Pink Snow

by Agnes Petrucione

It was always Mari Ne-chan that my father picked. She used to cry and yell at first, but after some years all I could hear was the rocking of the bed. I would cringe until I fell asleep, dreaming violent, sickening things. I felt ashamed that my mind stored such thoughts and made me see those things, night after night.

Mari Ne-chan’s eyes always looked like a doll’s glass eyes, but she always smiled when she saw me come down the stairs in the morning. I could see a light deep in her eyes that was still shining. Mom always pretended like nothing was going on, but I knew she cried alone in the bathtub and cut shallow wounds into her arms. I didn’t feel sorry for her.

Ne-chan used to walk me to my school and then go to hers, but when I started going to middle school too, we walked there together. We talked a lot and laughed a lot, but I knew she was empty inside. Dad ate her soul out slowly, greedily, every night. We talked about anything but that. I don’t know why. I was the only person she smiled to and really meant it. She wanted me to bring it up, help her healing process begin. I was too selfish and she was too empty. We were both crying inside and pretended like we didn’t hear it.

One night Dad didn’t go to Ne-chan’s room. In fact, he didn’t even come home. Then that went on for a couple days.

“He left us,” Mom said while she was doing the dishes. She didn’t even look at us, her back to us the entire time. She did the dishes mechanically, one plate at a time. I thought of the old ghost story where a woman was killed by her master because she broke a plate of a 10-piece set. Her ghost haunted the well she was thrown down, eternally counting the plates, never to find the tenth one.

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t take my eyes off the TV. I had figured that much.

I looked over at Mari. The TV was reflected on her eyes, flashing blue and white. I turned away. She was so far away. Good-bye, I thought. And she came to say goodbye that night.

I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Ne-chan opened the door slowly.

“Nami-chan?” she whispered.

“Un.”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” I said, and sat up facing the door.

She came in fully dressed, and sat down next to me.

“I’m leaving,” she said, looking at me, her eyes full of color for the first time.

“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”

She looked confused. “Thank you? For leaving?” She laughed.

“No. For waiting. To leave. You knew what Dad would’ve done to me if you left. I’m sorry.”

She smiled sadly and stroked my hair above the ear.

“I might not see you again,” she said.

“I know.”

Then she moved her face closer to mine and closed her eyes, giving me a kiss. I was taken aback at first, but I closed my eyes and let our soft lips overlap. She pulled away and gave me the brightest smile I had ever seen.

“Don’t say bye to mom for me,” she said with a giggle.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “She’ll probably just pretend like you were never here.”

Then there was a sad silence because we knew this was true.

“Bye-bye,” she waved at me, and left my room.

I lay back down in my bed and stared at the ceiling. It seemed so quiet without the rocking bed next door.

Then I felt a click in my head. I felt like my brain was changing its structure.

I fell asleep like my body gave up to let all the energy go to my brain. The next morning I didn’t remember any of my dreams.

“Good morning,” I said to my mom as I came downstairs. She turned her head around from the sink.

“Good morning,” she said with a nervous smile.

There was a note in clear sight on the dining table. Scrawled in Ne-chan’s handwriting, it read, “I’m leaving at last.”

I guess that was the way mom wanted us to agree upon the fact that Mari wasn’t here anymore.

“Bye,” I said, and left for school. The smell of miso soup that mom had prepared for breakfast trailed behind me. As always, she didn’t say anything.

The world was vibrant. I felt like I saw color for the first time. It was April and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. A sparrow chirped at me. “Hello,” I answered back.

Mari Ne-chan wasn’t here. She wasn’t walking with me to school, but she was happy, and for the first time my dreams didn’t haunt me. I felt like I could fly. Fly with the sparrow through the cherry blossoms. High, high, into the sky.

School was a blur. People looked at me weird because I was smiling constantly. I guess I didn’t do much of that before. Life was crazy for me all of a sudden. No threatening footsteps, no silent submission. My life as I knew it was gone. Is this what being normal feels like? But will I ever be normal?

No. The answer came to me as suddenly as being stung by a bee in a field of flowers.

I never saw her before. I guess I never saw much of anything before. During class, I was looking down onto the field where another class was having PE. It was my sister’s class, because I recognized some of them from when they had asked me what happened to her. I always told them she flew away free as a bird. They would give me a look like they were disgusted with me and walk off.

