12-19-2017, 09:46 PM
After her mother died, Naomi could have left the sorting and dissemination of her personal effects to the members of her coven. They were as dear as sisters to her mother and she often thought of them as aunts herself but Naomi could not understand why they thought she would want to go rummaging through Hinata's things after what had happened.
Most of what she learned about life she learned from her father, either through his introducing it to her as an actual lesson or from observation. That was the basis of his definition of science, after all, and science was nothing if not one of man's methods of interpreting nature. Art was the other.
"You must have gotten that from your mother," he used to say all the time, your mother laced with equal parts disdain and adoration, the latter for the woman herself and the former for her worldview.
Fingernails caked with dirt and the creases of her knuckles with blood. The scent of violets. Photographs of her everywhere, even in the house her father had bought in Miami that her mother had never lived in. She was only ever a guest there. Yet she left her things all over the place, mortars and stones and camera equipment. Naomi used to have to snag these things from her brother's hands and put them back where they belonged, as if moving them would delay her return.
She could not deal with her mother's room in the coven house after what happened, and her mother's sisters wanted to respect her wishes. They moved everything into a storage unit on the outskirts of Katsushika and mailed Naomi the key and left it at that. She knew where to find them if she needed anything.
That was two springtimes ago.
---
Even when her therapist, Dr. Ishikawa, brings him up she does not like to talk about her brother. That does not stop Dr. Ishikawa from bringing him up, because Dr. Ishikawa has the ability to hone in on the tender places and build up enough of a callous so that the precision strike does not cause too much damage to the surrounding areas.
But every month, Naomi comes in for an hour before she takes the train to campus. And every month Dr. Ishikawa asks about classes, about her extracurricular activities, about her boyfriend and her persistent fear of hospitals and how much time has passed since she has had a nightmare. She feels better than she has in a long time. She has more coping skills. She is out among the living and focusing on her future.
That is when Dr. Ishikawa brings up the fact that in all this time she has said very little about her family.
"What is there to say?" Naomi always says.
"It's important to speak of the dead," Dr. Ishikawa says this time. "Especially when the dead are your close family."
"He was my brother. He was hit by a car. We buried him. My mother died shortly after, and my father went insane. That's all that happened."
And Dr. Ishikawa will tilt her head to one side, just so, her sharp brown eyes ticking across Naomi's face. Some days Naomi stares her down. Plenty of days she looks away first, starts to pick at the knees of her jeans or the lint on her sweater.
"What are you keeping to yourself?" Dr. Ishikawa asks.
This is one of those days.
---
She didn't know who to call after she ran out of the house, that night. After her father had turned towards her covered in blood and blind with Quiet, if that's even what was wrong with him, she had seen him in Quiet before and he had never looked or sounded like he had looked or sounded that night.
That night she had run as fast as she could, faster than she had ever run during basketball practice, faster than she had ever run while chasing her brother on the beach or in the park or in her dreams, and she had barreled onto the first bus she was able to catch in such a state that the driver had not even bothered to call her back up to extract a fare from her. She was sobbing and shaking and laughing, though she cannot remember laughing. Understanding for the first time in her life what writers mean when they write of characters having witnessed something man was not meant to see.
She still had Uncle Esteban's number in her phone. Not even four months had passed since Yori's funeral. When he answered, she did not know what to say.
They had always called him Uncle even though her father did not have any brothers. Three younger sisters, but they did not called them Aunt. None of them wanted anything to do with him.
"Where are you?" he had asked, more than once, before he realized he was not going to get a response.
It didn't matter if she could tell him or not. He ended up popping up at the bus terminal. The driver had had no luck in peeling her out of her seat. She could not remember being able to see them through the grimy bus window, in the anemic light of the station. Amnesia is the best anesthesia the brain can offer the mind. She took it.
---
Two years to the day after Yori died, Esteban meets her outside of her lecture hall. It is the last time she will walk out of that lecture hall this year. She had told him she wanted to go through her mother's things, mentioned it in a text conversation she was not certain he had received because she was never certain what plane of existence he was on. It is a surprise to see him, but as far as surprises go Naomi has had enough of a dearth in her young adult life that she has trouble, sometimes, recognizing pleasant ones.
He sees her before she sees him but when she does see him she takes off at a run. The older she gets, it seems, the shorter he does. All it is is a matter of perspective. Esteban has always been the height that he is. He catches her when she throws herself at him, and he hugs her when she clings to his neck and starts to cry.
