Akiko Nakai
A Letter to Mother (Thursday 31 July 2036)
To my most esteemed mother,
who is no longer with me and who was named Emi Ibarazaki at birth:
Greetings from your beloved daughter,
who is named Akiko because she looks like you and smiles a lot.
Dear Mother,
I respectfully apologise, sincerely and from my deepest heart, for not writing sooner. It is summer now, which is our season, the season of our family. The leaves are all brown and gold, and the sky is very bright, your favourite colour. I will be visiting, especially to see Father soon, on
the anniversary of his anniversary, and I will stay over with Gramma until after my 16th birthday on 8 August. I believe that Aunty Hana and
Uncle her husband will be joining us too.
I will now tell you about school, and my classmates in 1-4. School is now the Sendai-Aoba Mountain District Academy of the Yamaku Foundation, or Yamaku High, as we students say. My principal is the most famous Dr Shizune Hakamichi and people say she is very kind and dedicated. The Foundation looks after children with no parents or other lacks in their lives, but there are a few who are different. But I think you know about all that, because you and Father used to teach here, so I should tell you about my classmates.
My classmates are amusing. There is Daisuke, who has an impairment that makes him go unconscious when he looks at certain colours and patterns. He is a handsome boy, better looking when asleep. When awake, he looks spaced out, and he lacks coordination. Also, there is Haruna, who tells stories and claims he is not Japanese. But he looks like one and smells like one and so he must be a duck. Sorry, that is a joke. I learnt it from Motoko, who is always joking. She has a twin named Sumiko, who is always serious. They sit next to each other and reflect each other’s actions. They used to be joined together, but now they are not, and they only have one real leg each. I don’t think they are really
Siamese Thai, but they say they are. I think I have no sense of humour. That is my impairment.
There’s this exercise they’ve made us all do to end the term. It’s about writing to a family member that you don’t normally see, and we have to do it in English because this is an English lesson. So although I’m not very good at turning our language into English, I’m trying my best. Also, the format is very different.
I miss you, Mother, because I don’t see you normally. I only see you in my imagination, and in pictures. They have a big one of you in the Sports Achievements section of the main hallway. Some of your medals are in the trophy case. I want to be like you some day. But that belongs in a different paragraph.
I don’t know what to write, so this is the different paragraph. I am training for the heptathlon. My coach is Miss Takara Shimane (I am putting family name last because this is English) and she says you were her coach before. She would probably ask me to send you her regards if she knew I
was were was writing to you. I am growing a lot of muscle but I’m also fast. I try to compete in many sports at a school level but only the track and field events at higher levels. My weakness is throws, so I am spending more time this semester with javelin and shot. I throw discus for fun too, because I like it, and I play Ultimate Frisbee, but I am sure you would make
that farting sound cheeky noises about that. I miss that a lot, but it has been seven years and I’m not supposed to miss it so much.
I want to tell you many things and I never thought of writing you a letter until it was too late. I think if I write all the things I want to write now, they will ask me to visit
Kaneshiro-san Dr Kaneshiro’s office and see one of his counselling staff. But I’m stubborn like you and I will say things nobody wants to hear, like Aunty Rin. Aunty Hana will probably scold me in her soft and understanding way, but maybe it’s too late for that now.
Do you know that
the woman Shizune Hakamichi never mentions you? She is always talking about Father. I think she
loved liked Father a lot but she avoids talking about you. We have dinner and she will wave her fingers like: [It is your father’s thirteenth anniversary, would you like me to come with you?] And of course I will say [No] and kick Younger Brother’s ankle so that he won’t say anything different. Then she will look sad like she has eaten bad fish and she will go off and check to see if Aunty Hana will be in Japan. But if it’s May, she’ll just say: [It is almost May, so if you would like to go off for a few days in Golden Week, it is fine with me.]
I will never ever call her ‘Mother’. I understand that she has given me and Younger Brother a home now that Gramma and Dr Kaneshiro are getting older. However, she’s not you. She keeps trying to be you, or better than you maybe. It just makes me angry and I think it makes her sad because she can’t be you. Or at least, Father’s wife.
Maybe I’m not being kind to her. But I have no sense of humour, and I think you need something like that to be kind to Shizune Hakamichi, my esteemed Principal who is so good at everything, and whom everybody thinks very highly of. Younger Brother has a better sense of humour. She loves him much more.
I don’t know how to properly end letters, because they have formal endings like in Japanese, but too many of them, and they don’t seem right. I wish that you and Father are very happy and that I will see you some day soon.
Sincerely yours,
Your daughter Akiko Nakai,
who has Father’s brown hair and your eyes.
and who loves you very much.
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