Chapter 20: Truth or lies, lies
"It's too soon," Motoko cried out, her arms instinctively protecting her womb. Keitaro's mind was racing, his anxiety rising exponentially. He ran over the events of the past few minutes in his head. Ten minutes ago, he was flirting with his very beautiful and alluring wife. Then her water broke. Motoko was calm and composed, contrasting Keitaro's near panic reaction at the sight of the viscous fluid dribbling down her thighs. "Keitaro, help me to the car," she calmly ordered. Luckily, he had parked just outside of the building, so the journey was short. As they made their way through the building, Motoko kept a smile on her face, hiding her anxiety. She didn't want her husband to worry needlessly, but she could not hide the immutable fact that her baby was coming two months premature. He managed to get her to the car, before the labor pains struck Motoko.
It felt like someone had stabbed her in the gut. She cried out in agony as the debilitating pain shot throughout her body. Keitaro caught her as she nearly collapsed onto the unforgiving concrete below. With one fluid movement, Keitaro lifted her up into his arms and hastily carried her to the car. Her arms lassoed around his neck, tightening as the pain coursed through her again. She bit into his shoulder, muffling her scream. "Something's wrong," thought Motoko, "I shouldn't be in this much pain."
Keitaro had a similar thought as he gently placed her in the back, using his jacket as a cushion for her. In a blink of an eye, Keitaro was in the driver's seat. He pulled out of the parking lot and sped towards the hospital. "Something's wrong with the baby," Motoko cried out, her face contorted in pain. Keitaro's foot stomped on the accelerator in response. "God, please help them," Keitaro prayed silently as he managed to swerve in and out of traffic without colliding into the other cars on the road.
The pain was wreaking havoc on Motoko's mind. She felt like her baby was being punished for her past – the crimes of the mother visited upon the son. She pleaded to an invisible power for mercy, shouting, "God please don't take my baby from me!"
Keitaro reached out behind him to find Motoko's hand, using his sense of touch to guide him. When he felt her cold, trembling fingers, he enveloped his hand over them. Summoning his strength, Keitaro spoke with a voice brimming with faith, "I won't let anything happen to you and our baby Motoko. I promise."
The sound of her husband's voice pierced the veil of confusion and misery that had befallen her. She broke from her spiraling descent and reached for his hand, gripping it with all her might. Keitaro winced as he felt his wife's tremendous power pouring into her grip. "We'll get through this my love," Keitaro spoke again, reassuring his crying wife. The hospital was only a few miles away, but to Keitaro, it was not close enough. "Only a few more minutes," he thought to himself.
His eyes widened as he felt her hold on his hand slackened. He turned his head and cried out Motoko's name. The color had drained from her face, leaving behind a ghastly paleness that stabbed into Keitaro's heart. Turning his attention back onto the road, he floored the accelerator and drove along the shoulder of the road, leaving behind rows of angry motorists honking their horns.
"Hang on Motoko," he yelled, eying her from the rear view mirror. Motoko had stopped crying out in pain. Instead, she looked disoriented. Her eyelids began to droop. The hospital was coming into view. Keitaro's heart dropped as he saw the unmoving rows of cars in the traffick jam ahead. He had only a few seconds before the shoulder came to an end. Seeing that the center divider was only a few inches off the curb, Keitaro veered the car left. The car hit the divider with incredible force, blowing out the front left tire. Motoko yelped as her body was sent a few inches above the seat, before crashing back down.
Keitaro had spied a narrow path between the car lane and the other side of the divider, enabling him to drive past the traffic and into the emergency room drive way. The sound of metal grinding pavement alerted a nurse loitering about the entrance. Rebecca was on her break. She was waiting for her doctor boyfriend at the entrance of the emergency room to get some lunch when she heard a piercing screeching sound. She turned towards the source of the sound and nearly doubled over as a car was barreling towards her.
Keitaro slammed hard on the brakes, forcing the car to skid across the pavement. Rebecca could smell the pungent order of burnt rubber as the car careened into the curb, stopping mere inches from her. Keitaro leapt out of the car and screamed to the nurse, "I need doctors, my wife's in labor." He then flung the backdoor of the car open, but paused at the scene before him.
Rebecca, shaken by the entire ordeal, saw Keitaro's shocked expression. Her training took hold of her. She rushed to him and gasped at what she saw. A young Asian woman was lying in the back seat, unconscious. She was pregnant. It was the blood that gave Rebecca pause. Motoko was bleeding from her womb, creating a small pool of blood underneath her legs. Snapping out of her daze, she looked to the husband. She called out, "I need you to carry her to the ER right now, got that?" Keitaro, recovering from his momentary catatonic state, nodded his head. He reached over and pulled Motoko from the car. He could feel the blood seeping into his clothes as he rushed her through the doors. An orderly met them with a stretcher.
