Several brushes, inkwells, and sheets of paper were scattered on the floor as the rice b.a.l.l.s practiced drawing shapes and coloring the simple drawings I made for them. Their little foreheads were wrinkled in concentration as their delicate hands made strokes and dashes."Mama, look!" Miyako said while holding up the flower drawing she painstakingly colored. "Did Mi-tan do a good job?"
I looked up from what I was doing to look at her work. Seeing that she almost did a perfect job of coloring what I drew, I clapped my hands thrice and nodded my head. "Good job, Miya. Very good!"
She beamed and skipped towards her brothers. "Nii-chan, Mi-tan did well! Look!"
As expected, her two brothers dropped their brushes to look at the paper she was holding. Both boys then proceeded to praising her and telling her she did indeed do a great job. Beside me, Mami giggled.
"Miyako is spoiled silly by her brothers," she said. "They love her so much I can only imagine how her future suitors would suffer in their hands."
"Oh, dear," I covered my lips with my fingers as I imagined what she just said. "Those poor guys."
We both giggled as we thought of different scenarios on how the brothers would "torture" my only daughter"s suitors. Kaname and I agreed that, unlike what happened to him, we won"t force our children into an arranged marriage and let them choose who they want to marry. Of course, this came with the condition that their future partners had good character.
Touya finished his work and hurriedly stood up to show me the house he colored. "Mama, I"m done!"
"Let me see," I took the paper in his hands and almost dropped it.
When he saw my reaction, he tilted his head to the side in that adorable way of his and asked, "Something wrong, mama? Did Tou-tan do a bad job?"
"No, no. You did a great job," I shook my head vigorously and showed her work to Mami, her eyes widened as well.
"Amazing!" Mami gasped. "Toutan, come here."
The young boy hurried to her side and sat on her lap gently. "Yes, ninang[1] Mami?"
She took the paper in my hand and asked him, "Can ninang Mami have this? It"s very beautiful and I"d like to put this in a frame in my room."
"You do?" he asked without really understanding what her words meant. "As long as it"s okay with mama then Tou-tan is also okay with it."
Mami looked at me with pleading eyes. "Ninang Mami can have it," I said, amused with her silent plea.
"Thank you," she said with a smile.
Touya got up from her lap, took another sheet of paper, and began painting randomly beside her.
Mami scooted closer beside me and murmured, "You weren"t kidding when you said that he"s got the makings of a great artist. He turned your simple drawing into a work of art. The color combinations and execution are way ahead of his age."
"I know," I said. "I think he got it from my mother."
"Your mother is a painter?" she asked curiously.
"Hai," I smiled wistfully at the memory of my mother. "She took fine arts when she went to school. Her works of art were how she met my father."
Earlier this year, I finally told Mami the truth about my ident.i.ty. At first she thought I was only pulling her leg but when the maids and even Kaname vouched for the truthfulness of my story, she slowly began to believe me. Besides, she said, what good would making up this story do to me?
Raising the rice b.a.l.l.s made me realize that I barely cared about leaving my mother alone and that after getting over my initial shock of traveling through time, all I ever thought about was my relationship with Kaname. I felt like a heartless daughter. These three years surely have been very difficult for her. Yet, here I was, enjoying life with my new family.
I hurriedly wiped away the tears that fell from my eyes when I saw Riku approach me shyly. Beside me, Mami and Touya talked about what my oldest twin was painting.
"Mama, I"m also done," Riku said. Unlike the twins, he didn"t hold his work up proudly. Instead, he looked like he didn"t want to show it to me.
"You are?" I mentally shoved my guilty and depressing thoughts at the back of my mind and forced a smile. "Let me see."
He slowly turned his paper and showed me his work. The drawing I made on his was a simple ill.u.s.tration of a cat. When I saw that he painted outside the lines a few times, I understood why he looked hesitant to show it to me.
"This is very good," I pulled him on my lap. "I especially like that you made the little kitty a calico."
He smiled shyly at my praise and lowered his head. Among the three, Riku was the most clingy towards me yet the shyest. Although he never showed any bad behavior to show this, he was more attached to me than the twins. He always sought my and his father"s approval and when he got it, he would just smile and bask in the pleasure of being praised silently.
"Ri-tan didn"t make a mistake?" he was looking at his hands, the apparent nervousness on his little shoulders tugged at my heartstrings.
"Of course not!" I told him while hugging him close. "It"s okay to paint outside the line! Mama did it too when she was a little girl."
He looked up, his eyes wide. "Mama did?"
"Mmm!" I smiled at him warmly. "Besides, all mama wants is that her little rice b.a.l.l.s enjoy what they are doing. Are you enjoying our little activity?"
He nodded his head a few times.
"Then that"s all that matters."
He suddenly hugged and kissed me on the cheek, warming my heart a little more. Little Riku still doesn"t know that I"m not his real mother and believes that he is the oldest triplet. Kaname and I plan to tell him the truth when he grows older; when that time comes, we hope he will understand.
"Mama, I"d practice again and again so you will love my drawings even more!" he promised.
"Okay, but you have to show it to papa as well."
"I will," the little guy grabbed another uncolored drawing and focused on painting it.
"By the way, Lady Hinata," Mami said after a while. "I heard you were attending the emperor"s birthday banquet tomorrow. Is that true?"
"Yes, Kaname will bring me along as Jin-san."
"But why?" she asked, a bit bewildered. "He knows your "past" with my cousin and clearly hates his guts and yet…?"
"He does, but I"ll be coming with him as a man so it"s all good. The only reason why he"s bringing me along is so that I can see what the imperial palace is like. I"ve never seen it before and this is my chance."
"Alright, but you still have to be careful."
When Mami knew about my alter ego Jin-san, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. At the time, she entered my bedroom unannounced in her excitement to tell me about her pregnancy. She thought I was kidnapped and insisted that I wasn"t her friend but a man who entered the ooku without the shogun"s permission even when I spoke and explained things to her in my original voice. I had to grab her hand and put it on my chest for her to believe me. My curved b.r.e.a.s.t.s couldn"t lie to her.
"I always am, don"t worry," I a.s.sured her.
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[1] Filipino for G.o.dmother.