Episode 25 | The Words 'Becoming a Family'

And then, he said this.

“Bring them here.”

That day, there were no lessons or youth baseball practice.
I went home a little early and took the children to the hospital.

When we stepped out into the deserted plaza on the hospital grounds,
he stood in front of the children and said, looking a bit shy,

“From today on, I’m going to be your father.”

The two of them looked puzzled.
And that was no wonder.

Because for a long time now,
he had already been 'that kind of presence' to them.

The school teachers, the other parents,
my parents, and my sisters,
everyone had accepted it naturally.

I thought, that’s just like him.
At the same time,
the fact that he had put it into words for the children
made me uncontrollably happy.

I think I turned my back on purpose,
and just stared at the hospital wall.

He, who had recovered enough to walk with a cane,
was discharged three months later.

To anyone who saw us, we were a natural family.

“Arisa, you confuse spoiling the children
with loving them.”

Saying that,
the children’s 'disciplinarian' had become him before I knew it.

Even though he had been doing housework before that,
he took on child-rearing as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He happily filled out their reading logs,
and would say, “You started baseball because you said you wanted to do it,”
while teaching them how to use the washing machine.

Stains that wouldn't come out,
he would quietly hand-wash in the bathroom
in the middle of the night after the children were fast asleep.

“Don't tell them,”

he would say with a laugh.

When the children complained,
“Mom is always sleeping,”
he would properly explain my illness to them
and help them understand.

—It’s okay to be alive.

Just a little bit,
I began to feel that way.

Going to the nearby TSUTAYA
to reserve Arisa-chan’s CD,
or watching dramas together.

Before I knew it,
my self-harm and panic attacks
had disappeared.


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Thank you for reading this far. Now, with surgery ahead of me, I am grateful that I was able to finish writing this 25th episode.