Page 14 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

“You’ve been gone all day,” she murmured.

“I’m here now,” I said softly.

My heart clenched as I said it. Because it was true, and because it wasn’t the truth she meant.

She kept looking at me, her eyes moving over my face with that searching, tender concentration that still had the power to make me feel both found and misplaced. There had been a time when these slips cut through me cleanly. I’d wanted to drag her back by force of will, wanted my love for my mother to be more useful. It had taken me too long to understand there was no winning that way.

There was only this: the offered hand, the gentler answer, the willingness to stand where she could still reach me.

Her brow drew in slightly.

“You’re too thin,” she said.

I’d learned to leave a little room in these moments. If I spoke too quickly, the moment would break. If I pressed, she might retreat into herself. So I let her hold my hand and look.

At last, her gaze changed. It didn’t clear, not fully, but some of my mother shone through.

“Oh,” she said again. Her free hand rose to my face, light against my cheek. “My boy.”

I turned my face just enough to press into her palm for one brief second.

“Yes, Mama,” I said.

She kept looking at me, her hand still on my cheek, searching for something she recognized. The recognition came slowly, a gradual return behind her eyes.

Her thumb brushed once beneath my cheekbone. She muttered something in Japanese, too quick for me to catch in full, but the tone of it was familiar even when the words were not. Fond. She was looking at me with the bright, patient concentration she used to wear when I was young and struggling through my lessons.

Then she spoke again, motioning toward the garden beyond the window. I only caught fragments. A question, I thought. Or encouragement. Then one word, clear as a struck bell.

Fire.

I searched my memory for something that might answer her without insulting us both.

“Watashi wa…” I began, then stopped, because whatever was supposed to come next had already abandoned me. I tried again, sounding clumsier. “Mada… benkyou shiteimasu.”

Her whole face lit with delight.

“You know it,” she said. “You only get nervous because I’m listening.”

“That is, in fact, exactly what’s happening.”

“Mm.” She patted my cheek, entirely pleased with me despite the evidence. “Good boy anyway.”

I bowed my head a fraction. “A triumph.”

She smiled at that, but she was no longer seeing me as I was. I could feel it in the quality of her attention. I’d become younger in her eyes, not the man sitting before her.

“You’re doing so well with your lessons,” she said. “Keep them up. You mustn’t get lazy with language. It slips away if you neglect it.”

My throat constricted before I could prevent it.

When I was young, she’d corrected my Japanese pronunciation with a patience so bright it made failure feel harmless. I’d wanted her praise with the single-minded desperation children reserved for precious things, but I’d never really gotten back to it. Later, I always thought there would be time to come back to it properly. After university. After I settled into the business. After things at home stopped shifting under our feet.

By the time I understood what I had let thin out between us, the loss of it had already become part of the structure of my life.

“Yes, Mama,” I said softly. “I’ll keep at it.”

Smiling, she took another sip of tea. Content for the moment, my mother turned her face back to the window.