Chapter 2 - This Wasn't the Plan

Ami looked so… normal. Sitting on the couch with a bowl of apple slices, her favorite doll beside her and one slightly stretched out yellow sock hanging half off her foot, she looked like any other five-year-old watching her favorite cartoon. She wasn't, though, and now that she was several months into kindergarten, her teacher was beginning to press the issue.

Kaya sighed softly as she looked from her daughter back to the task she was setting up in the kitchen. Keeping half an ear on the living room, she laid cookie sheets out on the kitchen table. A few bottles of food dye lined up like tiny sentries beside a box of parchment paper and tub of white decorator icing. She smirked at herself, one hand reaching up from habit to tuck her newly shortened hair out of the way. Mixing cookie dough she thought she could handle, but she was quite alright letting the bake store make the icing.

Satisfied everything was in place, she made one last adjustment to the brightly colored gift bag and waited for Mystery Mouse to finish solving this week's case. Leaning against the entryway between the kitchen and living room, she watched Ami.

They had always been just a bit different, she, Suoh, and Ami. The comments made about it were generally directed at her choices, though, and were more or less easy to ignore. After all, she and Suoh were happily pursuing their chosen fields, albeit with different degrees of success. Suoh had his baby Rembrandt, and he'd been okay stopping at Ami, not arguing when Kaya changed the plan to only one. And their life together was good.

Until suddenly it wasn't.

But had it really been all that sudden? Or had she just ignored the things she didn't want to think about because she was certain she could make it work? From their very loose definition of dating, to the quick trip to the marriage registrar after a late-night suggestion for making it easier to find an apartment for her residency in Tokyo, to the roles they played in day-to-day life. Perhaps her revised life plan should have come with a giant 'caution' symbol stamped onto it and a warning label for the child she was going to bring into it.

Kaya could admit Suoh had taken to parenthood better than she had. It just seemed so much easier for him, and Suoh seemed perfectly happy with her as their primary breadwinner. Then the playful snarkiness they'd always used with each other started to become less playful and their differences more pronounced. She wanted settled and stable, but Suoh was getting itchy, his wanderlust pulling at him as she found herself biting back the old barb of how a real life plan didn't involve living out of the bed of his Isuzu.

In the middle of their own problems, they had barely noticed when Ami became… quiet. They didn't see the isolation she was putting herself in when she began reaching more for her books than her finger paints. She hadn't abandoned the colorful goop altogether, but her books were the world she preferred to be lost in. And lost she would get - under a blanket with a flashlight, in the tub with swim goggles on…

In the closet with a snowcap and earmuffs over her ears so she wouldn't hear them fighting.

Kaya sighed silently. Ami's love of reading had felt normal until that moment. Perhaps she wouldn't have made the library their place if she'd realized sooner.

The escapism aside, with her reading came a craving for information. So when Suoh painted a sunrise, Ami wanted to know how the sky did that. When he painted a flower in bloom, she wanted to know why the petals moved the way they did. His fanciful answers amused her, but even at four she knew they weren't correct. Now, her need for real answers annoyed him, and he'd begun leaving her behind.

Her teachers weren't helping things, either, though Kaya understood their perspective. Ami was reading far better than her peers, and her ability with numbers was quickly catching up. She didn't belong in kindergarten, they'd said. She was too gifted for it.

'Gifted.' Kaya hated the word. She'd been called 'advanced,' and while she was proud of her intelligence and achievements as an adult, at 10-years-old it had been awful. And the overemphasis on Ami's ability and good behavior was contributing to her struggles with her classmates. Being perceived as the teacher's pet student didn't encourage them to listen to interests and explanations that often went over their heads. All they saw was a weird little girl who had so much knowledge to share, they couldn't keep up. So rather than try, they walked away.

Kaya wasn't going to move her ahead, though. She would find other ways to deal with it that didn't involve taking Ami away from children her own age or reminding Suoh that his child was more academic than artist.

Waiting patiently as a stolen bike was returned to its owner, Kaya chuckled softly to herself as Ami smiled widely and clapped in appreciation of her own successful sleuthing abilities. The little girl popped the last apple slice into her mouth, then turned so she was on her knees looking over the back of the couch. Directing that bright smile to her mother, she announced proudly, "I solved it, Mama!"

Grimacing internally as the sticky bowl teetered precariously under the child's weight on the cushions, Kaya returned Ami's smile. "Good job, sweetie!" She moved to sit beside Ami on the couch, moving the bowl to the coffee table before straightening Ami's errant sock. Then she held out the bag for Ami to see.

Wide-eyed, Ami asked, "Is it for me?"

"It is," Kaya nodded, putting a mark under her blue 'happy child' mental tab.

