Airi reminds me of you. When she smiles, I see a ghost of you like the way I see the afterimage of the sun after staring at the sky for too long.
To anyone with blurry vision, you might look like sisters side by side, sharing fair hair and light eyes. But for the rest of us who weren’t suffering from visual impairment, you look quite distinct from one another.
It goes beyond Airi being ethnically Japanese and you coming from generations of Irish Catholics. While you were optimistic and bright, Airi is sullen and unsmiling, giving her a standoffish vibe that makes me hesitate to speak to her. She prefers to keep to herself, spending hours in her dark room while you spent as much time outside of your house as possible.
Then again, Airi has albinism so she can’t do the same things you do, at least not without suffering consequences. Mr. Watanabe told us over dinner during our first night at the mansion about her sensitive skin and weak eyes. If she stays in the sun for too long, it would hurt her. No wonder why she practically lives like a vampire. Anyone in her position would find the circumstances depressing.
But at the wedding today, she can’t stop smiling. I sit next to her during the evening ceremony, wearing a muted lapis dress that shimmers in the low lighting. She’s nearly as dazzling as the sparkling sky blue she wears and despite the darkness of night, I think of the sun.
She’s a year younger than us, older than I expected. Her aloof and girlish mannerisms convinced me that she was thirteen instead of sixteen. Between that, her frilly dresses, and her army of stuffed animals, I would have never assumed that she was close to my age.
“Your mom is really pretty,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. She twirls a white flower in her hands idly.
“She’s your mom too,” I whisper back. Or at least she would be after the evening was over.
“I can’t believe it.” Her voice is full of awe. “You’re so lucky that you’ve had a princess for your mother your whole life.”
I remember the weeks I spent eating instant ramen out of styrofoam cups because that same mother couldn’t be bothered to leave her bed to go to work. Would Airi still admire her if she knew about these things?
“Your dad made my mom a princess,” I say instead, choosing my words carefully.
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a mom. It’s only been me and my dad here. I know the woman who gave birth to me through pictures. But if I had to imagine a mother for myself, she would look very much like yours.”
I look away, suddenly finding it hard to look at her face. If only she had known my dad and the way he took care of us. My mother, for all her beauty, pales in comparison.
But who was I to think that? I never deserved my father’s love, not after what I did to him.
“I’m sorry that you didn’t get to know her,” I tell Airi, recalling the painting I saw in the foyer the day I arrived.
It was a couple’s portrait, with her mother and father standing side by side and staring solemnly back at the viewer. The setup reminded me intensely of American Gothic if the couple were Japanese, albino, and dressed much nicer. Her mother had a piercing stare. If I looked for too long, I would feel she was gazing directly into my soul.
I didn’t realize that Mr. Watanabe had the same genetic condition until I saw the painting. His lack of melanin manifested in a subtle vitiligo that he easily hid with small cosmetic changes. A few swipes of concealer and some black hair dye turned him into an ordinary Japanese man. But in the painting, all of those superficial changes were absent.
Airi shrugs. “Everyone tells me that, but what if she was alive and I didn’t like her?”
This time I didn't break eye contact with my stepsister.
“Maybe you would still love her.”
She pouts, sticking out her pink bottom lip.
“How can you love someone you don’t like? That makes no sense.”
“It’s like that for most families,” I say. “Since people don’t get to choose who they’re related to.”
Her eyes round with curiosity. Although I know she won’t say it, her face seems to ask, is it like that for your family? I wonder if I could lie to her if she did.
“I do have some annoying cousins. I suppose you’re right about that.”
Her words explain the concept more simply than I could have. I release an inconspicuous sigh of relief. I didn’t want to tell her that we didn’t choose the ones we love either.
After the ceremony, we retreat into the mansion. Mr. Watanabe carries my mother up the stairs, whisking her off to do what all married people do on their wedding nights. Airi glides to her room, carrying flowers from the ceremony. I’m alone in the halls, feeling the weight of the day crash on my shoulders.
A single white flower stands out on the carpet. Its sharp petals remind me of a fallen star. I pick it up, imagining that I stole a piece of the sky.
I should leave it on the floor. It’s simple and pretty, but alas, I’m allergic. My nose and throat are already itching. If I hold it for a second longer, my eyes will water.
For some inexplicable reason, I bring it to my room.
I feel lonelier than I normally do, my chest as hollow as the wardrobe Mr. Watanabe left for me to use. My scant clothes are piled in the corner, leaving a vast wooden expanse for everything I might own in the future. My mother promises that he would be a generous father, letting me buy all the ugly dark-colored and boyish clothes I could ever want.
A heavy sigh escapes my mouth. It’s too much to hope that she could ever understand me. But as I place the flower in the wardrobe, I can’t help but wish that she will be a better mother to Airi. My new sister would be the prettier daughter, one who wouldn’t mind her insistence for flowery pastel dresses and glittering accessories. She could be the child my mother always wanted.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. It hasn’t even been a day since she married Mr. Watanabe. And I have never been good at predicting the future.
In her own small way, my mother does think of me. I stand in front of the aquarium in my room, the large glass tank teeming with goldfish. Mr. Watanabe placed it in front of one of the two large windows so that when the sun came in, the scales of the fish gleamed beautifully.
“Your mother mentioned that you like to watch them swim,” he said awkwardly. “She told me that she always wanted to get you a tank like this.”
I mustered a crummy smile at those words. Despite her depression, she managed to notice the fish doodles under my desk. But little did she know that none of those colorful marker drawings on the wall were mine.
If I close my eyes, I can imagine you underneath the table next to me, our shoulders brushing and the musk of summery sweat coating our skin. I pass you a pack of Crayola markers and you make rainbow fish appear on my blank white walls. I add in the rest of the ocean, drawing sea plants and squiggly blue waves.
You were the one who loved fish because you were fond of swimming. You were in your element in the water, a mermaid came to life. I was indifferent to those cold-blooded animals, but I developed an appreciation for them because of you. You felt such a kinship with them that you refused to eat all fish, developing an odd reverse-pescatarian diet.
For some reason you couldn’t explain, goldfish were your favorite. At school fairs and carnivals, we played endless games to earn as many bags of goldfish as possible. We got it into our heads that we needed to rescue them from being dumped into the sewer where crocodiles and radioactive monsters would be more than happy to prey on them.
We made a funny pair of heroes, playing ring toss like the world depended on it. Life had been so simple then. I would give anything to go back in time to those days. Maybe I could have stopped you from disappearing, armed with what I knew now.
But we never were able to save those fish, no matter how many bags and cups of them we piled into my mother’s car. In the end, most of them died, unable to survive in the basin filled with tap water while being fed stale bread crumbs. The few that did survive were released into a pond near the wooded area of our neighborhood.
Idly, I sprinkle fish food into the tank, watching the shimmering gold sea animals swim to the surface. Stupidly, I wish there were a way that I could play a game to get you back in my life. Wherever you are, realistically you would be in a safe place. But if you weren’t, I hoped that there was a way I could save you even from thousands of miles away.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡccpkV567af
