As the young woman walked up the steps of the small temple, she wondered if this would ever become easy. Not so much lugging the bucket, brush, kappi maki, and tempura (among other things), but the going to her parents grave. She missed them.
Makoto Kino stopped in front of the marker designating her parents resting place. "Good afternoon, mother. Father. It's your LiLi-chan." The teen stopped after that, too choked up to continue.
To be honest, even if she wasn't so moved, she wouldn't know what else to say. She said most of it last month, when she had come for her mother's birthday. Besides coming to wish her mother a happy birthday, she had come to ask her parents' permission to be a sailor senshi. Admittedly it was an odd thing to ask. If her parents had been alive, she probably would have kept her senshi life a secret. But their deaths had changed all of that; without having them present everyday, their approval on life changing choices became more important, not less.
At times she wondered how her parents would have reacted if she had been able to ask them about being a senshi when they were alive. She guessed her father would have smiled and said that it made sense, given her name. How her mother would have reacted, Makoto wasn't sure. She could see her mother as proud, worried, forbidding, amused, or all four at once. Kino Sakura was a complex study in contradictions.
Shaking herself from her private musing, she began the task of cleaning the grave. Although it was, in some ways, a solemn and sad task for her, at times she couldn't help but smile thinking about her parents would react to this activity. Her father would, of course, expect the cleaning as a sign of respect. It would have surprised and amused her mother. First, since she wasn't raised in Japan, Makoto's mother would have assumed such a task, if completed at all, would have been left to the temple owners. Second, as the least neat of the Kino clan, Kino Sakura would have laughed at the realization that the monument to her death was cleaner than her purse or her bedroom had ever been while she was alive.
So lost in her thoughts, Makoto didn't realize that she was no longer alone until something bumped into her left side and a voice said in English, "Oh! Excuse me. I didn't see you. Are you okay?"
Makoto looked up to see a tall woman, who seemed out of place among the grave markers. She was clearly a foreigner, which was demonstrated not only by her language of choice but also by her attire. Dressed entirely in black, from her low heels to her knee-length skirt and linen blouse, she also wore black sunglasses and a black scarf around her hair, which was tied under her chin. In her right hand she was holding a bouquet of flowers, a combination of yellow, brown, orange, and green, wrapped in black tissue paper. A small black purse swung from her left shoulder. In all of her trips to visit her parents since their deaths she had never anyone dressed as this woman was.
Confused by this oddly dressed tourist's presence at the small temple, Makoto slowly answered, "I am fine. May I help you?"
"Oh, no. I'm okay," the older woman said as she removed her sunglasses to reveal sad brown eyes. Turning back to look at the grave in front of them, she continued quietly. "Although, 'okay' may not be the right word. Well, I found what I was looking for, anyway."
As the strange woman continued to look at her parents grave, Makoto became even more confused. She had never met this woman before, nor seen her at the small funeral service for her parents. Who was this woman and what did she think she found? Makoto opened her mouth to ask her, and then closed it.
All in all, it was a rather odd situation. Makoto wanted to know what was going on, but she didn't want to be rude. She was in front of her parents, after all. And, if she couldn't have their hugs, she'd have their approval. So, what was the polite way to handle this situation? At times like this she really wished that Kino Sakura could answer her questions when she asked.
"Am I in your way if I stay here?" the woman asked Makoto. "I won't be long. I just," the woman sighed. "I just wish I could speak in complete sentences," the woman ended in a mutter.
Not sure what to do, Makoto said that the woman wasn't in the way. And, to be honest, she wasn't physically in the way. Emotionally…well, Makoto didn't like sharing this moment with a perfect stranger.
Returning to cleaning, she and the stranger stayed there in silence for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, the stranger seemed to choke back a sob. In a sad, quiet voice, the woman said, "Lissa, all you had to do was answer my letter. I would have been on the next plane over, Momma, Valerie Ann, and my career be damned!"
"Lissa?" Makoto found herself asking.
The strange woman blinked, as if startled. Then, smiling sadly at Makoto, she gestured to the grave. "Lissa, short for Melissa. Melissa Sakura Carlyle Kino, my older sister." After a pause, the woman added quietly, "I guess I should say she was my older sister. It's going to be a little difficult remembering to use the past tense."
The woman's response floored Makoto. The odd reference to past tense aside, Makoto was mentally wading through all that statement had releaved. At first she didn't want to believe it. Sure, her mother had mentioned a sister and her family in passing, but, as Makoto had never met them, she assumed that they were all dead. How dare a family member show up now! Where was this woman when Makoto buried her parents? When her father was rushed to the hospital when she was nine? During her mother's difficult pregnancy?
But, along with the anger, Makoto felt something like happiness or relief. Just the idea that she still had family out there, that she wasn't alone was nice. Of course, she wasn't really alone, even without this strange woman. She had Usagi-chan, Ami-chan, Rei-chan, Mina-chan. She had other friends. Sure, she didn't have a boyfriend at the moment, but she did have one once. But the idea that she had biological family out there, something she'd only wondered about…
Finally, Makoto was curious. Who was this woman? Her mother didn't talk much about her family. Sakura almost never mentioned her own mother, and only mentioned her sister slightly more. Sure, there was also the occasional "LiLi" story, although her mother was never really clear on who LiLi was, but Makoto didn't know much of anything about her mother's family. Then, today of all days, her mother's family appears.
