What’s love got to do, got to do with it?
What’s love but a second-hand emotion?
What’s love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
--Tina Turner
His nose buried in the sheaf of papers in his hand, Dr.
Komyoji pushed open the door to the main floor of the house. A
high-pitched
squeal punctuated the air above the sounds of the television in the
living
room, and a pink-and-black blur flew toward him out of his peripheral
vision.
“Daddy!”
Komyoji looked up just in time to see Mitsuko, his
eight-year old daughter, hurl herself at him with arms outstretched.
With a
grin and a rustle of paper, Komyoji hugged the girl. Had it been
only
yesterday that he had swung her up in his arms, her rich baby giggle
echoing
through the house? Now she was nearly half as tall as he was, and
Masaru was
the baby. Where had the years gone?
“Mitsu-chan,” he breathed, stroking her raven-dark hair as
she snuggled her head against his lab coat. He could feel her heart
beating,
quick with the surge of youth and life.
“I’ve missed you, Daddy,” Mitsuko said, her words
muffled. “You’re always working so much.”
He sighed inwardly. How could he possibly make her
understand? Soon enough, she would have to know the truth, and for the
time
being, Komyoji was determined to keep the innocence and wonder he saw
in
Mitsuko’s eyes. “I know, precious one, I know.” He knelt down in
front of
her, dropping down to her eye level. “How was school today?”
Mitsuko beamed at her father with eyes bright as a
blackbird’s. “It was great! We learned how to say ‘hello’ in
different
languages!”
Komyoji grinned. “Ah, I see. Well, here’s a quiz: how do you
say it in English?”
Mitsuko frowned. “You had to pick the hard one, don’t you?”
She thought for a moment. “Heu-roh. ” She made a face. “Ugh, my
mouth
doesn’t want to do that!”
“It was very good, Mitsu-chan,” Komyoji nodded. The girl
radiated pleasure at his praise, and Komyoji was suddenly aware of how
little
of it he ever gave her.
After the project’s over, he told himself, as he had
a hundred times before. Just a few more months, then I can take
Mitsuko to
school every day. I can read to her at night, and help her with her
homework. Just a little longer…
“You’re very smart; you take after your mother.” He patted
Mitsuko on the head and stood, glancing around the room.
“Speaking of,
where is she?”
“She’s putting Maseru down for his nap.” She sighed. “Babies
sure do sleep a lot. It’s kind of boring.”
Komyoji smiled down at his precocious little girl. “I
remember a baby who did the very same thing, and her name was Mitsuko.”
Mitsuko’s cheeks flushed. “Oh. I suppose babies need a lot
of sleep, right?”
“Right.” Komyoji patted Mitsuko’s shoulder. “Don’t
worry. Masaru will be awake before you know it and you two can play.
He’s got a
lot to learn, Mitsuko. You’ve got to promise me that you’ll teach
him
when the time comes.”
“Like how to ride a bike, and tie his shoes, and skip stones
across the koi pond?”
Komyoji’s eyes widened at the last item. “The poor fish! Who
taught you how to skip stones across the koi pond?”
Mitsuko flushed beet red. “Professor Gill taught me. He came
to see Mommy one day when she still had Masaru in her tummy.” She
frowned
up at her father. “Mommy wasn’t feeling good and had to go inside for a
while,
and while we were waiting for her to come back, he showed me how.”
Something began to jangle a warning in the back of Komyoji’s
mind, and he stiffened at Gill’s name on his daughter’s lips. When
was that?
Where was I? He tried desperately to cast back into his memory for
a visit
from Gill in the last few months, but all he saw were visions of the
lab;
diagrams, readouts, the half-finished body lying on the table.
Komyoji realized Mitsuko was tugging on his sleeve. “Daddy?
What’s wrong? Am I a very wicked girl for scaring the poor fish?” Tears
stood
in her eyes, threatening to fall at any moment, and he dropped to one
knee to
wipe them away.
“No, Mitsu-chan, you’re not a wicked girl. I’m sure the fish
have forgotten all about it. Just be good from now on.” He hugged
her
tight as she sniffled against his neck. “Okay, you go and start your
homework.
I’m going upstairs to talk to Mommy.”
“Okay,” Mitsuko nodded. “Can we go to the park with Mommy
and Masaru tomorrow?”
Komyoji stopped on the bottom step, feeling his heart pull
in two different directions. One half desperately wanted to get back to
his
laboratory, where the spirit of his slain son, Ichjiro, laid waiting
for Komyoji
to breathe life back into him. The other wanted to spend time with his
living
children, to enjoy them and watch them grow. Is there room
for both in
my heart? Komyoji anguished, watching Mitsuko’s hopeful
face.
“We’ll see, precious one. Go on now.”
Mitsuko nodded sadly. “Okay, Daddy,” she whispered, her
slippered feet padding against the wooden floor toward her room.
After checking on a soundly sleeping Masaru, Komyoji tapped
on the door to the master bedroom. “Suki, are you awake?” He called
softly,
remembering his wife’s habit during her pregnancy of resting in the
afternoons.
