Lies, Letters, and Calloused Fingertips.

Lies, Letters, and Calloused Fingertips.



Chapter Twenty-One: …You’re Safe, Child.



Less than a year later, I found myself standing beside a young boy – a boy I knew would someday grow into the man that would help make my wife the strong, capable woman that I love – at the foot of his mother’s grave.



I really had no idea what to say to Sachi as he stood there, crying and staring at the headstone. It had been a long and sad affair, and I wasn’t too sure that Sachi had been fully prepared for the loss of his mother. Tradition dictates that it is the eldest son’s job to organize the funeral – but he was only seven. Masaru, we all knew, was too much of a wreck, and his mother and father were too old.



So I did it.



I swear it nearly killed me. Jun was a good woman, a strong woman… Seeing her lying in the hospital bed for months and months, wasting away, definitely wasn’t good for anyone’s health. Not mine, not Masaru’s… and sure as hell not Sachi’s.



Masaru huddled close to his parents for comfort; I stuck close to the kid the entire way through the wake, the cremation, and the memorial. It took an entire two days to finally lay Jun to rest; the hour-and-a-half it took for the body to fully burn was one of the longest times of my entire life. Sachi and I just sat, side by side, at my Asakusa apartment, in silence for the first little while. Then, after being totally bored and depressed out of our minds, the tyke finally broke the silence:



“Inuyasha?”



I looked at him, my ears swiveling. After Jun’s diagnosis, I had let him in on the secret his mama had kept for me for so long – but made him promise to never tell anyone else, not his wife, not even his old man.



I blinked at him. “What’s wrong, little man?”



“Why did they put Papa’s name on the gravestone beside Mama’s?”



I blinked at him again, my throat tightening. “Well…” I licked my lips. My words from here on out needed to be carefully chosen. The kid was sensitive, I knew, and I hoped that I was delicate yet still informative. I stood and crossed the room, sitting beside him and patting his tiny knee with my large hand. “Sachi, did you see how your Papa’s name was engraved beside your Mama’s and then traced with red ink?”



He nodded, blue eyes trained on the floor.



“Well… That’s because…” I sighed. “It’s to show everyone how much your Papa loves your Mama.”



He finally looked up at me. “You mean, ‘loved,’ right, Inuyasha?”



For the first time in at least a month, I cracked a smile. My smile was contagious, I guess, because Sachi smiled back at me. “No,” I answered, still smiling softly. “No, I meant ‘loves.’ You see, even though your Mama’s not here with us anymore, that doesn’t mean that she’s gone for good. And nothing could ever stop your Papa from loving her – not even death.



“You see, most people engrave both married people’s names onto the gravestone for financial reasons – because they don’t have enough money to do it later, when the other person in the marriage dies.”



He blinked at me, his smile fading. “But you and Sesshomaru-san paid for Mama’s funeral expenses – right, Inuyasha?”



I nodded. “Right, little man. You know what that means?”



Sachi shook his head.



I chuckled as I reached my arm around his small shoulders and hugged him to me, trying to be merry about it. “It means that we didn’t put your dad’s name next to your mom’s on the headstone over money. We did it to show that your mom is waiting for your dad to join her – and that he’s waiting to do so.”



I watched, slightly astounded, as the look in the boy’s eyes changed drastically. They widened just a bit, and the blue in them slowly became clearer and clearer… and then they fogged over again with a rush of tears.



I crushed him to my chest as he started to cry, loud and hard, with sobs overpowering me as well.



Finally, the phone rang, and Masaru was on his way to pick us up for Jun’s memorial.



The future kook wasn’t doing too well, but I knew the pain would pass. It may take several years, but, eventually, times would be better. I knew there would be a day in the future when Sachi would be grown and get married, and it would be a happy day. And then he would give Masaru a beautiful granddaughter, and, soon after, a healthy son. After that, Masaru would be there to help Sachi’s wife take care of the kiddoes, and, eventually, it would reach that wonderful day when I showed up as a punk kid, demanding to steal his granddaughter away for chunks of time so large and erratic that he’d be forced to make her seem like the most contagious leper in history.



As Sachi and I rode in the car with Masaru to the memorial, I couldn’t help the smile I cracked at the thought of their future.



Now, if only I could’ve known my own…



In that future, I stood in a brightly lit hospital room, my ears lain back in overwhelming shame, and the only sounds that filled my ears were of my own heart slowly breaking. I lacked the ability to speak as you, Kagome… my Kagome… just sat there in your bed, staring at me with those wide, shell-shocked brown eyes. I couldn’t – can’t – stand the emotion in them – the one I put there. You looked so small and frail – and heartbroken – sitting there in your white hospital gown at least a size too big, your hair messy and wispy as it fell down your shoulders and back, your face pale and tear-streaked from hearing the tragic ending to my story.



A story you probably never should have heard…



“Get out,” you said, your voice low and feral.



My gut instinct told me to argue, to defy you, to force more information upon you –



But you knew already where I was headed as you snapped at me, “No, Inuyasha, no more. I said get out!”



My breath whooshed out of my lungs as disappointment and depression settled heavily upon me. Without saying another word, I turned and fled the room as quickly as I could without actually running. I saved that for the stairs; upon reaching the door at the very top of them, I flung it open with fervor, my chest heaving as I held back my broken sobs.



Standing there on the roof for barely a moment, I looked all around me, noting the almost obscene beauty of the night sky, filled with rolling, dark gray clouds and a multitude of bright stars. The air was chilly, and my heavy breath came out in clouds of mist as I turned, my eyes falling on the edge of the rooftop.



The gravel scrambled beneath my feet as I took off at a run, and I practically slammed the sole of my tennis shoe down on the edge of the roof before launching myself into the air, landing quite unceremoniously on the roof of the next building.



The tears finally came as I continued running, leaping from one rooftop to the next, and I let the entire torrent of emotions I’d kept bottled up for more than five hundred years run rampant.



I had no idea if I’d see my Kagome or my babies again; at the moment, that wasn’t all that I could think about.



When I came in the front door of my home, I walked briskly through the house to a music room on the second floor. Kagome had been in this very same room several times since our marriage, but she’d never noticed it… after all, I always kept it, leaning, in the corner, and it looks so innocent and inconspicuous…



I burst in the door, and there it sat… Keiko’s shamisen, old but still beautiful as ever. As I slowly approached it, staring down at the worn, wooden instrument, I bit my lip until it bled, losing myself in memories long dead.



In my mind, there Jun sat, on the edge of Sachi’s bed, strumming the shamisen saved over from her geisha days, smiling gently and singing softly to her boy. He always loved the way she played…



I reached forward and firmly grasped the slender neck of the three-stringed instrument, picking it up and folding my arms tightly around it. Without much control over my body, I fell back against the wall and slid down, huddling in the corner the shamisen had until recently occupied. My head fell forward, and I hugged my knees against the backing of the shamisen, which was squeezed close my heaving chest.



Unmoving, I allowed my memories to wash me away.



Next time:



Chapter Twenty-Two: You are Safe.