There was something wrong with the baby.

Abigail knew that there was something wrong with her son. There had to be. The book said that her son should have been able to sit up by now. He should have been able to sit up on his own but…but he just…he didn't. He was still laying down. He never ever tried to sit up on his own. He just…sat there. Laid there. He was just lying on the couch and staring at her.

He tended to stare a lot.

But that was a good sign. He could see. A certain percentage of babies were born blind…and Touichi was not one of them. He could see. He was staring at her. He was staring at her and he was making eye contact…and that was also a good sign. Babies his age weren't supposed to make a lot of eye contact unless they were feeding…so he was ahead of the curve when it came to that…but he just wouldn't sit up.

He just wouldn't listen to her.

"Come on, Touichirou, sit up. You can do it." Said Abigail as she tried to pull her son up into a sitting position. He just stared up at her from his spot on the couch. She had sat him up there, well she had tried to, but he just kept on slumping over to the side until he laid down. She was still going to try, though, she had to.

This was her son.

When you had a child you had to try and make them better. Touichirou was her son and he was going to be more than better, he was going to be the best, and if he was the best then she…well this wasn't about her. This was about him. This was about the person that she had made. This was about her son.

Her son who just would not sit up.

"Touichi…come on. You have to sit up." Said Abigail. She had tried to sit him up but he had let himself slump over again. He was like a little red haired, eczema ridden, little potato. A little potato who she could have sworn was glaring at her. His eyes met hers. He had her eyes, blue, but that was it. He had Yoshio's look…that look he got a lot of the time. That look where it was like he was taking in the entire world and breaking it down….

Touichirou had that look…but it made sense.

He was his father's son after all. He was her and Yoshio's son…and he was going to sit up. He was five months old. He should have been sitting up by now. At four months he should have been trying and at five months he should have figured it out by now…but he hadn't. He just sort of laid there and just…stared….and that couldn't be. She knew her own baby and she knew what he could do…what he should have been able to do…what he should have been capable of.

She knew what she was doing.

"Come on…sit up. Up! Come on, Touichi." Said Abigail in Japanese this time. Her Japanese wasn't the best, not yet. She had thought that she had a good grasp of the language, her best friends growing up had been Japanese, and she had managed to pass the international student's language test…but she wasn't anywhere near fluent. Not like Touichirou would need to be. He was Japanese…well half….and he didn't even look it…and he would have a hard enough time of it looking the way he did. He did not need to be the last five month old baby in the entire nation of Japan who didn't know how to sit up!

"Up…up! Come on, Touichi, sit up!" said Abigail. She had been shouting…no. She had been speaking loudly. She would never yell at her son. No, she'd dealt with that when she'd been a kid and she would not put him through it. She wasn't going to yell at him…ever. No. She was just…

She had just been speaking loudly, that was all.

He put his hand in his mouth and now he was looking away from her. The TV was going on behind him. Music Fair. He liked Music Fair. He was trying to look past her and watch TV…he was looking away from her. Her own son was looking away from her and…and it hurt. She knew that he was just a baby but…but she was his mother and she was talking to him and he needed to listen when his mother was talking to him!

He was only five months old. He was not going to ignore her.

"Touichirou Suzuki….I mean Suzuki Touichirou…mommy asked you to sit up. You need to listen. Mommy doesn't like you when you don't listen to her." said Abigail. She was proud of herself. She hadn't shouted. What kind of a mother would have shouted at her own baby? Well hers…but she did not shout at him. She just spoke to him in a way that he could not ignore….and she knew that he could understand her. She had spoken to him in Japanese and he had been looking at her.

He was a smart boy. He understood her.

He understood her and also…also it looked like he was trying to look over his head…past her. He was trying to look over his head and at the TV. He was trying to look at the TV when his mother was right there…she was right there and she was asking so precious little of him…and he just…he was just trying to watch TV….

She loved him. She did not yell at him.

"Touichi, come on, I'm going to help you sit up and then you're going to stay sitting up…and if you don't then I'll turn the TV off and you'll miss your show. I know that you don't want to miss your shows, you get grumpy, so I know that you're going to sit up now. Come on." Said Abigail. She sat him up…and she held her breath. Maybe now he was going to sit up. Maybe now he was going to be able to sit up and just...just stay sitting u. Then he would learn how to do it on his own and then people would stop breathing down her neck about…well about everything.

Every single thing that they could think of.

Moving to this country. Getting married. Leaving school. Having Touichirou. The way he looked. The things he could do. The things that he couldn't do. The way he was always staring at things. The way that he couldn't sit up…no…the way that he wouldn't sit up. He wouldn't. He was deliberately disobeying her. She knew that he could hear her and she knew that he could understand her and she knew that he just wanted….he just wanted to watch TV.

