Chapter Text
There was a time, decades ago, when Matsuyo had imagined herself as some sort of undiscovered princess just waiting for her knight in shining armor to whisk her away to a life of idyllic bliss in a countryside castle far away. She had pictured herself tending to a small garden or raising horses as she happily led her life with her heroic, handsome husband. Of course, they would have children; she always wanted to be a mother, ever since she was a little girl playing with dolls, and she had always dreamed of having one boy and one girl—the perfect family. She would teach them both how to take care of the animals and maybe how to sew, and they would all live peacefully together as the perfect little family. She was a motherly type, after all.
Life has a habit of turning childhood dreams upside-down, however, and Matsuyo eventually became one of its practical joke victims. Even though things were not going at all the way she had planned when she was a little girl, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t happy (and completely terrified) when she was told by a baffled doctor that she might want to buy a few extra baby clothes. Her husband—who was not a dashing hero, but who was a loving partner, which was much better—had fainted when she passed the news along to him. They had been unprepared for this first wild adventure together, but they had made it through somehow, on a wing and a prayer and a lot of borrowed money.
Sometimes, Matsuyo looked back on those early days as a wild-eyed new mother and wondered how she managed to raise even one of those screaming babies past their toddler years. It had been a struggle, and on more than one occasion, she had been convinced she was the world’s worst mother, and that fate had chosen her for some kind of special punishment in giving her this impossible task. Somehow, however, she had muddled through, and she had watched her herd of boys grow from stumbling small children covered in bruised knees and scraped elbows into a wayward flock of young adults whose eyes often betrayed the more emotional injuries they were now carrying around inside. They had not become the perfect models of adulthood she had once dreamed they might be, but they were her sons, and she loved them unconditionally anyway.
Of course, she was still a mother. She still had to worry about them. Although her husband would have preferred it if she left them to fend for themselves, every time she tried, she found herself ushering them back under her wing, so to speak, and attempting once again to protect them from the world around them. She knew better than to think she could really keep them from being hurt, but she wouldn’t be much of a parent if she didn’t at least try. So, she made them snacks some days and breakfasts on others, she made sure they didn’t run out of medication or forget about appointments, she checked in on them on the dark nights when she herself couldn’t shake old memories long enough to fall asleep peacefully, and she tried not to think of all the times she had failed over the years. There was no sense in getting caught up in the past when she still had a family to tend to in the present.
Right?
She often wondered if she could have done something along the way to prevent the pain that she saw hidden just beneath the surface in every one of her sons. She knew (all too well) that life happens, and that bad experiences are inevitable, but still she couldn’t shake the idea that she might have made some changes for the better at some point in their collective past.
One of the many side-effects of being a mother (aside from the constant fretting) meant that Matsuyo heard every little sound in the house, all night, every night. Though she often still managed to get a good night’s sleep somehow, she was awakened every time one of her sons or her husband rose to go to the bathroom, or every time a stray cat or a howling wind made some noise outdoors. She had taken to sleeping with a hammer by the bed. She didn’t know what she would do if she ever had to swing it at someone, but if anyone threatened her sons, she was willing to find out. She often regretted not being so careful in her younger years.
This night, the sound had come from the kitchen, and she had sprung up immediately. Her sons almost never went to the kitchen in the middle of the night—they kept enough snacks around their room to satisfy any late night hunger—and her husband was sleeping soundly next to her. Her half-asleep mind flashed to her boys sleeping in the other room (but they weren’t children now, she had to remind herself), and she grabbed her hammer and stalked out of bed quietly, intent on finding the culprit.
It was dark in the kitchen, with barely a sliver of moonlight outside to shine through the small window, and she squinted in the gloom. Someone was seated at the table, which, she reasoned, was a strange place for a prowler. “Who’s there?” she asked, keeping her voice low and her hammer close.
“Osomatsu.”
She was relieved—it was one of her sons, after all—and then immediately became concerned once again. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” she asked, cautiously taking a step into the kitchen.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, and she heard more than saw him set down whatever he was drinking. Beer, probably. She wished he would watch how much he drank. “Bad dreams, I guess.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” She walked into the room, flipped on the small nightlight that was plugged in near the sink, and let her eyes adjust to the change in lighting. In a moment, she could see her son bent over his can of beer, looking haggard with his hair a mess, wearing his hoodie with his pajama pants. He was shivering periodically, though it was a warm night, and Matsuyo was keenly aware that these were not cold tremors.
“Not really,” he sighed, and put his head down on his arms. He was quiet a moment, then muttered into the table, “Sorry for making you worry.”
She wanted to tell him that she always worried about him, and the others too, but decided against it. Instead, she put on a kettle of water to boil for tea and slid into the chair closest to his, laying her hammer at the far end of the table. “It’s alright,” she said. “How much have you had to drink?”
He shook his head against the table. “Just a couple.”
She wasn’t sure she believed that, and she plucked the near-empty can out of his hand. He didn’t move to stop her, but he did groan, and she reached out to pat him on the arm in response. “You’ll feel better with tea than you will with alcohol,” she said gently. She could feel his arm tensing under her touch, and reluctantly, she moved her hand away again.
“Tea might not fix it,” he said slowly. “Just need to get that dream out of my head.”
She watched him sadly, taking note of every shudder that passed over his body and wishing the water would hurry up and boil. She felt so out of touch with her sons sometimes, and she hated not knowing what they needed to feel better. She wasn’t stupid, of course—she knew what this was about, what it had been about every time her oldest son had woken her in terror for the past fourteen years of his life—but she had never really known how to take this pain away. Things had been different when her sons were ten. There had been almost no way to help him then, and now that there were more options, she often worried that it was too little, too late.