Ami took the bag, her tiny fingers treating the bright green tissue paper on top as if it were a delicate treasure. Her tongue poking from the side of her mouth, she carefully reached in and extracted each individual item. First, the silver cookie cutters. The butterfly was her favorite. Then the pastel colored measuring cups and the yellow ruffled apron that had to be immediately put on. The last thing she pulled out made her pause, her eyes squinting in concentration at the block text on the front of the book.

"What does it say?" asked Kaya with a soft grin as she watched Ami's lips move in silent recitation of the cover.

"Cookie Kids," answered Ami proudly, holding it up for her mother to see. "It's a cookbook."

The blue mental tab in Kaya's head switched over to the brown academics one. Reading and arithmetic. Check and check.

"Come on," said Kaya, and together they gathered up the new cache of baking supplies. "Let's see if your new cookbook can teach us how to make cookies."

It had turned out to be a fun day, and their joint baking skills were better than she'd expected. That Suoh had been absent for all of it wasn't something Kaya chose to dwell on. He and his paint-spattered box easel had come waltzing through the door as she and Ami were sitting down to watch tv with their cookies and hot chocolate. He'd spared her only the barest of glances, probably to avoid the sharp look he knew she'd give him. Instead, all of his attention was given to Ami as she showed him her cookies and how she'd mixed the colors like he'd taught her. When she'd shown him the picture encyclopedia she'd found her butterfly colors in, he'd made a sour face, but Ami didn't notice as she handed him the cookies and pulled him over to the couch to sit with them.

With Ami between them plying Suoh with butterfly cookies, they hadn't needed to say much to each other. When they did try, it was uncomfortable small-talk. The kind of awkward conversation that shouldn't exist in a marriage.

A burst of laughter reverberated down the hall followed by the sound of the hairdryer. Kaya lifted her eyes from the book she was trying to read. Ami's bath was done, and Suoh was drying her hair before dressing her in her cloud print nightgown so he could hand her off for a bedtime story. Their normal routine. Then after that…

He was still futzing around in the bathroom when Ami came running down the hall to collect her. Kaya gathered her up and chose a longer story for the evening. When they were done reading, she spent a few extra minutes on hugs and kisses, tucked Ami in, then tried not to show her reluctance as she stepped back into the hallway.

At the end of the hall she could see the bathroom light still on, though Suoh wasn't in there anymore. She could also see Ami's wet towel slung haphazardly over the wooden stool in the middle of the floor, the hairdryer hanging by its cord from the towel rack, and the walls of the tub covered in soap crayon drawings. She pinched the bridge of her nose, managing to bend the wire frames of her glasses just a smidge in the process, then took a deep breath before heading to their bedroom. He wasn't in there, either, and perhaps that was a good thing. For a few more minutes, at least.

She was sitting at her desk, putting her earrings away in her favorite old jewelry box, when Suoh walked in with half a sandwich. In the beveled screen of her monitor, she watched him casually toss his wallet onto the dresser. The words were out of her mouth before she could think better of them.

"You know how much I hate those soap crayons." She closed her jewelry box, refusing to actually look at him. "I'm glad the two of you have your bathtime games, but could you at least clean up afterwards? If you leave that overnight it will stain the walls."

His reflection tensed, the drawer he'd started to open pausing mid-pull. "You know, Kaya," he began slowly in a very put-upon fashion, "I don't ask much of you as a wife. Cook a meal once in a while. Hell, microwave it. Try to get home in time for dinner a few times a week. Maybe sort the clothes out a bit more before throwing them in the washer. Not much more than that." The drawer was closed and his sandwich abandoned beside his wallet as they turned to face each other. "So would it kill you to maybe, just maybe, clean it up yourself rather than bitch at me about how I spend time with my kid?"

Kaya leaned back almost casually in her chair, one knee crossing over the other, her hands folded loosely on top. With a level gaze, she returned, "Perhaps if you spent time with your child the way you promised her you would rather than running off before she woke up, I wouldn't be complaining about it."

He let out a bitter laugh. "I didn't take her because she doesn't have fun anymore, and you don't even see that. But why would you? The two of you can't even decorate cookies without an anatomical reference. There's no magic left in her world, Kaya. Instead, even though you spend more time with other people's children than you do your own, you've managed to turn her into an unimaginative overthinker just like you!"

The forced ease in her bearing abruptly fell away as she stood, knocking her chair back into her desk. A cloud fell over her eyes, the gray becoming a shade darker and matching the hard set of her jaw. "You know, Suoh," she began, her voice dropping an octave as she drew out his name, "I don't ask much of you as a husband. Find the occasional real job even if it only lasts a few months. Wear a tie once in awhile for important meetings. Provide one well-timed ejaculation to help in our family planning. Perhaps take the smallest amount of responsibility for your own life. Then maybe I wouldn't have to complain about your messes, because at this point," she went on, her voice rising as her arms crossed tightly over her chest, "I've cleaned up enough of them that I think I've earned the right to complain!"

