A Mothers Goodbye

10 Years Ago - Suzuki Sophia

It had been five years since Kento left me and I still never really got over it. But I learned to live with it and from day to day it didn't really bother me anymore. I understood why he did it and my inability to move on from anything probably proved how right he was about everything. After he left I broke down behind the closed front door and cried for what felt like hours and it still never brought me any release. Whatever had taken damage inside of me on that day was too important to ever be fixed it seemed.

The relationship with my daughter also suffered as a result of Kento leaving, as she was convinced that it was my fault and she blamed me for not stopping him. But the biggest problem was Hanami. He was only five years old now, but he looked so much like Yuto as a child that I couldn't bear looking at him. I should have tried to accept him and help my daughter in raising him, but the same thing that kept me from being able to move on from Yuto and Kento also made it impossible for me to accept Hanami as his own person. For me he only ever would be a reminder of Yuto and what I had lost that day. I still visited them every now and then, but it was so painful for me that I could barely stomach it and of course my daughter noticed that. I never asked her directly about what she thought about me now, but I was sure it wasn't anything good and I didn't even know whether she still wanted me to visit or see Hanami at all. She had her own life now and she contacted me less and less and when she did, it was obvious that she just wanted to get it over with. But I would have been lying if I said I didn't accept it. Kento said to me that he admitted that he was just running away from the situation and that he was weak, but at least he made a conscious decision and out it tinto action. I was just sitting here and letting me daughter and grandson drift away from me and I didn't even have enough agency to do anything about it. I hadn''t heard from Kento since that day and I didn't feel the urge to talk to him either. If he suddenly appeared on my doorstep or called me, I wouldn't know what my reaction would be like. I was hoping that Kento was at least talking to our daughter and our grandson, but I didn't know it for sure and I couldn't find the courage to ask about it either. But I couldn't help but think about what he might be telling her about the situation. Kento wasn't the type of person to badmouth others, but at the same time our daughter seemed to resent me more and more and I couldn't help but wonder if Kento was feeding her information that made me look bad in front of her. Or maybe he was just telling her the truth, the result would most likely be the same. As parents we both had failed, each in our own way. I was happy that our daughter at least seemed to have found her own happiness, but I was still convinced that it came down more to luck than anything. After Yuto had died, I couldn't give her the same love as I could before and Kento couldn't fill that hole and I suspected that his inability to make up for the emotional neglect that my condition caused our daughter was a big reason he felt the urge to leave back then.

And now I was sitting here in her apartment, at the coffee table opposite to her and I knew that this would most likely be the last time we would see each other. The conversation had long died down and we just sat there staring at our empty coffee cups. In the background Suzuki was playing with a toy I brought as a gift since it was his birthday and I felt bad for him the most, since he was only another victim in this story. Lately my daughter cut his hair exactly like Yuto had worn it back in the day and I was wondering whether she did that intentionally to hurt me. She seemed not really affected by his appearance, if anything she seemed to work hard to create Yutos doppelganger. But of course even without the hair, the resemblance was uncanny. Kento of course also looked the same way, but for some reason that never gave me the same sting that I felt when looking at Suzuki.

I hoped that his mother could give him all the love I wasn't able to give her and that he would grow up to be a good person that could make the right decisions when it counted. Maybe in the long run I would be forgiven for what I did or didn't do when it came to Yuto and Mirai, but I felt that it would be many years until it would come to pass and I couldn't take things like they were right now until then. In that way I was just like Kento. When we finally said our goodbyes at the door I could see some tears in her eyes and little Suzuki was clinging to her trousers, looking confused. But I knew that I never wanted to come back to this place or see my daughter again until things had changed and realistically they would never change, so this was most likely a permanent goodbye. As I walked home I thought I would finally be able to cry, but even now the tears just wouldn't come out. Just like Kento had asked me whether I wanted to stop him, at least in my mind I was asking my daughter whether she wanted to stop me, maybe for Suzukis sake at least, but in this case it felt like it wasn't even worth saying it out loud.