Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“She looked really happy just now,” Nyomi tilted her head. “What did you say to her?”
“I simply ordered for us.”
She smiled. “Hmmm.”
The sound of the shamisen echoed through the air—a dance of three strings, plucked with aching precision. The man playing it sat on the stage, lost in the music, his fingers a blur of disciplined devotion.
Nyomi turned her head toward the sound and sighed softly. “I love this music so much. I’ve never heard it before.”
I studied her profile. Her jawline. Her full lips. The curve of her neck.
It was all poetry.
She put her view back on me. “What is this instrument called?”
“It’s a shamisen. An old instrument. What you’re hearing is skin, wood, and memory.”
She quirked her brows.
“The samurai used to carry them on the road when they traveled. My mother used to say that. . .after a battle, the samurai would sit beneath a tree—tired, bruised, and bloody—and they would mourn the men they’d lost and sing to the few ghosts that were watching.”
Nyomi looked at me like I’d cast a spell. “Were you close to your mother?”
“When I was a boy, we were inseparable. I was damned near her shadow. I loved everything about her and hated any moment I was away from her.”
“And when you got older?”
“My father kept me close to him, claiming that I was getting too soft because of my devotion to my mother.”
“And what did you think about that?”
“In my household, when my father spoke, that was law. It was not a moment to think or question.” I sighed, shocked that I’d said this much. “But in retrospect, I wish I had fought against it.”
“Why?”
“Those are years lost to me that I can never reclaim because now she’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No. It’s okay. Grief is a strange thing,” I lowered my gaze to the table. “It’s like a void that never truly leaves you. It merely gets quieter over time.”
I stared down at my sake for a moment, unsure when the fuck I’d started monologuing like some grieving priest.
Why did I say all of that?
I never talked about my mother. I damned sure didn’t talk about my grief. I sure as hell didn’t talk about what my father stole from me.
There she was—across the table, her face tender and open—I’d cracked like a man who didn’t know better.
“Anyway,” I lifted my view up to her. “Are you close to your mother?”
“Well. . .no, I. . .stomach her. No. That’s not nice. What I’m trying to say is that we have a very complicated relationship.”
“Why?”
“My father sounds kind of like yours. Being a judge, he would bring that sort of stuff home with him,” she rolled her eyes. “When I was in trouble, I would have to address him with ‘Your Honor.’”
I parted my lips in shock.
“It was such bullshit. Especially when I came to find that my father had been less than honorable his entire career as a judge, taking bribes and other illegal things,” she tapped her finger on her cup of sake in a way that told me that this was a highly uncomfortable topic.
Still, I was glad she was sharing this with me.
Nyomi cleared her throat. “But my mother. . .she enabled my father and believed that the man was damn near Jesus. It was always his way, even if it hurt me. What he said was the only thing that mattered. Honestly, even after the court cases and clear evidence of his wrongdoings, you still can’t tell her that he isn’t a good man. She would argue about it.”
“She treated him like a king?”
“She did and it made her seem so weak to me,” Nyomi looked away. “That’s not nice to say, but. . .”
“I understand what you mean. Due to my father, I saw my mother the same way. The only problem was that as a soon to be adult man myself. . .I just assumed that was a woman’s place.”
She stared at me. “That’s interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Maybe that’s why I’ve always resented my mother. Because. . .as a daughter. . .I didn’t want to end up like her. . .being weak and spending my entire life serving a man. If I was her son. . .I may not have resented her at all.”
“I believe you’re correct.”
I let that thought linger between us, the kind of raw truth that asked not to be fixed but simply seen.
The shamisen’s mournful notes drifted around us like silk, softening the edges of our pain.
We were two children of strong fathers and silenced mothers, trying to decide what kind of adults we wanted to be.
My fingers brushed the rim of my sake cup. “Thank you for telling me that. There aren’t many people who would.”
“I don’t usually talk about my mother,” she admitted.
“Then, I feel special. Thank you even more.” I picked up my cup of sake and lifted it between us. “To music and memory.”