The next few seconds became a blur to Keitaro. Motoko was taken from him by several people, some wearing white coats, others were donned in hospital scrubs. He wanted to follow them, but the same nurse that had helped him outside stopped him.
"I'm sorry sir, but you can't go in there. The doctors are going to perform an emergency operation and you'll just contaminate the operating room," the nurse calmly informed Keitaro. His eyes began to blaze with rage. He shouted, "That is my wife in there!" The nurse, her gaze unflinching, spoke with a firm and motherly voice, "Your wife needs you to remain calm sir. There's been a complication in the pregnancy. The doctors here are the best. They'll help your wife and your baby, but they can't do their job if you're in there disturbing them. I know it's difficult, but you have to wait here until it's finished."
English had always been a dreadful subject for Keitaro, but living in America for the past year had allowed him to grow skillfully in the language. Still, many of the nurse's words remain alien to him. It was her voice that drew him to his senses.
Rebecca's heart broke as she saw the man before her slump to the ground, his hands hiding the tears streaming down his face. She was a professional and emotional attachment would only hinder her performance as a nurse. But she was also human. She stayed with him until he was able to stand on his own two feet.
The operating room broke into a cacophony of sounds. The monitors were wailing its high-pitch alarm as Keitaro's wife lay unconscious on the table. The medical team broke out into a flurry of activities, plugging Motoko's body with tubes and syringes. The doctor on scene barked orders, barraging the nurses in attendance with instructions. "We're losing her," a nurse spoke out. "The baby's heart rate is dropping," another nurse added. The doctor grimaced as he surveyed the scene.
"Get the baby out, then save the woman," he thought as he cut into Motoko's flesh with his scalpel. "Get someone from the neo-natal unit in here stat," ordered the doctor, "we got a premee, here." Minutes later, a young nurse was pushing a cart containing a glass enclosure on it. On a tray, doctors and nurses were examining a baby boy. He was small, not much taller than the length of a forearm. His skin seemed translucent as some of his veins were visible. A nurse carefully placed him in the glass enclosure, and then attached sensors to his body to monitor his vitals. As the nurse shut the case, a high-pitch wail filled the room. "She's flat lining doctor," a nurse yelled out. Cursing under his breath, the doctor looked up into the monitor and saw that Motoko's heart had stopped beating. "Get the crash cart," he ordered, as he began chest compressions.
"Don't you die on me lady," said the doctor.
The sight of other families lying in wait, somber and in tears, gnawed at Keitaro's soul. Like him, they were waiting for a loved one. Unlike them, he was alone. He could feel the oppressive presence of sickness and death weigh heavily in the room. Without protest, he left. He wandered the endless hospital corridors, struggling to find a break from the perpetual stillness. Keitaro read the signs on the doors he came across.
Radiology
Bookkeeping
Chapel
Keitaro paused as he passed the hospital chapel. As a child, he was raised in the Christian faith of his mother, as well as the Shinto traditions of his father, but never took to religion. It was all just names and funny practices to him. The chapel was small. It had two rows of pews. The walls were decorated with non-religious stained glass artistry. A lone light hovering above the center podium lit the room. Keitaro slowly made his way to the podium. There he found three large books. One was the Torah, and another was the Koran. The final book, the largest of the three, was the bible. He thumbed through the book, reading a passage or two as he skimmed along. The word death caught his attention. Setting the book down, he began to read from that passage out loud.
"Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."
He knew this passage from his early days in Sunday school – a time when his mother had insisted upon her son's Christian education. Struggling to remember those days, he knelt down on the ground and clasped his hands together. He hoped that God knew Japanese.
"God, please, don't take them away from me," he pleaded silently, hoping his prayer would be heard.
As he continued his silent vigil, a young girl emerged from the shadows behind him. Her hand slowly reached out towards him, quivering with anticipation for contact. Barely an inch from his shoulder, the hand quickly withdrew back into the shadows, when Keitaro uttered the words, "I love you Motoko, please don't leave me."
She ran from him, her long blonde tresses trailing behind her. She streaked down the endless corridors. Tears emerged from her eyes as she ran past her father. Concerned for his daughter's well-being, he called out her name. "Sarah," he yelled out.
The distressed teenager turned to her father, piercing his soul with her gaze. Sarah McDougal, Seta's adopted daughter, stared down her father with eyes brimming with the malice and betrayal that had infected her heart. An hour earlier, she had overheard a message he left for Haruka, a name she had not heard in nearly three years. At first, she was overjoyed, thinking that perhaps her father and Haruka had finally buried the past between them and decided to renew their friendship. She loved Haruka and missed her dearly, but she could not deny her father's pain. Haruka had fallen in love with another man, breaking Seta's heart. If it were not for Mutsumi, Seta would have never have been able to escape his despair.