He didn't care about her…he just wanted to watch TV…and he didn't care how she felt.

He didn't care. Her own son and he didn't care. She did so much for him. She got up with him every night and nursed him…for hours on end sometimes….and she rocked him to sleep and she changed him and bathed him…and she knew that he was a baby but he was her son. He was smart. He wasn't unaware. He was there, he was all there, and she knew that he understood her. He understood her and he was smart, just as smart as her and Yoshio, and she knew that he was just…deliberately disobeying her…

She was not going to yell at her own son.

"If you don't sit up then TV time is over. You're going to miss Music Fair and we're going to sit in silence until you decide that you're going to listen to me. If you aren't going to get up because you love me then maybe you'll get up to watch your show." Said Abigail. She sat him up one last time…and she thought that maybe this time would be the time. Maybe this time he would do as he was told and he would sit up and…well….he was sitting up….

And then he slumped over to the side…

And then he was laying down on the couch. He was laying down on the couch again and he was looking over his head, past her, and at the TV. Well…she did not yell. She did not yell at her own five month old son. No, she just calmly got up from where she had been kneeling in front of the couch, walked over to the TV, and turned it off. She turned the knob so hard that she worried that it might have come off…but it didn't. It didn't because she was not that angry. She was not her mother. She was not going to rip the knobs off of televisions and scream the house down so loudly that the neighbors complained. She was not going to yell until her eyes bulged out and her face turned red and her son had to run away to the neighbors, run away to what might as well have been a foreign country, and be with people who spoke another language but at least spoke it quietly and didn't yell and…

And she did not yell.

But Touichirou did. First his eye screwed shut and then his little mouth opened and then he looked like a little eczema ridden red potato…and then he cried…well shouted. He shouted and his little face was red…and now he was the one screaming the house down…he was screaming so loudly that she swore the house was shaking…and she knew that the lights above her did flicker…but she wasn't crazy and she wasn't going to blame that on her son…and she wasn't going to yell at him, either, because she loved her son and she was his mother and mothers did not yell at their babies…

She was just talking loudly.

"What did you think was going to happen? I warned you, Touichi, I warned you what would happen and now…now maybe you'll listen to me! Maybe you'll listen to your mommy! Maybe you'll listen to your mommy and then maybe mommy won't have to turn your shows off then!" said Abigail. She wasn't shouting, she wasn't yelling, her face was not red, and her eyes were not bulging out of her head. She was fine. She was just talking loudly because she had to be heard over her son's cries, that was all, and she was not yelling…

And there was no need for Yoshio to come out of his office.

"Abi, what in the hell is going on down here! I get one day off a week and I don't want to spend it listening to you fight with the baby. For the love of God!" said Yoshio as he came down the stairs. He was pissed off now…great. That was just what she needed. Her husband pissed off on his one so called day off. Apparently day off meant something else in this country. Here day off meant working in your office while your wife and son went about their day as they went about every single other day of their lives.

Alone.

Alone in this house. This house…it was a nice house. He'd had it renovated for her. It was supposed to be a little piece of home. Avocado, almond, harvest gold, colonial blue, a sunken living room, high ceilings, exposed brick, everything else that she had wanted in a house…and this was her house…and she had a family in the house…and her family….she was fine. This house was hers and she was fine being alone in it with her son…well she should have been…she would have been if he had just been able to listen to her.

He was a good boy. He should have been….he should have been better about listening to her…because she was his mother and she loved him….

"I am not fighting with the baby….and he started it! He won't sit up! I told him to sit up and…and he won't!" said Abigail. He was crying and now she was yelling…she was raising her voice….she was speaking loudly…and that was just…something that she was doing. She was raising her voice to be heard.

"He's a baby, I don't even think that he knows what you're saying." Said Yoshio. Abigail…she knew that Touichi knew what he heard. He knew what the people around him were saying. He knew that he…he knew that she wanted him to sit up. She knew that she was his mother and he knew that he was supposed to listen to her. She was a good mother. She was going to…to take good care of him…and she was going to make sure that he knew to listen to her…because he was only five months old…

And he was too young to become a spoiled brat.

"He knows…I know he knows…and he just…he doesn't want to listen to me!" said Abigail. Her voice…it had hurt…but she was not shouting. She was not shouting, she was just raising her voice a little bit, and that was only to be heard over the baby. He was still crying…he always cried…because he couldn't talk yet…and maybe that would be the next thing that he was late to do…maybe he wouldn't talk and then she would have something new to get bitched at about…and it just…she was not going to let that happen to her son.

