Mistakes part 5

[krystalkatz.livejournal.com]

Junko stared around the spare bedroom that was now her own. When she had been young it had been her mother’s sewing room and off limits to her except for when she was being sized up for school costumes. Like everything else Kazuko did the costumes had been flawless and every year she had had the best bunny, fairy or once even a Godzilla costume. It was something that she herself hadn’t managed shuddering a little as she remembered the very tacky and very strange wicked witch costume that Shoko had had to wear only a few months ago. She didn’t know why her darling daughter was obsessed with witches but she was and Junko wasn’t going to argue if it made her happy she just wished that she had had her mother’s skills with a needle or at the very least the money to have brought her a better costume.

There was still evidence of the sewing room now, with a box in the corner and the sewing machine wrapped in a cover, but it didn’t look like she had used it in the years that she had been gone. Junko combed out her hair sitting down on the soft squishy bed feeling safe in the first time in three years. She wasn’t afraid of the door going and her husband stumbling in as drunk as skunk and waving his fists around. She wasn’t afraid that the children wouldn’t have food tomorrow or wouldn’t have to have cold showers and the electricity being switched off. Only the first year of her running away from home with her waster of a husband had been fun and exciting. She had been convinced that she was right to leave the almost suffocating protection of her mother but not long after Shoko had been born it had changed and she realised what her mother had seen in her husband. Shoko had developed colic and had screamed blue murder for most of the night for months on end. Her husband had refused to find and hold down a job that didn’t last for more than four a day and they were living each day as it came.

That was when the shouting had started, day after day with endless shouting matches, he had never been violent towards her but there was something inside that had made her fear him. There had been good days too and those combined with her own stubbornness and pride had prevented her from coming home or even picking up a phone. A knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts and she looked up at the door smiling when her mum’s head popped around the door when she called out come in.

“Warm milk, with just a touch of honey…I’ve already given one to Shoko and Masaki…” Kazuko whispered softly holding up a purple cup and coming into the room tip toeing slowly. Junko gave a smile accepting the cup the warm porcelain warming her fingers and the smell washing over her remembering the days when she was drink her milk while Kazuko combed her hair and told her bed time stories of her grandmother.

“Thank-you…You don’t have to do all this you know…” She murmured as, as if she was reading her mind, Kazuko took the comb from her and began brushing her wayward hair as she whispered;

“I want to, I…I’m sorry that I drove you away…”

“Oh mum, you didn’t not really…” Junko denied turning to face her “I just…I made a mistake mum, I made a lot of them…I didn’t know what to do…”

“What you should have done…Is exactly what you did…You protected those children and now you’ve come home…Nobody could think any less of you, not me, not anybody…” Kazuko told her turning her head back around and continuing to brush the untidy locks.

Shoko lay in the big bed looking around the very pretty warm room not believing that when she woke up she wouldn’t be back in the small, smelly cold apartment. She was only four but she knew that he had made her mummy very sad being in there with their nasty daddy. But here with her pretty granma and grannpa made her mummy happy, Masaki seemed happy too. Masaki really liked his granma who had said he was clever even when he was making a mess. She already liked it here in the pretty witches cottage and the drink that she had been given had been very nice to. The little girl froze a little as the door opened and a shadow swept into the room. For one wild moment she thought that it was her daddy coming to take them back but the moon light quickly showed that it was her grannpa carrying a lamp that was so very pretty. It was of a fairy in a pretty pink dress sitting on a mushroom with a flower above her.

“Your grandma thought you might feel scared in the dark…” Grannpa whispered holding up the lamp with a smile before putting it onto the bedside table. Shoko was not afraid of the dark but she was often afraid of the things that might be in the dark but she knew that she couldn’t keep the light on all night and they didn’t have the money for that. With great interest Shoko watched as he plugged it into the wall and the whole flower glowed lighting up the pretty fairy like magic causing her dress to sparkle like it was covered with fairy dust.

“It’s so pretty!” Shoko gasped loudly before remembering that Masaki was sleeping and she clamped a hand over a her mouth nervously thinking the old man was going to shout at her but the old man just ruffled her hair before stroking the top of the fairy.

“I made it for your mama, when she was a little bit older than you…Look see her face is your mama’s face…” Grannpa told her and Shoko looked at the face, her eyes going wide when she saw that it really was her mama’s face.

“Mummy’s a fairy!” She cried forgetting herself again and almost screaming out her excitement causing Masaki to give a whimper and then a full on cry “I’m sorry! I dinna mean it!”

“Don’t worry, I wake your grandma up all the time…” Grannpa laughed going over to crib and stroking the babies arm and singing gently under his breath. It was a pretty song and Shoko found her eyes growing heavy as she listened to it but she kept her eyes on the fairy wishing with all her might that when she woke she would still be here in this magic house. “Good night sweetheart…” Grannpa whispered and Shoko smiled her eyes falling closed positive that warm lips landed on her cheek.

TBC
A/N: I hope that this is okay ^_^