't bend his back for you and so then he'd have to have something wrong with him! If no one treats you like the damned princess that you are then there's got to be something wrong. Well, you successfully banished my brother, Princess Abi," Kagome gasped out mockingly, trying to fight back the onslaught of tears prickling behind her angered blue eyes.

"Kagome stop this instant," her father said, standing.

"Princess Abi," Kagome continued mockingly, giving her a low, mocking bow. "This kingdom is yours. But you will never make me your loyal citizen! How dare you march into our lives and ruin everything! We were just fine without you."

"Stop now," Abi ordered.

"You're not my mother!" Kagome hissed angrily, marching up to Abi. "You will never be my mother. You will always be the stupid woman who slept with my dad and completely ruined my life! I hope you're happy."

Her father stared in horror as Abi lifted her hand and slapped Kagome's cheek, knocking the girl off her stride for half a second.

"Learn some manners, you ignorant child," Abi hissed, feeling anger boil inside herself as well. She glared at the younger girl, undoubtedly thinking up ways to punish the girl for her impudence.

Kagome's eyes burned and she balled her fist, throwing a punch towards her future stepmother. Abi gasped and recoiled, hitting the wall.

"You killed my mother!" Kagome screamed.

"Kagome!" her father shouted, grasping Kagome's shoulder tightly.

Kagome wrenched away, the tears finally spilling down her cheeks.

"No!" she screeched, turned heel, and ran.

"Kagome!" her father shouted. Her name seemed to be the only thing that he was capable of saying. He chased after her, but Kagome was too quick. She slammed her door shut and turned the lock with an audible click. Her father slammed against the door trying to open it.

"You heard her! You saw her!" Abi screeched. "Such a terrible child! She's a disaster! She's a nuisance! She's a appalling spoiled brat. Honey, you can't possibly stand for this. You saw her raise her fist towards me!"

"Kagome, open this door," her father ordered, dangerously calm. He pounded his fist against the door in a way that suggested attempted gentleness, but Kagome was not fooled. She snorted ruefully.

"Kagome, listen to your father!" Abi demanded, failing to remain silent and force herself into disciplining her future stepdaughter.

"Open this door," her father repeated. Kagome didn't answer.

The said girl couldn't answer.

Kagome sat, rooted to the floor, staring at her fist in shock. Normally, she would never do such a thing. She would never resort to violence. But she was just so stressed, just so angry… at everything. Nothing was sane or normal anymore.

Kagome stared out her window on the opposite wall, watching figures in the windows in the building on the other side of the alley. A couple sat on a bed, talking. A child watched TV. A Cat lazily lounged on the windowsill. Were they happy?

What was happiness?

She felt like a hand-me-down sweater. She huddled into a corner, hiding her face. She'd made a mistake. Her father now had all the reason to truly hate her. Her father never tried to love her. Never tried to let her be herself. He was trying to keep her on a short leash, trying to reel her in like a thrashing fish on a line.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Oh, how she wanted her father to look at her with the same admiration he granted Abi and Souta.

Why was she hated?

She ignored the pounding of a door behind her, feeling her body sink slower and slower into lethargic depression. She huddled in a ball on the floor, listening to the sounds of her pounding heart and feeling tears slip from her blood-shot eye.

Dreams were so real and yet so hard to reach.

She dreamed, once, that she could be happy with her father. That, despite her mother's death, she could find happiness with her father. But her father didn't want her. Abi didn't want her.

At this point, Kagome didn't even want herself.

Who could want her?

She smiled bitterly.

Who would want her, ever?

"Kagome?" her father questioned, opening the door. Kagome gazed at him, her blue eyes blinking. The events of the night previous still haunted her and she'd failed to fall asleep again. Bags hung under her eyes like lead weights. "I have… bad news."

"Oh?" Kagome whispered.

"Last night," her father began, inching awkwardly into his unknown daughter's room and sitting down uncomfortably on her bed. Kagome observed him silently. "Your mother left the apartment and went wandering around town."

"I know," Kagome said bitterly, recalling the memory of her mother's sobbing body scrambling from the building complex. Her father cleared his throat.

"She was…" her father paused, observing his daughter. "Killed."

Kagome could sense that her father was leaving things out of the tale, but some how, she'd expected something like this when her father entered the room and confessed to bad news.

"Oh," she said weakly, her entire body shaking.

"Some men…" her father began and trailed off. Kagome knew he wasn't sad for the woman's death but more like he was guilty for what had sent the woman spiraling down the Tokyo streets in the middle of the night. "Wanted her money. She didn't have any… they…"

"Oh," Kagome said again, cutting her father off before he could continue. Kagome lowered her eyes.

She didn't hear her father get up and leave. It seemed like the world was crashing in around her and leaving her in a vast expansion of nothingness. Darkness folded in around her and she wasn't sure what to make of the situation.

She swallowed.

She didn't cry. Tears stayed locked up behind her eyes.

It wasn't until the funeral three days later, when she saw her mother lying in the casket, that Kagome broke down in front of hundreds of family and friends and wept bitterly, screaming out for her mother who could no longer answer her and never would answer her again.