"Get a hold of yourself! Can't you see that you're upsetting him?!" said Yoshio

"He's just crying because I turned the TV off! God!" said Abigail. She ran a hand through her hair…and now she had to fix that later...she looked down. She had some of her hair in her hand. Red. She let it fall…it hit the rug. The red blended in with the carpet…red and gold…why were the colors so fucking loud?! Why had she picked out…she was fine…she just….it was too loud in this room…she took a step back. Her hand rested on the TV…it was hot…she knew that it hadn't burnt her…but she felt like it…or maybe she just wanted to feel like it…because then at least she would have had a reason to raise her voice….reason beyond trying to be heard over her son….

"Then turn it back on." Said Yoshio. He walked over to the TV but she put herself fully in front of it. No. Touichi was only five months old. He did not need to start thinking that he was the one in charge there. She was the mother and he was the child and she was the one who took care of him…and sometimes that meant that she had to be hard on him. Sometimes she had to be hard on him so that he could learn the consequences of his actions…that he needed to learn to do what he was told…

He needed to learn to listen to her.

She was his mother. She wasn't making him do anything that was bad for him. She only wanted things…the best things…she only wanted the best for her son. She only wanted the best for him and that meant learning to sit up on his own. He had another doctor's appointment in a month and she was not going to sit there and listen to…to that doctor going on and on and on about how Touichi should have been able to sit up by now….and all of the other things that he should have been doing….and how she was failing as a mother…

How she never should have been his mother in the first place.

"No, I am not going to reward his bad behavior! I am his mother and when I ask something of him then he should listen." said Abigail. She wasn't even raising her voice now. She was speaking quietly, normally, because she could see how it would look like she was shouting…and she was not going to speak over her own son. She was not going to give into him like that. She was not going to let him win.

"Abigail….I don't think that fighting with a baby is a good use of your time…so leave him alone. If you need a break then put him in his crib." Said Yoshio. He had his hands on her arms…and she shrugged him off. She was not fighting with the baby…and she did not need a break. She hated that word, she decided, break…it meant something different here. Here a break just meant more work but in a different venue…so what, then? Trying to get Touichi to sit up outside or something? In the garden that they'd just had done? Or maybe on the roof? The attic? She didn't know….

But she did know that she did not need a break.

"I don't need a break I need him to…to listen to me." said Abigail. The baby was still crying and the lights flickered again...and she could barely hear herself over his cries…and she had to stand close to her husband…and she couldn't remember the last time that she had been this close to him…not even at night. He came in after she went to sleep and he got up and left while she was giving Touichi his morning feeding…and now she was near him…

And she could barely even hear her own husband over the baby's cries.

"I think you need a break…so come on. Why don't you just put him in his crib and put him to bed or something." Said Yoshio. He put his hands back on the side of her arms…and she didn't shrug him off that time. She just leaned into his chest. She leaned into his chest while the baby laid down on the couch and cried his little eye out.

"I don't need a break. I just need him to-" said Abigail. She just needed him to sit up…and it was not supposed to be this hard. It was not supposed to be this hard to get her baby to listen to her…to sit up…to do what he was supposed to do. It should not have been this hard and….and he was making it harder than it needed to be and she…she was just so tired….but she was not turning the TV back on for him.

It turned on by it's self.

"What the hell…." Muttered Yoshio. The TV turned back on, she could hear it. She opened her eyes and…oh. Touichi….had sat himself up….like she had asked….but he had only done it when his father had been in the room….or maybe just because the TV had come on…

But he had, eventually, listened to her.

"He sat up on his own." said Abigail. She let go of her husband and sat down next to her son. He still looked like a little eczema ridden potato…but he was at least a little eczema ridden potato who could sit up on his own…well he was all folded over and it looked like the couch was really what was supporting him…but she would take it…

He was sitting up. That was what mattered.

"Yeah that's great…but we need a new TV. Something's wrong with this one…tell you what. How about we head down to electric world and get a new set. A nice color set, twenty one inches, with a remote control…you'd both like that, right? And then we can put the old set in his room and then we won't have these fights anymore. How does that sound?" asked Yoshio. Putting a television in a baby's room sounded insane…and so did getting a twenty one inch color set. This was a new set anyway, sixteen inches and color, but a bigger set would have been nice…and this was cause for a celebration anyway. Touichi could sit up. He could sit up and…well he would have loved a television in his room…

He did like to watch TV.

"Sure, that sounds great. Doesn't it, Touichirou?" asked Abigail. She poked Touichi in the stomach…and he glared at her. She could have sworn that he glared at her…and she could have sworn that the TV got louder then…but that was insane. He wouldn't glare at her, he was her son, and he loved her.

Even if it did seem like, sometimes, there was something wrong with him.