The color in Suoh's face had slowly risen until it was a dark, brick red. She heard him curse under his breath as he began moving toward the closet. As he pulled down a duffle bag, he spat out, "It's a damn good thing you also like women, because no real man is ever going to put up with that mouth of yours if I leave."

She smirked, a sharp edge in the gesture. "A real man wouldn't be stuck here because he needs me to pay his bills." Then she turned on her heel and went to wait in the living room as he angrily shoved clothes into the bag.

Kaya sat there on the couch as he packed, waiting and feeling guilty because there was no way Ami hadn't heard that blow-up or the slamming of dresser drawers that followed.

She was so tired all of a sudden, or maybe it was resigned.

When he came out of the bedroom, backpack slung over one shoulder and duffle bag in hand, she didn't move from her spot or say anything. She just watched as he grabbed his truck keys and paused in the open doorway. He half looked back over his shoulder, as if he were waiting for her to apologize or stop him or… something. When he got nothing, he walked out, closing the door quietly with a soft snick.

She sat there a bit longer trying to collect herself, then mustered the courage to check on Ami. When Kaya went into the bedroom, the nightlight had been unplugged and Ami's back was turned to the door with the covers pulled up close under her chin. When Kaya approached, Ami did her best to feign sleep, her eyes squeezed shut and her tiny fists twisted tightly in her quilt.

"I love you," Kaya whispered as she sat on the edge of the bed and kissed the top of Ami's head lightly. Several silent moments ticked by, Ami refusing to move or acknowledge her. Rather than try to force it, she stood while adding quietly, "I'm going to leave my bedroom door open in case you wake up and get lonely."

There wasn't much for her to do after that except wait for the fall-out. After a bit of puttering around, she wound up on her cramped balcony. Feeling emotionally numb, she propped her feet on the small metal side table that matched the chair she was sitting in. The view from here wasn't much, but the evening air carried a hint of rain, the cool breeze a soothing thing. In the far distance, she could see sheets of lightning dancing over clouds that blocked out the stars and cast a heavy haze over the moon.

The ice cubes in her tumbler melted and shifted, clinking against the glass. There was no coming back from this one, she thought as she took a slow sip, the amber liquid smooth and warm in her chest. No pretending the last seven years hadn't happened and going back to being frenemies or manga buddies. No more excuses for the verbal wounds so intentionally inflicted. No more ways to write off the increasingly acidic arguments.

With a sigh, she tilted her glass to the moon. "So I tried out this whole life thing. Turns out I'm not very good at it. Hell of a doctor, though," she added around a bitter huff and another sip from her glass.

"Mama?"

Startled by the soft voice and angry with herself for not hearing Ami approach through the open balcony door, Kaya sat up quickly and moved the table so she could set her glass on it. "Hey, baby. Couldn't sleep?"

Ami shook her head, her thumb finding its way into her mouth.

Kaya didn't correct her. They all needed a bit of comfort tonight, and if that was how Ami found it, Kaya wasn't going to take it from her. "Come on."

Ami walked over and climbed into her mother's lap. She rested her head against Kaya's chest, listening to her heartbeat and snuggling into her embrace. Her mother's fingers feathered through her hair then ran across her cheek, wiping away the dried tears.

"You heard me and your papa fighting, huh?" asked Kaya softly as she rubbed gentle circles against Ami's back. When the little girl nodded, she went on, "Your papa and I… we don't want to say mean things to each other. But we don't like living together anymore. We've known each other for so long, though, we don't know how to tell each other that. So we fight instead." She released a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a self-depreciating chuckle. "That's not a very smart thing for us to do."

Ami shook her head against Kaya's chest, agreeing with her.

Then, with a deep breath, Kaya accepted the inevitably of it all. "When he comes back home," she went on, her grip on Ami tightening just a bit, "he and I are going to talk about not living together anymore. You and I will live in one place, and he'll be in another. And we won't be married any more. Do you understand?"

"I know what divorce is," answered Ami softly, her words garbled by her thumb. Then her chest hitched and she looked up at her mother with watery blue eyes. "I don't want papa to go away."

Kaya swiped at her own eyes quickly as she tried to offer reassurance. "Your papa will still be there for you, I promise. He loves you so much."

Ami shook her head, her voice coming out small and sad. "He didn't like my cookies. Because I made them all look like my book."

So much for Ami not noticing. Kaya pulled her in closer so Ami couldn't see the frown on her lips. "He loved your cookies and he loves you. He was just angry at me for something, that's all."

"I don't want him to go away," repeated Ami, obviously not believing anything her mother was saying. Her sobs began in earnest, her breath catching as her thumb hung halfway out of her mouth.

Kaya rocked her, whispering gentle sounds and refusing to let her own tears fall.