In the mix of feeling she had, however, the anger trumped everything. Makoto refused to say anything disgraceful in front of her parents, but she saw no reason to explain anything to this woman about who she actually was.
The object of her ire took that moment to sigh. Dropping her flowers to the ground, the woman squatted so that she was closer to the ground. "I don't know what I thought coming here would do. I mean, Momma always says that funerals and graves were more for the living than the dead, but I really don't think Lissa would care that I came. But I don't want to go back just yet."
"You know," the woman said more to herself than to Makoto, "I always thought I'd have time…that we'd have time to fix everything. Even when she pushed me out of the way so that she could run off with --, I never thought it was a permanent split." The woman shook head. "When I was a little girl, I'd always trail after her when I could. They used to say, 'there go Lissa and LiLi.' Aunt Lafayette used to call us the 'double ls,' because one of us would always follow the other." Tears ran down the woman's cheeks. "I can't follow her now, can I?"
Silence fell between to the two women again. While the foreigner seemed too emotional to speak, Makoto didn't know what to say. This was the LiLi she was named for? Her mother's little sister? But the fourteen year old was in for even more of a shock.
"Argh! I hate feeling useless!" the foreigner – LiLi – suddenly shouted. Jumping up, she ripped the scarf off of her head and threw it down on the ground. Hair the same color as Makoto's came tumbling down to the older woman's shoulders. Pacing back and forth the woman looked upset. Finally, after pacing for a few seconds, she turned to Makoto and asked, "Can I help you? With cleaning the grave and everything? I don't mean to be a bother, but I just want to do something."
Makoto nodded. Seeing how this woman was family, she didn't really think she could refuse. Besides, one some level she thought her mother would appreciate it.
"Just tell me what to do," the woman said, and, for the next ten minutes, Makoto guided her through cleaning the Kino gravesite.
When they were almost finished, the woman suddenly giggled. Makoto turned to stare at her, not sure how to take that reaction. Something of her annoyance must have shown on her face, because the woman – LiLi – held up her hands and said, "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about how Melissa would have reacted to this. She'd laugh her head off if she could see me now.
"Growing up, neither one of us was very neat, although she was neater than I was. Our mother, however, was a neat freak and was always on us to clean. I can still hear her voice saying, 'Being black means being better, and just because you both are "high yellow" enough to pass doesn't mean things will be easier for you. Now, clean your room like you have some home training!'
"Melissa and I both rebelled in our own way. I would act like I couldn't see the mess right in front of me. Melissa, on the other hand, would try to keep the junkiest handbag imaginable. I think she was just looking for an excuse to have to dump it out over the coffee table in the den, just to annoy Momma."
Makoto smiled after hearing the explanation. It was interesting to hear why her mother seemed to love the fact that her purse was often a disaster zone. While Makoto didn't understand everything LiLi had said, especially the "high yellow" reference, but she followed enough of the story to appreciate it.
"You know, you remind me a little of her," LiLi said out of the blue.
"I remind you of her?" Makoto asked, confused.
"Yes, you remind me a little of my sister, Melissa. Or at least, Melissa at fourteen," LiLi laughed. "While my sister could be the proper lady when forced, she'd rather be out beating the boys in basketball or track and field. She also wanted to learn to ice skate, but the only ice rink near us was for whites only. I think that near broke her heart. But you remind me of her," LiLi insisted, "Especially with that annoyed looked you had on your face earlier. As a younger sister I did a lot to earn that look from Lissa from time to time."
LiLi smiled sadly at Makoto as she rose. Glancing at her watch, she said, "I have to leave now. But thank you for letting me help." Pointing to the flowers stilling laying off to the side, she asked, "Is there a place to put them? I kinda wanted to leave them here."
Makoto nodded as she reached for the flowers. As she stared at the two very different kinds of flowers in the arrangement, LiLi explained, "The big flower is a Sunflower. They were Melissa's favorite. The skinny, strange shaped flower is a Bird of Paradise. They're my favorite. I thought by arranging them to together I'd convey, I don't know, something. I think the only thing they convey is that I can afford to drop a ton of yen on flowers." LiLi shook her head. "But thanks again for today. And for everything."
After she finished speaking, LiLi turned and began to walk away. Makoto listened as her heels clicked on the walkway and later on the steps as she left. After the clicks faded away into nothingness, Makoto turned to face grave. "I'm sorry, mother," she whispered softly. "I know I probably should have introduced myself, but I didn't know what to do! I was angry and happy and angry and confused and angry." Makoto sighed. Then she smiled. "She did bring flowers, though. And the sunflowers are really pretty."
Standing up to dust herself off, the teen arranged the flowers in the flower holder. Then she left homemade kappi maki for her mother and tempura for her father on the grave. It would have been the dinner she would have made for them if they had returned from their trip to the United States. To this day, Makoto still wondered why they went, but she made it a point not to dwell on it too much. Thinking about the plane crash was never a happy train of thought.
- to be continued -