Chapter Forty-One: Still Sane?:

-Anna-

I ran my finger along Kirika-chan’s cheek. Asato-kun’s having me spend time with the baby again. Me? Being a mom? The Mother doesn’t want to take care of more children. As you can see, I am still stuck. Tana’s question only made it more of a headache.

“What do you want?” she asked me during therapy yesterday. I stared at her with big eyes.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admitted.

“Why is that?”

“So much going on.” To be honest, I didn’t want to think about the notion of being a parent. How did it get this messy? I looked at Kirika-chan.

“Must be easy being you,” I said. “You’re just a baby. All you have to do is be cute and little.” I sighed. Asato-kun adored this child. Maybe not in a way that he needs to. I couldn’t reach him at this point. Now what?

“I’ve got an idea,” someone said behind me. I turned to see the Mother walking into my room. She stood over me as I pressed my hand to my forehead.

“As much as I don’t want to know,” I said. “What do you suggest?” She put her hands on her shoulders.

“Let Daiyu take the brat home,” the Mother said. I gave her a blank stare.

“What?” I asked. She shrugged with her lips pressed together.

“Hey,” she said. “We don’t want the kid here and she wants to take her home.”

“What about Asato-kun?”

“Oh yea. Him.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll deal with him soon enough.”

“You don’t have a real plan, do you?” I frowned as I asked her this. The Mother put her hands on her hips.

“I have!”

“How?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I will reveal that in due time.”

It was all I could not to laugh. The Mother tilted her head. “What?”

I rose to my feet. “You just gave me just the push I needed to do some serious thinking.”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

I tapped the side of my nose. “You’ll see when I reveal that in due time.”

The Mother puffed up her cheeks. “You aren’t going to keep the damn brat, are you?”

I smiled as I picked up Kirika-chan from her basinet. “I can’t tell you that yet.” I walked out of the room before the Mother could speak another word. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. However, my own cocky attitude refused to let me acknowledge that right away. We would all have time before Thanksgiving. I should be fine until then, right? My stomach began to ache.