Queen of Love

Chapter 4

“Hora!” A mother’s booming voice shook the walls of the small laundry room. Only a few feet away, two seven-year-olds wrestled for command of a Star Wars lightsaber that was destined to knock half the pictures off the wall in the living room. “Were my children kidnapped in the middle of the night and replaced with monkeys? Did this happen five years ago?” Hands tossed into the air. So did the recently dried children’s underwear covered in Disney characters. “I told you two to not bring that thing beyond your room! Put it back!”

As soon as Mari turned around, her children flashed mischievous grins at Aya and resumed bonking each other on the head with a plastic lightsaber. The boy, Sho, was bouncier than his twin sister, but it was Hisa who was the loudest. Her voice was much like her mother’s. Right through the ear canal and to the brain.

That shriek of defiance was how Mari knew to drop her laundry basket and hunt down her children in the long hallway beyond the laundry room. One minute later, she returned to the accompaniment of cries of despair. The plastic lightsaber hung from her hand.

“Go watch TV!” she called over her shoulder. To her own sister, who leaned against the washing machine and did her best to dance around the dirty clothes on the floor, she said, “Never have kids. You hear me? I don’t care what Mom and Dad say to you. Don’t care what the media says. Never. Have. Kids.”

She folded her children’s underwear with a huff. Aya chuckled. “You love them.”

“Oh, yes, like one loves the mole on your arm. Sure, it’s a part of you, but you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they’re cancerous!” That word shot so loudly from her mouth that both Sho and Hisa fell over in the hallway, giggling. A while later, an “Anpanman” rerun blasted from the living room TV. “I envy your life, little sister.” Mari set aside the folded underwear and began work on the T-shirts and dresses. “No husband. No kids. You’ve got a career and an apartment in the city. With a view!”

She hissed that detail as if it must be hidden from the rest of the neighborhood. “You make it sound like I’m living the high life,” Aya said. “Hardly. Besides, you were the one always going on about how much she wanted to get married and have a kid.”

“A kid. Yes. One. I knew I could handle one.”

“Mom is truly proud of you for getting that two babies for one pregnancy deal.”

“Oh, our mother? The woman who is so stingy in the shop that even her most loyal customers haven’t been given a deal in decades?”

“It’s a rough business running the neighborhood shoe shop.”

That got Mari to smile. “Ara, I’m turning into the old crazy woman. How did she put up with us? Only a year apart!”

“You were the wild one, but you followed societal expectations. It merely took you a lot longer than Mom would have liked.”

Aya followed her sister out of the laundry room. Mari carried the small, half-broken basket of children’s clothes. Together, they walked up the narrow, curving stairs and down to the twins’ bedroom. Aya almost tripped over a tiny metal truck left in the hallway. Mari didn’t notice it.

“You were the quiet, studious one.” Mari shook her head. Her latest batch of curls, currently dyed a rusty red, took up more space in her kids’ room than the furniture. Aya slipped out of the house slippers and allowed her bare feet to touch old tatami. While Mari put away her kids’ clothes, she continued, “Gay, though. Gay!”

Aya held a finger up to her lips, looking over her shoulder in case the kids had followed.

“Oh, they don’t know what it means.”

“I’ve gotta be careful, sis.”

“Sure, that’s why your company sent you after that Chinese lesbian.”

Aya almost fell through the paper screen behind her. The one with three holes punched into it already. That’s what happened when two small children lived on the other side. “I regret telling you about that. You can’t keep anything to yourself. You’ve probably told Dad everything, and Mom probably thinks I’m marrying Singaporean royalty. By the way, she’s Singaporean, not Chinese.”

“Ara, is there really a difference?”

“Yes.” Aya bit her lip. “I think.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. You’re the well-traveled one.”

“I’ve been to America.”

“More places than me!”

Mari motioned for her sister to follow her back downstairs to the kitchen, where Aya sat at the small table and waited for tea and sliced peaches to be served. One room away, the kids lay on their stomachs watching cartoons. Mari barked at them to turn down the volume. Sho promptly cranked it up, making his sister clasp her hands over her ears and scream that it was too loud.

Yeah, can’t say this is my dream life. Auntie Aya got away with murder around here, though. To her kids, she was the super cool aunt who bought them candy and presents. Whenever she was roped into babysitting so Mari could run an errand, Aya took them down to the McDonald’s at the train station and plied them with French fries and Happy Meal toys. Pretty sure I almost stepped on one in here… She only had herself to blame.

“So, you dating anyone?” Mari sat down with two mismatched cups of green tea and a small bowl of peaches. A fork clanked across the bowl. Neither of them picked it up. “Mom’s gonna ask me tomorrow when I take the kids over.”

“Depends. Can Mom handle me dating another girl?”