Broken Songbird

Chapter 15 Unknown Future

It's been 4 years since Sakine is born. Mike and I are teaching her Italian and Japanese. A little bit of English on the side, but she'll need it anyway. Mike and I have finally adjusted to parenthood. Mike made her some pasta and a side of ramen; he can't prepare ramen right. As I wrote my restaurant review, I hear the door unlock as Sakine enters the room. I greet her.

"Konnichiwa Okaasan. Piacere papà!" Sakine says.

"Hey Sakine." Mike says.

"Konnichiwa Sakine. Genki?" I say.

"Genki.!" Sakine replies.

Mike was almost finished making the pasta as I finished my review. I can smell the rosemary fill the room mix in with the garlic bread in the oven. Sakine grabs a bowl of ramen and starts to eat it with her chopsticks. As I ate my ramen, Sakine and I bonded a little more. Normally she likes to be with her father but she's okay spending time with me. Mike finishes the pasta and eats with us bringing the bowl of pasta with us. The camera crew were with us. Apparently they had to hire a Japanese translator since I tend to speak to Sakine in Japanese often. She understands and I'm teaching her Kanji no matter what. She'll have a head start if she takes Japanese in high school.

"Sakine, come è il vostro giorno?" Mike asked.

"Il suo grande papà!" Sakine says excitedly.

As Sakine and Mike were talking to each other I grab the bread out of the oven and put it in front of us. Sakine grabbed a bread and ate it with her pasta. Sakine is switching back and forth between languages so her language skills get stronger. Mike had to correct her sometimes since she tends to confuse the grammar rules for Japanese and Italian sometimes. She would put the verb after the subject when she spoke Italian. I'm pretty strong when speaking Italian but I don't want to lose my Japanese so I tend to speak to Sakine in Japanese.

Sakine and Mike seem to get along. She sorts of looked like me when I was younger. I grab some more bread so my mom doesn't get angry at me for losing all of my pregnancy weight. 2 years after Sakine was born I tried to work off the weight I gained. When I lost my pregnancy weight, mom kept telling me that she would rather see me healthy with a little fat around my waist than see me with an Italian model body. As I watched Sakine and Mike eat together, I put the dishes away and brought out the gelato and pocky sticks.

Sakine loves the chocolate gelato and often eats it with her pocky sticks. As we continued to eat our dessert, I spoke with Mike about personal issues. Sakine was growing up and she has mostly male friends. I was the same way growing up. I just didn't want to deal with the girls in my class. Her friends Savas and Gumio, they were good kids.

As I finished my gelato Sakine was doing her homework and Ozeki was laying down next to Sakine. Mike was helping Sakine as she did some adding and subtracting numbers on her sheet. I get up and wash up for the night. It was almost 6 p.m. and I have work tomorrow. It was a new start for me but I got into habit to be in bed by 6 p.m. and Mike was going to tuck Sakine in bed before 7 p.m. I lay down on my side of the bed as I slept peacefully. Ozeki likes to sleep in Sakine's room but I don't mind since she's housetrained. Around 8 p.m., Mike gets in bed next to me.

The following morning was going alright Sakine was up, and eating cereal with Mike at the table. As I rubbed the drowsiness out of my eyes, I grab leftover pasta from the fridge as I heated it up in the microwave. Mike finished early and decided to make Sakine a bento box for lunch. It consisted of a sandwich, carrots, rice balls shaped like pandas and a small chocolate filled cracker from the Italian grocery store. Mike packs it in her bag along with a fruit juice. Mike drops Sakine off at school. He's an ikumen, but I still respect him even though men should be workaholics.