She was sitting on a bench at the side of the field in her uniform. I guessed she was either sick or on her period since she wasn’t joining the class. Or maybe she was just like Ne-chan. I could only see the side of her face but that was enough. She had long, straight hair that was shining a light brown in the sunlight. I could see her long eyelashes and her plump lips. Smiling, I dreamed of kissing those lips and stroking back her hair. My teacher had been calling on me for some time but I hadn’t noticed. He told me to go stand out in the hallway.

So of course, I went up to the roof. I climbed up the dark staircase to the door that said “No Entry,” stepping over a pail and a used condom. I opened the door and the light blinded me for a second. A breeze cooled my face and my hair danced in it happily. I walked over to the fence and lit a cigarette. It was a habit I picked up to see if my mom would notice. I smoke in the living room too but I guess she doesn’t see.

As I blew out smoke, I looked down onto the ground where the PE class was in two lines, for a 25m sprint. They were all wearing a white T-shirts and black shorts. Their heads looked like black specks of mascara-tears. I felt like I could step on them and make a smear of sesame seed jam. Yummy, yummy, spread it on some toast.

The bell signifying the end of class rang.

“Uh-oh,” I said to myself. My teacher will find out I didn’t stay out in the hallway.

“He can just die,” I laughed to myself, and I couldn’t stop laughing.

“What are you laughing about?”

I turned around with a smile frozen on my face.

That girl I had seen sitting on the field was right behind me. I hadn’t heard the door open or any footsteps. Well, maybe I had left the door open.

“Because I’m happy,” I replied.

“That’s good for you,” she said, expressionless.

“Can I have one of those?” She pointed at my cigarette.

“Of course,” I replied, and lit it for her.

She leaned on the fence next to me with her back to the field. She stared at the smoke trailing up, up, up into the clouds.

“I saw you on the field,” I said.

“I saw you in the classroom,” she said.

“Why did you come up here?”

“Because I wanted to.”

I pondered that response for a while.

“Okay,” I said.

We stood there silently together for awhile, puffing on our cigarettes and watching the clouds trail by. I saw one that looked like a lamb.

“Look,” I pointed it out to her.

She turned around and looked at where I was pointing.

“Oh yeah,” she said.

That made me happy. I felt like I was seeing the other side of Mari Ne-chan that she showed to everybody but me. I smiled.

“You’re weird,” she said, and for the first time her eyes showed some interest. She put her hands on the railing and leaned over the fence, her hair shining like strands of silk.

“If I tried to jump off right now, would you try to stop me?”

I dragged on my cigarette and thought about it. Realizing that it was my last puff, I flicked it over the railing onto the field.

“Yeah, I think so.”

She plopped out of her position onto the roof.

“Why?” she asked.

“Reflex.”

She giggled. That made me grin. Yes, yes, it’s only me. I know it’s only me she’s ever giggled in front of like that.

The bell rang again, for the start of the next class.

“Are you going to class?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay then, I’ll see you.”

I walked away from her towards the door. After a couple steps, I turned around. She was staring down onto the field, her skirt flapping teasingly around her thighs.

I started going to the roof every lunch break. She would come up occasionally, then more frequently. She never ate, although she always brought up a lunchbox with her that her mother had prepared. It was always a very colorful lunchbox. I usually ate most of it because she wouldn’t touch it. She laughed every time I asked for hers after I finished mine.

“You’re gonna get fat,” she’d say.

I learned her name was Yuki. Like snow. Like cherry blossom petals snowing on you in a pink flurry.

“That name fits you so well,” I had told her.

“No it doesn’t,” she said in her expressionless way.

“Yes it does,” I had said, and kept on eating.

I hated rainy days because that meant we couldn’t have lunch together on the roof. But I’d go there anyway after I’d finished eating, smoking a wet cigarette under an umbrella. She never came up on rainy days. But I imagined she was under my umbrella with me, all huddled up, passing a cigarette back and forth. I would even talk to her sometimes.

“Get in closer, you’re going to get wet.”

She would smile and wrap her arms around mine. I would be able to smell her shampoo. I never actually have but I imagined it would smell something like baby powder.