"I know," he says in his accented English.
"No you don't," she says.
"... I know."
Most of what she learned about life she learned from her father, either through his introducing it to her as an actual lesson or from observation. That was the basis of his definition of science, after all, and science was nothing if not one of man's methods of interpreting nature. Art was the other.
"You must have gotten that from your mother," he used to say all the time, your mother laced with equal parts disdain and adoration, the latter for the woman herself and the former for her worldview.
Fingernails caked with dirt and the creases of her knuckles with blood. The scent of violets. Photographs of her everywhere, even in the house her father had bought in Miami that her mother had never lived in. She was only ever a guest there. Yet she left her things all over the place, mortars and stones and camera equipment. Naomi used to have to snag these things from her brother's hands and put them back where they belonged, as if moving them would delay her return.
She could not deal with her mother's room in the coven house after what happened, and her mother's sisters wanted to respect her wishes. They moved everything into a storage unit on the outskirts of Katsushika and mailed Naomi the key and left it at that. She knew where to find them if she needed anything.
That was two springtimes ago.
---
Even when her therapist, Dr. Ishikawa, brings him up she does not like to talk about her brother. That does not stop Dr. Ishikawa from bringing him up, because Dr. Ishikawa has the ability to hone in on the tender places and build up enough of a callous so that the precision strike does not cause too much damage to the surrounding areas.
But every month, Naomi comes in for an hour before she takes the train to campus. And every month Dr. Ishikawa asks about classes, about her extracurricular activities, about her boyfriend and her persistent fear of hospitals and how much time has passed since she has had a nightmare. She feels better than she has in a long time. She has more coping skills. She is out among the living and focusing on her future.
That is when Dr. Ishikawa brings up the fact that in all this time she has said very little about her family.
"What is there to say?" Naomi always says.
"It's important to speak of the dead," Dr. Ishikawa says this time. "Especially when the dead are your close family."
"He was my brother. He was hit by a car. We buried him. My mother died shortly after, and my father went insane. That's all that happened."
And Dr. Ishikawa will tilt her head to one side, just so, her sharp brown eyes ticking across Naomi's face. Some days Naomi stares her down. Plenty of days she looks away first, starts to pick at the knees of her jeans or the lint on her sweater.
"What are you keeping to yourself?" Dr. Ishikawa asks.
This is one of those days.
---
She didn't know who to call after she ran out of the house, that night. After her father had turned towards her covered in blood and blind with Quiet, if that's even what was wrong with him, she had seen him in Quiet before and he had never looked or sounded like he had looked or sounded that night.
That night she had run as fast as she could, faster than she had ever run during basketball practice, faster than she had ever run while chasing her brother on the beach or in the park or in her dreams, and she had barreled onto the first bus she was able to catch in such a state that the driver had not even bothered to call her back up to extract a fare from her. She was sobbing and shaking and laughing, though she cannot remember laughing. Understanding for the first time in her life what writers mean when they write of characters having witnessed something man was not meant to see.
She still had Uncle Esteban's number in her phone. Not even four months had passed since Yori's funeral. When he answered, she did not know what to say.
They had always called him Uncle even though her father did not have any brothers. Three younger sisters, but they did not called them Aunt. None of them wanted anything to do with him.
"Where are you?" he had asked, more than once, before he realized he was not going to get a response.
It didn't matter if she could tell him or not. He ended up popping up at the bus terminal. The driver had had no luck in peeling her out of her seat. She could not remember being able to see them through the grimy bus window, in the anemic light of the station. Amnesia is the best anesthesia the brain can offer the mind. She took it.
---
Two years to the day after Yori died, Esteban meets her outside of her lecture hall. It is the last time she will walk out of that lecture hall this year. She had told him she wanted to go through her mother's things, mentioned it in a text conversation she was not certain he had received because she was never certain what plane of existence he was on. It is a surprise to see him, but as far as surprises go Naomi has had enough of a dearth in her young adult life that she has trouble, sometimes, recognizing pleasant ones.
He sees her before she sees him but when she does see him she takes off at a run. The older she gets, it seems, the shorter he does. All it is is a matter of perspective. Esteban has always been the height that he is. He catches her when she throws herself at him, and he hugs her when she clings to his neck and starts to cry.
"I know," he says in his accented English.
"No you don't," she says.
"... I know."
Look. I have school. And RP. And all my other time is taken up by sheer, unreasoning panic. I don't have time for Reddit.
-- ixphaelaeon
-- ixphaelaeon