Masaru was an energetic and happy baby, and Komyoji was sure that Suki
would
welcome the chance to rest.
From the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door,
Komyoji realized he needn’t have bothered trying to be quiet. Suki was
nowhere
to be found, but an open suitcase lay on the bed, articles of clothing
and odds
and ends stacked neatly beside. Frowning, Komyoji turned toward
the
bathroom, and came face to face with his wife, who had an armful of
toiletries.
“Suki, what’s going on? Where are you going?”
“What does it look like? I’m leaving,” Suki said, pushing
past Komyoji.
“You mean you’re going on a trip?” Relief flooded Komyoji’s
chest; there was an explanation to his wife’s behavior. “I’ve heard of
this
happening. It’s called post-partum depression.” He stood behind
her and
patted her shoulders, but she flinched and he dropped his hands. “It’s
common
enough. If you need to get away for a few days, I can manage the
children.”
“No, Komyoji, I mean I’m leaving.” She continued to
pack her suitcase, her movements smooth and methodical. “My work is
done. I
won’t be coming back.”
In horror, Komyoji grabbed Suki by the shoulders and turned
her to face him. “What do you mean, ‘your work is done’?” When
she
remained silent and stony-faced, Komyoji shook her a little. “Answer
me,
woman!”
Suki’s deep black eyes blazed in anger. “Take your hands off
of me,” she spat, her voice low and dangerous.
Obliging her mainly out of shock—he had never thought his
sweet-faced wife capable of such a tone—Komyoji let go, and Suki
returned her
attention to her suitcase. “I meant what I said. My work is done.
Gill
has recalled me, and I’m going.”
“Gill?” His friend’s name—or was it former friend,
now?—again hung in the air like an ominous storm cloud. “You’ve
been…working…for Gill?”
“Yes. I report to him twice a month.” Suki smirked,
folding a skirt in half, then in quarters. “It’s made for a very
convenient arrangement,
since you’re mucking around in that hole you call a laboratory twenty
hours out
of every twenty-four.”
A sudden jolt of anger shot through Komyoji’s body, and he
ripped the skirt out of Suki’s hands. “Which one of us is Masaru’s
father?” he
raged. “Whose son is he?” He clenched his fists. “Damnit, woman, I’ve
already
had one son taken from me. I’ll be damned if I let Gill have Masaru!”
Suki’s laugh was mocking. “Don’t worry, Komyoji. He’s all
yours. You’ll know for sure when he grows up to be just like you, with
an IQ so
high it scares off any girl who dares get close, and a personality as
thick as
stone.” She snatched up the skirt and found a place where Komyoji had
torn the
fabric in his anger. “Look, you’ve ruined it. It’s worthless, now.” She
wadded
up the skirt and put it in the trash.
The world was spinning faster and faster, but Komyoji
couldn’t find the brakes. “If my IQ was so high that it scares women
off,” he
heard himself ask tartly, “Why is it that you married me, Suki?”
“Why?” Suki laughed again. “Simple. It was part of my
orders. Remember when Gill introduced us?” She fixed Komyoji with a
narrowed
obsidian gaze. “Oh, you were so pitiful that day, the grieving father,
the
lonely widower.” She stepped up very close to him, her smile
saccharine-sweet. “All I had to do was just smile and tell you how
sorry I was
about your loss, and maybe put my hand on yours…” She brought his hand
between
them, clasping it between her own. “There, you see?” Suki’s voice was
soft.
“You were blind and stupid and so trusting. You gave me every piece of
information I ever wanted about the Gemini Project, and I handed it
over to
Gill.”
Komyoji looked into Suki’s eyes, spellbound, lost in the
memory of that day. It was true; Gill brought Suki to lunch that
afternoon, and
it was as if an angel had descended from heaven to brighten a dark
world.
Looking at her now, Komyoji realized that the face and the eyes were
the same,
except where there had been compassion, there now gleamed hatred and
malice.
“Suki,” he whispered, pulling her into him and pressing his lips hard
against
hers.
With a banshee scream, Suki ripped her hands from Komyoji’s
and bit down hard on his lip. When she could taste blood, she let go,
and
whirled away from him to stand with her back against the armoire.
“You bastard!
Don’t you ever come near me again!”
Despite the hurricane of invective raging against him,
Komyoji reached for her. “Suki, please—“
“Stay away from me!” She grabbed up a heavy
vase and swung it at him. “I did everything I was supposed to. I let
you fall
in love with me. I married you.” She shuddered. “I did my wifely duty,
and I
bore your children. And it was all a lie!”
Komyoji took two steps toward her, but she swung the vase at
him again, growling like a tigress. “It wasn’t a lie! We…we fell in
love!
Mitsuko and Masaru were created out of that love! I don’t know what
Gill’s done
to you, but this isn’t you, Suki!” He tried to get close again, but
jumped back
after the vase narrowly missed his head. “You’re my wife. I love you. I
love
our children.” He realized that his face was wet; he didn’t remember
when the
tears started. “It was real, Suki. Please, you’ve got to believe me.”