I dreamed about Yuki day and night. I talked about her nonstop to my mother but I never knew if she was listening. Her arms had scabby lines all over more than ever and her eyes looked more and more like Mari Ne-chan’s during dinner time. I would yell, “Mom!” from time to time, and she would look over and smile an empty smile.

Yuki was my world. My vision was blurred in pink, pink snow. And it felt good, so good that I forgot about Mari Ne-chan and only thought of Yuki; Yuki, the girl who reminded me of Mari Ne-chan.

But of course the snow had to turn black, black, black. Yuki didn’t come up for lunch one day. Then the next, and the next. I would eat alone, hungry from the lack of Yuki’s lunchbox. I would look to my side and sigh.

“What happened to you, Yuki-chan?” I would ask.

A sparrow would chirp in reply.

“People come and go, people come and go,” it sang, so I threw my chopsticks at it. It went flying with a light rustle of wings up into the sky, under which Yuki lived somewhere.

I went to Yuki’s homeroom teacher.

“Has Yuki-chan been absent?”

The teacher eyed me suspiciously.

“You mean Kawahara? She’s been absent for a week now. There are all these papers for her for the classes she’s missed but nobody in the class wants to take them to her.” He sighed, as if it was Yuki’s fault.

“I’ll take them then,” I replied and grabbed a pile of papers off of his desk.

“Oh, okay, thank you then,” he said, and gave me her address. He didn’t seem worried that Yuki was absent, just annoyed. Or something.

I skipped the entire way to her house and sang a happy song. Sparrows would join in, chirp, chirp, happy days. People would make way for me. They knew I was on an important mission. The cherry blossoms were blooming for me and for Yuki.

I rang the doorbell to the house with the sign, “Kawahara.”

Nobody answered.

I rang again.

Nobody answered.

So I rang several times in a row this time, with a rhythm to it.

“What!” I heard somebody yell. I froze. “What do you want! Why can’t people leave me alone!”

I felt dark clouds collecting over my head. It was going to rain.

I heard Yuki’s muffled voice calming the yelling woman down, and when it ceased I heard footsteps coming towards the door. Yuki opened the sliding door violently, the door bouncing back a bit after a slap.

“Who is it!” she tried to say, but stopped mid-sentence when she saw me. She looked down at her feet, and shifted them a bit.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

It was raining. Yuki’s socks were getting wet.

“One second,” she said with a sniffle, and put on some shoes, told the woman she would be right back and took two umbrellas from the stand in front of the door.

“It looks like it might rain,” she said.

Silly Yuki-chan, it’s already raining, I thought.

Yuki-chan suggested we take a walk to a park near her house. I agreed and reached out my hand. She took it silently. There was a cool breeze, and I smiled at the wind sprites carrying our hair up in a silky melody.

“Not too strong,” I whispered to them, “or you will carry her away.”

“Did you just say something?” Yuki-chan looked at me with playful suspicion.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

We eventually reached the park. We sat down on a bench under a cherry blossom tree. Some of the bench was covered in pink petals. A petal fell on Yuki-chan’s hair. She didn’t notice and I didn’t tell her. It looked too pretty to talk about.

I sat looking at her, smiling.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked, more sternly than the first time she had asked me. I gave her the same answer.

“Well I’m not happy! What are you? Do you even remember what just happened at my house?” Yuki-chan’s eyes were welling up with tears. No, no rain, no rain.

I hugged her like I was trying to stop a little child from crossing a red light. I heard Yuki draw her breath. Tightly, tightly, I hugged her. I felt her breathing become slower in my chest.

“It hurts,” she whispered.

I let her go.

“Don’t cry. Mari Ne-chan never cried,” I said to Yuki. My vision started to blur.

“What do you mean? Your sister?”

I nodded and looked down at my feet. It’s raining, raining, raining. The rain started at my feet, then was everywhere. Yuki opened up an umbrella and we huddled under it together. Her hair smelled like faded flowers. Yuki wrapped her arm around mine.

“My mom…”

“My dad…”

We started at the same time. We looked at each other and laughed. We didn’t need words. After our laughter died out, there was a silence like a sigh. We looked at each other. I put my right hand over her ear, combed up her hair, pulled her head closer to mine. She didn’t resist. We kissed and kissed and kissed under the pink rain. The cherry blossoms were falling everywhere, patter, patter, patter. Under the same umbrella. Up, up, up we go.