Away

(In another place)
“Your key, ma’am. Have a good evening.”
I nod, taking the thin piece of plastic from the desk clerk, and after a trip up the elevator, I follow the signs to my room. With the door closed behind me, I open the curtains, taking in the night sky, of a city lit by a million twinkling lights. I take off my shoes, and sit down and sink into the bed.
This isn’t a beauty spot like those we had sneaked out to in the past – no views of water, no beach breezes. Nothing to get me off track from where I need to be. Just a place, a room, a place of quiet, in an unremarkable place where a short, heavily pregnant middle-aged woman can go about alone without comment. There’s the hum of the air conditioner. Muffled noises from the hallway, of doors and footsteps and snatches of conversation, the wheels of a cart.
I reach over for the room service menu. Wherever I am, I should take care of myself. I’ll call for something later.
I’m not sleeping well. I cannot blame the children for being children, it’s still -hard-. We were once such free creatures… now I feel limited.
Of course, I’m a rotten woman for -wanting- him so much. I know this. I lie back with my forearm over my eyes, blocking out the light. I suppose that’s the point of some of this – to see if we can be as connected without physical intimacy? Maybe. To see if I can get it right, even if we don’t get the space to talk? I don’t know. I second-guess and question and -try- and always, always get it -wrong-.
But if losing this freedom is the price to pay to move forward, to resolve issues… it has to be paid, doesn’t it? More than I want to be his wife, I want him freed from the one he has now. Of course, with the boys there will always be ties… but just to have some of that resolved. He needs this. And right now, resolution goes not only through her, but through a man in a cape.
I roll onto my side. I should pull back the covers. I should change into something better for sleeping, but a maternity dress from this world is soft, and there is something to this stretchy fabric that beats what I have back home when it comes to comfort. But I can be as lazy as I want, I suppose. Nobody to see it here.
So I take what’s only moments there to have a night of rest elsewhere. I’m certain that a rule is being broken, and consequences will happen, in some way. But I’ve been pregnant for -years- and I just need to rest somewhere, when I cannot find reassurance elsewhere. I have to retain my bearings, my balance. I cannot get into state like I did the day of my failures at the school event.
I have so much to do. Not only at our house, in our Tokyo, but my past still needs to be documented, so I can control -my- narrative. I could be doing that now, instead of laying around -whining-.
Home… I close my eyes, knowing that while I won’t be gone long enough to be missed, how much I do miss them all – interruptions, eavesdropping and all. Soon we will have visitors, and if Namuzawa-san is as rude as he was in Aizu… I’ll smile through all of it, and be a good and gracious hostess. He can say what he wants about me, back in Aizu, I’m only the mistress after all. My stepson-to-be needs his brother, and for him, I will endure what I must.
But first, rest. I work my way under the covers – it’s an ocean of softness – and try to find the rest that I’m seeking. My hand goes to the nightstand, and from the phone that I stole from the writer, I turn on some music… an old song…
As the song closes, I finally drift into sleep.
…Kawa no nagare wa kyou mo hageshii keredo

Kimi no te wa hanasanai

Itsumo kono mune no naka no ai wo shinjiteiyou

Yume ga kanau made…