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It started with her big imagination running too wild. Actually, most things did. If Koiwai thought about it, and sometime he did, his life would be a lot duller without her. It wouldn’t have any excitement at all, really, just a ceaseless cycle of work days, their only differences being whether or not he was wearing pants.
It was an understatement that life as a parent changes you; he’d heard that so often it didn’t have much meaning, even from his own parents. He’d regarded it in the way people regard things that never will (seemingly) apply to them. He never saw himself as a father, and life has that weird and wonderful way of throwing things at you unexpectedly and sometimes for the better.
Yotsuba wasn’t thrown at him so much as she slid into his life under the radar, a slight climate change. Dealing with children was interesting; no one, for better or worse could say it wasn’t. Children were irrational and sometimes infuriating little people. Much was the case now, as Koiwai stood slumped in the doorway of the bathroom, holding tonight’s story book and trying not to laugh. It was such an amazing classic childhood thing, textbook and adorable. Thinking you saw a ghost. Sometimes things your own kids did were adorable that would otherwise be irritating.
Pig-tailed head stuck inside the shower, Yotsuba’s voice echoed as she groaned. “I don’t see it in here now!” Koiwai had suggested she herself look in the bathroom, and she had agreed reluctantly, leading the way there with trepidation. A fear of the unknown upset her, but at the same time an interest in the unknown intrigued her. She didn’t exactly want to find anything in there, but in the event she did, that might be an adventure.
Koiwai liked his daughter’s willingness to try new things, even if she did take it too far on a regular basis. Her imagination was limitless and it was bothering her now.
She turned around and squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s not a lie.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“I had to look!” Her eyes flew open, all insistence and indignation.
Following his skeptical expression he tried to cover up, she pointed towards her bear, which she had set onto the closed toilet lid.
“Duralumin saw it too!” As expected, it said nothing, its glassy eyes impartial. Koiwai smirked.
“Maybe if you describe it again, I’ll be on the lookout.”
“It was big, and had a big round head that was orange and had a face.”
“Hmmm.”
“I came in here to pee, and there it was in the shower.” She looked in the now-empty shower and frowned. “It wasn’t scary. I wasn’t scared, but then I couldn’t find it again and I got scared.” Yotsuba’s hands flopped to her side, defeated.
“Was it a jack-o-lantern?”
Expecting her to giggle, Koiwai was surprised when she did the opposite. Her expression turned serious. “What would that be doing in the bathroom?”
“I don’t know, you tell me, you saw it. Was it a pumpkin?”
“Daddy.” She leaned down, ear toward her bear. “Duralumin says it was a pumpkin.”
“That I don’t believe. Maybe we should get her sight checked.” He sighed. “I can read to you tonight if you come right now.”
Yotsuba grabbed her bear and followed him out of the bathroom, walking backward as he turned off the light, squinted into the dark as though it would tell her something.
*
Koiwai had been getting a nightly glass of milk in the kitchen when Yotsuba had ran in, clutching her bear, looking more confused than afraid.
“There’s something in the bathroom.”
“I’m not going to look at your poop again.”
“No, it’s not something good.” She looked back at the bathroom.
“Poop is good?” He set down the glass of milk and wiped his mouth on his hand, watching Yotsuba’s face become more insistent at his subject change. She tugged on the knee of his pants with a small hand, in such a pitiful way that he sighed and asked her what it was.
“I just saw something I think was scary in the bathroom. I think it was scary.”
“I’m going to get a book and we’re going to bed—“
“Get the book and come with me.” She nodded resolutely, all pigtails aquiver. Might as well do what she’d asked; sometimes that was just easier.
*
Yanda leaned against the sink, cupping his bowl of noodles in one hand and holding chopsticks in the other as he watched Koiwai do what he considered the most domestically disgusting thing he’d seen yet: make lemonade. Yotsuba was coloring in the next room and pretending Yanda didn’t exist. Maybe she’d draw a picture of him getting kicked in the stomach by her again. That’d be good. He took a noodle slurp, and deemed them cooled enough to eat.
“Can I have some lemonade when you’re done?” He raised his eyebrows, peering over the noodles at Koiwai’s expression.
Koiwai rolled his eyes.
“Daddy!”
Yotsuba ran into the kitchen, a paper clutched in her hand.
“We have lemonade now—“
Yotsuba held the paper up, ignoring the offer momentarily.
“You shouldn’t run indoors,” Yanda offered.
“Why would I walk when I can run?” Yotsuba glared over his shoulder.
“I’m right here, you know. Is there something wrong with her eyes? She’s looking past me.”
“I don’t want to look at you.” She shook her head. “Daddy, this is what was in the bathroom last night.”
“I’m eating, you know.”
“Yeah,” said Koiwai, taking the paper from her hands. He frowned down at the paper. “It’s a jack-o-lantern.”
“Wait what?” Yanda craned his head to see.
Yotsuba looked over his shoulder again. “I saw a jack-o-lantern in the bathroom.”
“She says she does.”
“That’s so weird.” Yanda began to drain the juice from his noodles, feeling Yotsuba’s glare resting on him this time. She looked away when he grinned back at her.
“Go eat lunch at your house!” she yelled, running back into the living room.
“Guess the lemonade is for us now, she’s too preoccupied with the pumpkin thing. Hand me two glasses.” Koiwai blew his bangs from his forehead. “She makes up so many strange things.”
“Maybe it’s a cry for help.” Yanda shrugged.
“What kind of cry for help?”
“She thinks I’m so mean to her, maybe it’s a case of childhood delusions.” Yanda took the lemonade offered to him, swirling it around as he added lightly, “I mean, I could’ve sworn I left the pumpkin head on the front steps.”
“You left the pumpkin? Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah I left it outside. I think she’s lying.” Yanda took what he thought was an innocent sipping of lemonade.
“I think you are a sick man, kōhai.”
*
Koiwai stumbled into the bathroom. Most of the clocks in the house were slightly off, but there was a general agreement that it was somewhere around one a.m. He didn’t remember falling asleep, and was barely awake now. He kept dreaming he needed to pee, so he got up to do so. The bathroom floor was cold to his bare feet and through bleary sleep he found the light switch.
He didn’t notice it at first as he lifted up the lid of the toilet.
A small plastic jack-o-lantern was sitting in the shower. Its cheap grin stood out against the white, orange and out of place.
He glared and shut the shower curtain before attending to business. All he could think through a haze of sleep was, “Don’t need an audience.”
*
It only occurred to him the next morning what had happened.
He’d seen the damned pumpkin.
It was gone and never to be seen again after the early morning sighting. Yotsuba forgot a few days later, not having seen it for a few days and her head filled with more important things. Yanda didn’t come by for a few days and when he did he swore, when asked, he didn’t even put the pumpkin inside and had expected Yotsuba to find it when she went out to fetch the mail.
Koiwai frowned at Yanda, and didn’t tell him he’d seen the pumpkin too. He didn’t tell Yotsuba. Was it possible for people in an entire family to go crazy?
The only way he remembered was the drawing Yotsuba had made, and it was a childish rendition of what he’d seen.
Life with children makes you accept the weirdest things. Things he would never have thought about and let roll off his back for the sake of not scaring his child. Maybe their house was haunted, maybe their ghost was Yanda. Maybe he was dreaming. If it wasn’t a problem now, then there was no use worrying about it. Huh. Strange. That's all you could say.