But damned if she wasn’t going to do what she could, anyway.
“Why don’t you keep talking to me?” she said, trying to tread carefully into the conversation. Years of watching her little boy (even at twenty-four and trying to drink away his past at two in the morning, he was still her little boy) had taught her what she should and shouldn’t say, at least, when he was having trouble shaking off his nightmares. She didn’t want him to feel trapped in the conversation, but she didn’t want to lose him in his own mind, either.
He grunted, and for a moment, she thought that was all she was going to get out of him. Finally, with his head still down, he said, “I was hoping I wouldn’t wake you up.”
“You know I hear everything,” she said. “I was afraid—”
“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “I saw your hammer. What’s your plan with that? You need a gun, Mom.”
“Guns are dangerous,” she said as the kettle finally whistled. “Someone could get hurt.”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “You mean, one of us might use it.”
She didn’t say anything, but got up to fuss with the teapot in silence for a few moments. Only when the tea was steeped and ready to go did she return, pushing a cup gently toward her son. He peered over his arm at it, but otherwise made no movement.
“Drink up,” she said. “It’ll help.”
“Mom,” he said, his voice thick with tears he was fighting hard against, “tea isn’t going to fix it. Tea has never fixed it before.”
She sighed softly. “Oh, Osomatsu—I’m so sorry I haven’t been better at this all these years.”
He looked up at her then, and even in the dim light, she could see how drawn and tired his expression was. “Mom, don’t,” he said thickly. “It’s—it’s not your fault—”
“Don’t you dare sit there trying to comfort me,” she said quickly, wiping her own eyes behind her glasses. He looked taken aback by her outburst, and she tried to soften her voice as she added, “That tough act may work on your brothers, but it’s not going to fly here. I may not know what to do or say to take this pain away from you, but I do know when you’re lying. Just—just let me know if there’s something that can make this easier for you. Anything.”
His eyes were distant for a while, and even though he looked at her, she was sure he wasn’t seeing her. She sipped her tea slowly, otherwise trying not to move too much, and never looking away from him as he fought to keep his hold on reality. This wasn’t as bad as it could have been, she told herself. It wasn’t as bad as it had been, several times in the past. He would be back with her soon.
Until he was, she tried desperately to tell herself that he was right. This wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t the one who had hurt him. But she was the one who had let it happen right under her nose. She was the one who hadn’t known what to do for a traumatized little boy, or a traumatized teenager, until he had grown into a directionless adult who hid his feelings beneath his myriad of addictions. Matsuyo had never known what to do but offer her support, but now, that didn’t seem like it was quite enough.
Snapping her out of her own reverie, Osomatsu suddenly scooted his chair closer to hers and threw his arms around her, burying his face against her shoulder. She didn’t need a moment to compose herself; she was a mother, and she was never too startled to let her children cry on her. She quietly pushed her tea out of the way and pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him and stroking his hair slowly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“What on Earth are you apologizing for?”
“I woke you up. I scared you. And I’m still worrying you about this—it’s been a long time.”
Matsuyo kissed the top of his head and said, “It’s alright. I’m fine. I’ll sit with you in the middle of the night for the rest of my life, if you need me to.”
Osomatsu took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down, and she was glad to see that it seemed to be working. “I may have to take you up on that offer, you know,” he said presently, looking up at her and managing a small, shaky grin. “You may not want to make that much of a commitment.”
She laughed at that. “You’re going to talk to me about commitments? My entire adult life has been a commitment!”
He chuckled, too, and this time, it was real. “I know, I know,” he said, and with another deep, shaking breath, he shrugged out of her arms to sit back in his chair and grab his tea. “I’ve heard several times.”
“I’m a mother. It is well within my right to tell you as many times as I want to how much I do for you.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, and despite his exhausted expression, he smiled. “Thank you. For everything, I mean. You do everything for us, and none of us ever stops to say thanks for it.”
She stared at him, briefly wondering if this was really her son sitting in front of her saying this, before once again having to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I just want you to be happy,” she said, her voice cracking just a little. “Happy, and safe. That’s all I want.”
A moment of sadness passed over his face before he regained his smile and said, “You know I’ve never blamed you for what happened, right?”
“Oh, Osomatsu—”
“I’m serious. And I’m not just trying to act tough, either,” he added.
She was not used to her sons speaking so openly and honestly to her like this, and she wasn’t sure how to take it. Somehow, in the span of a couple of minutes, Osomatsu had said two of the things she had always longed to hear from him—“thank you” and “I don’t blame you.” How could she have ever expected that kind of comfort from her son? It was her job to comfort him, not the other way around! But here he was, sitting in the kitchen in the glow of the nightlight, telling her just what she had so desperately needed to hear for so long. She wanted to hug him again as tightly as she could, but she refrained, for his dignity as a grown man if nothing else. Clearing her throat, she instead reached out to give his hand a squeeze and said, “Thank you for telling me that.”
“Sure,” he said. He picked up his tea and sipped it, then pulled a face. “It’s cold.”
“I’m not making you a fresh cup,” she said sternly. “You can do it yourself.”
“Fine,” he pouted. “I’d rather have another beer anyway.”
She scowled at that, got up to put the kettle on again, and said, “We’re going to talk about that drinking habit of yours tomorrow, young man.” Matsuyo was a mother, after all, and no amount of whining from her grown-up son as he waited for her to make him some fresh tea in the middle of the night was going to change that.