Divide
[Flash Fiction Friday Prompt 96: In Your Arms]
There had been moments here and there, scattered over the long, lonely years when Miki had longed to be in her arms. Dark hours of night when sleep had eluded her and the fear – her constant companion – loomed much too close to her skin, pressing on her lungs. Bouts of wistfulness striking her out of the blue, halting her in her tracks as memories of happier days resurfaced.
Storytime had been her favourite time of the day, back then. Sitting in her mother’s lap, safe and cared for in the warm cradle of her arms, her mother’s soothing voice a steady murmur in her ears, the picture book held in front of her full of wonders.
Storytime had trickled to a stop when the years had marched on. Instead there had been the evenings of doing homework at the kitchen table while her mother had prepared dinner, delicious scents, her mother’s soft voice and laughter filling the room.
That routine had morphed too, into doing chores around the house to help her mother out.
But her presence had been a constant comfort, her arms always open for Miki.
Until Miki had discovered the magic, burning deep within.
It terrified her, so she buried it. To keep it a secret she started building walls around herself.
The distance had begun to fill the air between Miki and her mother soon after.
And then Miki’s senior year in high school arrived. There had only been one choice for her to make, even though her heart ached. She’d stood before her parents, watching the disappointed dismay spark in her mother’s eyes as she told them she would not go to university.
Her father had shaken his head, brusquely told Miki to stop talking nonsense. Of course she would go!
Her mother had only uttered a single soft word.
The magic weighed heavy in her soul, her walls were brittle yet but built high.
I don’t want to, Miki had said, the lie sour and prickly on her tongue, yet falling from her lips with a practised ease. Too many lies already stretched between them.
After all, she could not confess the truth. That she did not wish to be discovered. Attached to the university entrance exams were the aptitude tests for magic, designed to find the scattered outliers. Magic users born outside of the clans. Magic users like Miki.
Her father had been furious. Fights had broken out frequently as Miki’s final year in high school neared its end.
But her mother had been silent and somehow that was worse.
Miki had found a job and moved out soon after graduating high school. She visited sporadically, once or twice a year. She talked on the phone with her mother at least once a month, but the conversations were stilted and awkward; walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around the mountains of lies and secrets and the black holes of silence.
The safety and love she’d once known in her mothers arms was only a memory now.
Maybe that, too, could change, now that Miki’s life was spinning out of control. Fujibayashi Akira had blasted a hole right through Miki’s walls by exposing what she’d had strived so hard to conceal.
The worst had happened, the secret was out and the walls around her were crumbling in the aftermath.
Miki let out a breath and reached for the phone. Her stomach churned as she found her mother’s number in her contacts and dialled. Her throat was tight when her mother’s voice, achingly familiar, called out a hesitant hello.
“Mom,” Miki replied, voice close to breaking. “Are you and dad free next Saturday?”
“I don’t think we have anything planned,” her mother said after a brief and cautious pause. “Are you planning to visit?”
“No. I need you and dad to come with me.” Miki swallowed.
Even now, when all her efforts had failed, it was so hard to let go. She couldn’t find the words to explain all those things she’d never told her mother, so she simply told the truth.
“I have a marriage meeting with the Fujibayashi.”
