The baby was on a hunger strike.

What he was striking over Abigail did not know. He was eight months old…what could he have possibly been starving himself over? She did everything for him. She fed him and clothed him and kept a roof over his head and still he did things like this. She had even learned to make rice porridge for him. She couldn't find a single store around here that sold Gerber so this was the next best thing. Most mothers around here just fed their babies the same thing they ate.

Seemed a bit backwards to her.

Because, really, baby food was for babies. Obviously he didn't like this. It was just watered down rice porridge…and rice porridge its self wasn't the most palatable food in the world. Oatmeal would have been better for him…but it was hard to find Quaker around here either. Oatmeal with brown sugar and maple syrup…he would have loved that. But this was what people fed their babies here so this was what he was going to eat.

If he ever let up with this hunger strike.

"Touichi, come on. Just take one bite. That's all I want." Said Abigail. She held the spoon out in front of her. Touichirou just turned his head and kicked his little feet. She sighed. He was too skinny. That was what the doctor had said, anyway. He seemed just as potato like as ever…but what did she know?

She was just a stupid foreigner.

Exact words. No doctor would have spoken to her like that back home. Sure, they were all condescending assholes but never anything like that. Of course back home she hadn't been a foreigner. Not outside of Little Tokyo, anyway, those times when she'd been able to sneak away. Here she was that foreign woman who lived in the big house. The redhaired woman who had that baby with the odd eyes. That stupid foreign woman who obviously didn't know how to feed her own child.

Baby food was a fantastical concept.

"Touichirou, you're going to starve to death if you keep this up." said Abigail. She had no idea how much he understood. She tried her best to speak English to him at home but with everyone else speaking Japanese it was hard. He didn't speak anything yet. He babbled, sometimes, to himself. Never to her. It was almost like he didn't want to talk to her. He was always so silent when she was around…that is unless he needed something.

Then the crying would start.

He looked like he was about to cry. He always kicked and thrashed when he was about to cry, like he was frustrated or something. She had no clue what a baby even had to be frustrated about. He was hungry. She had food. It was simple. Or maybe not. Maybe there was something that she had to do to get him to eat, something else that she hadn't been informed when it came to raising a baby here. It wasn't like she had help. All of the other mothers were so stuck up here. Nobody wanted to be seen with the foreigner. Yoshio was never home, not that he knew what to do when he was. He barely even saw Touichirou outside of Sundays and even then it was just for an hour or two. He just locked himself away to work or watch television and left her all alone.

As alone as someone could be, anyway, with a screaming baby.

"No! You are not going to start this again! It's lunchtime so just eat already!" said Abigail. She tried, again, to feed him. She put the bowl of rice porridge down on his little highchair table, she needed both hands for this. With one hand she held the spoon and with the other she held his head in place.

She was going to get him to eat.

Come hell or high water this baby was going to eat. If she didn't feed him then he was never going to gain weight and then everyone was going to talk about how she didn't know how to take care of her own son. She knew what she was doing. He was not going to best her. He was not going to make her look back. He was going to eat.

He was going to open his mouth.

"Touichirou, come on. You have to open your mouth now. Come on." Said Abigail through gritted teeth. He kept his mouth shut and tried to get away. He was not the one running the show here. She pressed the spoon to his mouth. He didn't open it…she knew that he was hungry. She was not going to make a bottle and certainly not going to nurse him. He was too old to nurse. He was five months too old to be nursing.

And he was three months too old to still be on the bottle.

It was important to start him on solids as soon as possible. Everyone said so, even mom, pretty much the only thing she had to say. Not shout. Touichirou was not going to make her look bad. He kept his mouth closed…how could someone that small have been so strong? He kept his mouth closed no matter how she tried to get that spoon in.

He grabbed her hair.

"Touichirou, no!" said Abigail. Ruined. Her hair was ruined. It was impossible to find a good setting cream here. It was impossible to find a lot of things around here. Yoshio was going to come home and, if she was still awake, he was going to make some remark about how she liked tired or how she just sat around the house doing nothing all day. How hard could one baby have been? How hard…

This hard.

She pulled her hair away…he had some strands in his hands. Great. That little…she did everything for him. She did everything for him and this was how he repaid her? He was just a baby…but he was her baby. He knew better. He was done fussing now, and looking up at her. He looked bored. He always looked so bored…when he wasn't upset. This was boring for him…

He was going to eat.

"Touichirou, come on. You have to eat so eat!" said Abigail. She tried to feed him again. This time she just pushed the spoon against his mouth…and it flew out of her hand. It felt like someone had slapped it out of her hand. Someone strong. Touichirou wasn't event that strong. The spoon went flying out of her hand…and then the bowl went flying into her chest.