What Sarah heard, however, nearly devastated her. "Haruka, it's Seta. We need to talk, and I mean right now. I just saw Keitaro here in America. I want answers Haruka. Call me back, you know the number," Seta said into the phone.
"Keitaro's alive?" Sarah wondered aloud, "it can't be." She ran up to her father, surprising him. "Hey there kiddo, what's new?" he asked. "Is it true poppa, is Keitaro alive?" Sarah asked, her voice shaking. The carefree look drained form his face, replacing it with a somberness that Sarah had rarely seen in her father. "So you overheard," he replied. Sarah grabbed Seta's jacked with both hands, and pulled him closer to her. She looked into his eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Is he alive," she demanded to know.
Seta, his countenance remaining the same, responded, "Yes Sarah, Keitaro is alive." Sarah stumbled backwards, acting as if she had been struck in the belly with a baseball bat. She could not believe what her father was saying. Within Sarah's heart, emotions long dormant began to stir. At age ten, Sarah McDougal had fallen in love with Keitaro Urishima, but never revealed her secret to anyone.
He was a loser and a dork, but he was also caring and compassionate. He was there for her when her flesh and blood had abandoned her. He had given her a place to call home and her best friends – more than anything Seta had ever provided her. It was Keitaro who taught her that family was more than just lineage and genetics – family was love, regardless.
Struggling with these emotions, Sarah reacted in the only way her immature mind knew how to – through overt aggression. She would gleefully attack him – a love letter from a ten year old. She scoffed at the gift he gave her for Christmas, but in secret, it became her most prized possession. Even at 17, Sarah had never let go of the ceremonial clay mask that she had used to bat him with. It hung proudly in her college dorm room, much to the chagrin of her roommate.
Her silent reverie was broken when Seta spoke again. "Motoko's here to," said Seta. Sarah turned to her father and demanded to know where the "bitch" was. For years, Sarah had hated Motoko. She hated her for making her feel so useless and incompetent for failing to protect Keitaro all those years ago. It was Motoko who caused all the pain that her friends and father had to endure. She was too young back then to seek proper vengeance, but she was not a child anymore. Sarah had grown up. She was a master of several styles of martial arts, even surpassing her father's incredible fighting prowess.
"Where is she?" she demanded again. Seta, seeing the rage in his daughter, placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. She would have none of it. Sarah slapped his hand away and yelled out, "Dammit, tell me where she is!"
Seta stepped back, wheeling at her actions. Sarah had never once yelled, let alone raised an angry hand at her father. Realizing what she had just done, Sarah ran to him, embracing him. She pleaded, "I'm sorry poppa, please forgive me, I didn't mean it." She began to cry into his chest. Seta enveloped his daughter with his arms, gently petting the back of her head. "It's okay Sarah, there's nothing to forgive," he said softly. Then after giving Sarah some time to rein in her emotions, Seta spoke out, "Motoko is with Keitaro, Sarah. They're married, so please, don't do anything rash."
"No, you're lying," Sarah screamed as she violently pulled herself away from her father. "It's the truth Sarah," Seta reassured her. Before Sarah could voice her protest, her attention was diverted to the sound of a woman screaming in agony. Both Seta and Sarah looked towards the source of the screaming when they saw Keitaro in the distance – carrying a very pregnant Motoko in his arms.
Sarah stood there gaping. There in the distance was the supposed dead Keitaro, but perhaps even more unnerving was that he was carrying Motoko – the one responsible for the nightmare that had nearly ruined the lives all those who lived in the Hinata Apartments.
She yelled out, "Keitaro," but he had already sped away in his car. Sarah, without looking back, ran to her motorcycle parked across the street from her. Seta called out to her, imploring her to wait for him, but she would not stop for him or for anyone for that matter.
She had to see him and find out the truth, which she did. Keitaro had fallen in love with the demon. She stood in the hallway, the fury burning inside of her. Seta approached her cautiously, much like a person approaching an injured animal. He reached out his hand, placing it gently on her shoulder. When there was no resistance, Setat proceeded forward, embracing his daughter.
At first, Sarah stood still, her body taut with rage. "How could he love her?" she asked, trembling as she spoke, "How could he love her after what she's done to him?" Seta, still holding onto his precious daughter, could only reply, "He's Keitaro." Sarah broke down at these words, melting into her father's embrace.
Keitaro would forgive his friends – no matter the offense. It was who he was – one of the many reasons why the girls were all in love with him. "Hey kiddo, let's go get some coffee. We'll talk about our next step together, okay?" asked Seta. Sarah, trying to choke back the tears, nodded her head in response.