Suki’s body was rigid with hate. “Get out of my sight.”
Downstairs, Mitsuko had heard the shouting in her parent’s
room and looked up at the ceiling. She was a little scared, but her
mother had
told her before that grownups disagree sometimes, and shout and say
things that
they don’t mean, just because they’re angry.
When Masaru began to fuss in the next room, Mitsuko laid
down her pencil and padded into her brother’s nursery. It was cool and
quiet,
with blue-painted walls and a carpet printed with sailboats.
Mitsuko
knelt down to stroke the dark fuzz on Masaru’s head through the crib
rails.
“Don’t worry, Masaru,” she soothed, as her brother turned
his gaze to her and gurgled happily in recognition of a familiar face.
“Daddy
and Mommy sometimes disagree. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love each
other,
or that they don’t love you.”
She smiled, feeling a warm stirring in her heart when she
looked at her little brother. “Daddy says I have to teach you things
when you
get older.” Mitsuko leaned her head against the bars. “I know
Daddy said
I couldn’t,” she whispered conspiratorially, “but I might teach you to
skip
stones across the koi pond anyway. But you can’t ever tell him
I said
that.”
Footsteps on the stairs made Mitsuko jump up and run down
the hallway. “Mommy! Daddy!” she called, but she stopped short at the
base of
the stairs as her parents descended the steps in silence. Her father’s
face was
wet, she noticed, and her mother had her coat on and a suitcase in her
hand.
“Where are you going, Mommy? Are you going on a trip? Can me
and Masaru come too?” Mitsuko hung on to the handle of her mother’s
suitcase,
but recoiled in hurt and confusion as her mother yanked it away.
Suki didn’t answer her daughter; instead, she marched across
the foyer to the door, her street shoes sounding loud in a space
usually trod
only by slippered feet. Komyoji grabbed Mitsuko and held her fast when
she
would have followed her mother out the door.
“Mommy?” Mitsuko tried to pull away from her father. “Where
are you going? Come back, Mommy!”
Komyoji’s heart broke as Mitsuko strained against him. In
the nursery, Masaru began to wail, responding to the stress tones in
his
sister’s voice. “Mommy!” Mitsuko shrilled. “Don’t leave,
I’ll be
good! Mommy!”
Mitsuko was in hysterics by the time the door shut behind
Suki. Komyoji knelt in front of Mitsuko and tried to calm her, and for
a
moment, it was as useless as trying to tame a wild bear cub. “Mitsuko!
Listen
to me!” He put his hands on either side of her tear-streaked face and
made her
look at him. “Listen to me, Mitsuko. Mommy had to leave us. She won’t
be coming
back. You’ve got to take care of Masaru now, he needs you.”
Komyoji
hugged his daughter fiercely to him. “You’re going to have to be
Masaru’s mommy
now. You’re strong and you can do it.”
“B-bu-ut who-oo-‘s g-gon-na feed him,” Mitsuko hiccoughed.
“I don’t kn-now how.”
“Yes you do, Mitsuko,” Komyoji said, pulling his daughter
away to look her in the eyes. “Remember how Mommy mixes the powder and
the
water and the milk? You can do that.”
“Y-yes,” Mitsuko conceded.
“And you know when to change his diaper, and how to give him
a bath, don’t you?”
The tears were nearly gone, and the sobs were slowing. “I
s-supp-pose I know how to do l-lots of things.”
“Now, you go in the kitchen and make Masaru’s formula.
Remember, if we work hard, we won’t be sad. All right?” At Mitsuko’s
nod,
Komyoji stood and steered her toward the kitchen. “I’m going to go turn
off the
lights downstairs, and then we can have supper.”
“Daddy?”
Komyoji turned back at the sound of his daughter’s voice. She
was standing in the kitchen doorway, and it struck him just how small
she
really was. “Yes?”
“You said if we work hard, we won’t be sad. Is that true?”
Numb to the soul, Komyoji nodded. “Yes. It’s true.”
Downstairs, Komyoji stood over the half-finished mannequin
lying on the table. The faceplate had the features of a boy long-dead,
and he
ran his fingertips along the hard plastic and metal cheek. The body was
the
result of Komyoji’s own direction to his daughter; the work had numbed
the pain
of losing Ichjiro. Now the pain came flooding back tenfold, along with
the
realization that Suki had given Gill every secret, every clue to
unlocking the
mysteries lying dormant beneath his hands.
He grabbed up a mallet and raised it high above the delicate
circuitry of the brain casing. He saw himself in his mind’s eye,
bashing
the faceplate in with the mallet, destroying months of work in mere
seconds,
mere heartbeats.
It would be like Ichjiro dying all over again. The mallet
fell from Komyoji’s nerveless fingers to clang against the cement floor.
“Forgive me, Jiro,” Komyoji sobbed, crumpling in a heap
against the table.
--End--
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