Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [77]
“So, is she right? Is that what I’m supposed to do?”
Akira took off his glasses, set them on one knee, and slowly rubbed his face with both hands. He looked at Wataru. “I’ll always be your father.”
The five words ricocheted off Wataru’s heart like skipping stones on water. “That’s not what I asked. You know that’s not what I asked.” And Mom thinks you’re a coward for saying that, he thought, but he kept his mouth shut.
Akira turned his eyes toward the fountain, passing over the happy-looking couples and children. For a while he just sat, quietly, as though stupefied.
Then he put his glasses back on and turned back to face Wataru. It was as though he had been on break when he took them off. Now they were on, it was time to go to work.
“If by coming home you mean living with your mother again, then no, I won’t. You were right, Wataru. I’m never coming home.”
The floor dropped out from beneath Wataru. He reeled. He had asked the question and gotten the answer he expected, and yet he wasn’t prepared for the crushing weight of it. Everything—his hope, his father’s answer, his soul—went spinning down into a deep, black abyss.
“Remember what I said that night? I struggled with my decision a long time, but now that I’ve made it, I intend to see it through. I won’t be coming home. If there were the slightest chance of that, I wouldn’t have left in the first place. I know how hard this is, how deep it must have hurt you and your mother.”
Then why?
“You’re a smart kid, I should never have tried to talk around it. I should have told you straight from the very beginning. That was my mistake.” Akira continued talking, softly yet steadily. “I knew that no matter what I said you’d be sad, and maybe it was too early for you to even understand…That’s why I tried to leave without saying anything. I figured even if that made you hate or resent me, well, I would only be getting what I deserved. I was ready for that. I’m ready for it now. No matter how much you may hate me, Wataru, I won’t make excuses.”
There was nothing Wataru could say. As always, his father was being totally logical.
“Even if you came to hate me and say I wasn’t your dad, I would accept that. It’s what I deserve, I guess. But Wataru, know this: I will always be your father. That’s my responsibility, and, it’s the only thing I can offer you now.”
Wataru’s brain went into a tailspin. He thought he had understood his father’s answer, but now the meaning of it had somehow slipped out of his grasp and was gone to who knows where. Maybe it had already hit the ground, beating him to the final impact.
He was still falling, and he was alone, plummeting down a lightless shaft, down, down, the wind whistling past his ears. Far above him, the shaft entrance grew smaller and smaller, and his father, standing at the edge, was already a tiny speck.
“Of course I’ll pay for your education. And I’ll do what I can to help you and your mother meet expenses. Once I can talk to your mother more officially, I intend to do everything I can to make things easy for her. You can live in that apartment. That belongs to you and your mother now. Everything is taken care of.”
Dad’s talking about money. Right. Money’s important.
“Dad…so, you don’t like me and Mom anymore?”
Akira shook his head. “That’s not it. The way I think about you and the way I think about her are two completely different things.”
“Why? You’re my dad and my mom. We’re a family, aren’t we?”
“Families are…a group of individuals, Wataru. They can live entirely different lives, and sometimes the paths they take lead away from each other.”
“You’re living with another woman now, aren’t you? You like her more, right? That’s why you abandoned us, right?” Somewhere along the line, Wataru had gone from asking to accusing.
Akira’s eyes grew larger behind the rimless glasses. His mouth gaped. “Who told you that?”
“What does it matter who told me?”
“It matters to me. It’s not something you should have to hear. It’s not something I wanted you to hear.”
“But