Touichirou was still looking at her.

That same bored expression he always wore when he wasn't upset. He was chewing on his fingers, now, and staring at her. She couldn't do anything else besides stare back at him. He hadn't done that. His arms were too short. He wasn't strong enough. He was just a baby. He hadn't done that…he hadn't…

If not him, then who?

There wasn't anyone else in the room. There wasn't anyone else in the house. There wasn't anyone else who had any business being in this house. It was just them…and she hadn't done it. Why would she have done it? There was rice porridge splattered across the floor. The entire front of her dress was covered in the slop. She could feel it against her skin…it was soaking in through her dress…she had to wash this. She'd already done a load of baby clothes. She didn't want to do another load of laundry and she didn't want to clean the kitchen and…and she just…

This was something that had happened.

Touichirou was still staring at her. She was still staring back at him. Some rice porridge dripped down form her dress and onto her feet. She looked down. He still stared at her. She hadn't done that…she could feel something. It was like static electricity in the air. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck was standing up.

There was no such thing as ghosts.

She took Touichirou of out his highchair and put him down on the floor. Fine. He won. If he didn't want rice porridge then he could just have another bottle. Formula, not breastmilk. She wasn't going to live her life chained to him. She watched him crawl away. He crawled into the living room. He didn't even look back at her. he had crawled through the rice porridge. She was going to have to clean the rug and give him a bath….there was never any end to it, was there.

Of course there wasn't.

She walked through the rice porridge too. She didn't even notice at first. She had to get a bottle from the fridge…yes. She had one made. Too took the bottle out of the fridge and walked over to the sink, tracking rice porridge with her with every single step she took. This kitchen was too small…even the old house's kitchen had been bigger than this and it had been built back in the twenties. This was a brand new house built just for her….a little bit of home, Yoshio had said.

A little bit of rice porridge.

The TV turned itself on again. She paid it no mind. She just filled a pot with warm water from the tap and let the bottle sit in it. She couldn't just give him cold formula, it would just end up upsetting his little stomach. She was always thinking about him like that….but nobody ever thought of her. The kitchen was a mess…she had to clean it up. How was she even supposed to explain this? A ghost did it. Yoshio would think she had lost her mind…maybe she was losing her mind. She was sick and tired of people telling her that she was crazy…she was sick and tired of being crazy.

She was so tired.

She let the bottle warm up. She wished that there was some other way to warm it up, something faster. She could hear Touichirou getting fussy in the other room. She couldn't deal with this right now…she couldn't deal with anything right now. she eyed the window. She could have climbed out of it…she could have just climbed out and run away…but she had nowhere else to go. What could she do? Get on the nearest flight to L.A., or boat, or…whatever else could get her back home? What was she supposed to do, run home with her tail between her legs and tell Mom and Dad that she agreed with them? That she had made a huge mistake and she was ready to admit that she was wrong? That, yes, she had been crazy to marry Yoshio and have Touichirou?

She wasn't going to admit anything.

What she was going to do, however, was clean up this kitchen. She tore off enough paper towels to kill an entire forest and got to work. The whole time she could hear Touichirou fussing. It was his own fault. She had warned him. She had told him, before, that he had to eat. He had been alive for all of these months, he knew that he had to eat to live. She had practically spelled it out to him. What did she have to do? Put together a song and dance number?

His favorite show was Music World…

She got back to cleaning. He would eat when he ate. When she had the time to feed him. She had told him, so many times, that it was time to eat. She had warned him. She had…she had to keep on cleaning. Yoshio liked a clean a house. That was her job, to keep the house clean, and to keep the baby fed…she could at least do one of those things.

She could at least clean this mess up.

It didn't take long, not as long as she thought it would have. Her dress was still clinging to her…she had to change. She had to change and do more laundry…probably take a bath…and she had to give Touichirou a bath too. She had so much to do…but first she had to feed him. She took the bottle from the pot of water. It was warm enough now.

And if it wasn't then…too bad.

He took the bottle. She put it down in front of him and he immediately crawled over and took it. He looked up at her while he ate. Still bored…if it tasted boring then he should have just eaten the lunch that she had made for him. Gerber would have been better. They pretty much put a whole meal in a jar. Meat, vegetables, fruit, all of it…he would have liked that…or maybe not. Maybe he just loved formula. Maybe he was just always bored but he loved formula.

She would leave him to it, then, if he didn't want any rice porridge.