After I handed the forms in and receive the printed birth certificates, my heart ached.I knew that this moment was supposed to be shared between both myself and Yos.h.i.+no but it was only me, alone in the hospital room.
I watched my babies sleep and tears ran down my cheeks.
I couldn"t believe all of this.
I never asked for a child.
I never asked for two.
I never asked for three and here they are.
Asleep in front of me and healthy.
My hands were trembling as I touched their cheeks and it felt weird.
They were so soft.
After staring at them for a while, I went back to the bed and tried to sleep but I couldn"t.
I kept thinking about Yos.h.i.+no and wondered how he would react when I told him about his children.
But they are not his children, they are mine.
(Sigh)
I fell asleep and checked out of the hospital the next day.
During the first week at home with my children, I was overwhelmed.
My twin wasn"t around because he was working and attending school.
I was most of the time alone with my triplets and they were always crying.
The one weekend my mother came over and she saw how I was struggling with my babies.
I"m not gonna lie, I was terrible.
An introvert as a mother of triplets! Can you imagine that?
I would pat my children on the back to make them calm down and stop crying, and sometimes just look at them when they would start crying at the same time.
That weekend my mother smacked the s.h.i.+t out of me and told me I need to speak to my children, smile and laugh.
And I tried it.
My heart became lighter, my babies became happier and I was happy.
My children grew, started crawling, made a noise and started walking.
When they started talking and slowly understood things, I was asked: "Where"s my daddy?"
A 3-year-old asked me this.
Me that"s only 18 had to answer this question.
At first, I used to tell my children that their father was working far away but as they grew older, my eldest son looked just like his father.
Same eyes, nose, lips, facial structure and in later years, he was the exact replica of his father.
My second child Yos.h.i.+ro had both mine and Yos.h.i.+no"s features and my daughter looked just like me.
-----
When they were 10 years old I lashed out at them and told them their father is dead, he died in a car crash and they must not ask me any more about him.
I loved my children but I just couldn"t tell them what really happened.
Their G.o.dmother Misaki on the other hand, went behind my back and told them about Yos.h.i.+no.
Every last detail.
-----
That year when they turned 10 years old, I started my baking business and it flourished into the bakery that is well established and worth millions today.
But over the years things weren"t as good as it seemed.
-----
During my children"s schooling years at primary school, things were not good.
Grade 5 my eldest was involved in a conflict, he smacked a girl at school because she called me a wh.o.r.e.
That day I arrived at the school after receiving a phone call from the princ.i.p.al.
When I arrived, the girl that my son a.s.saulted, parents were both there.
Her father was furious and started swearing me, on multiple occasions he tried to hit Yos.h.i.+no, but luckily, the male teachers that were by held him back.
In the office, the princ.i.p.al told me Yos.h.i.+no, smacked that girl but refuses to give a reason for a.s.saulting her.
I went out and looked at my child that was staring at the floor and seemed so angry.
I raised my sons not to hit a woman but to protect them and knowing my child, he wouldn"t hit anyone unless there was a perfectly good reason too.
I looked over at the woman embracing her daughter that was a.s.saulted by Yos.h.i.+no and walked over to that family of three and knelt down in front of her and started speaking.
Me: "I"m Yos.h.i.+no"s mother, the princ.i.p.al told me that he smacked you is that true?"
Her father grew angry and started yelling at me but I ignored him.
I looked at the girl and she had tears formed in her eyes and asked the question again, she nodded and I continued.
Me: "Yos.h.i.+no, would never hurt someone, he wouldn"t even bother to kill a c.o.c.kroach, so I don"t understand why he hit you. What did you do that made him so angry that he won"t even speak to me?"
She looked at me and looked over at Yos.h.i.+no that was behind me, I looked back at my son and he was glaring at this girl, it seemed like he wanted to kill her.
I looked back at her and she shook her head.
I got up and walked over to Yos.h.i.+no and spoke to him.
Me: "Baby, I raised you better than this, you know that you shouldn"t hit girls and you should protect them instead. Help me to understand why you hit her because the uncle and aunts hearts are aching because you hurt their daughter."
The tears started falling from his eyes while I was saying that I lifted his face up so he could look at me but he refused to look me directly in the eyes.
This was the first time I saw him like this and my body started trembling.
I knew something was wrong.
I sat down on the chair next to him and I looked over at that family that angered my son and waited.
That man grew irritated and started swearing again threatening us.
The princ.i.p.al grew anxious and tried to urge me to get the reason from Yos.h.i.+no but I did not and just looked at the performance that was going on.
I waited for it.
Yos.h.i.+no is his father"s son.
It"ll happen.
Over the years, he showed signs.
The habits.
His smile.
His way of thinking.
Biting his lips when his anxious and finally.
The anger.
When Yos.h.i.+no senior was angry, everyone would quiet down and listen to him.
So I waited.
After an hour pa.s.sed and finally, he clenched his fist tightly and glared at that family.
The princ.i.p.al and that girl"s father have been arguing for an hour and it started annoying Yos.h.i.+no.
Yos.h.i.+no looked over at that girl and finally spoke:
Yos.h.i.+no: "Repeat what you said earlier on, so your father can hear it."
The two men stopped arguing and looked over.
The girl looked at her father and shook her head.
He walked over to his daughter and took her from his wife and spoke gently to her:
"Tell me what you said, so that we can sort this out."
The girl shook her head again.
Her father grew angry and yelled at her too.
She became frightened and spoke: "He smacked me because I told him his mother is a s.l.u.t."
My heart sank.
I couldn"t believe it.
The man looked at his daughter and his eyes widened, I guess he couldn"t believe it too.
He grabbed onto his daughter and shook her, he asked her where she learnt to speak like that and she told him that what she heard her mother and her friends mothers say that, and she continued to say, what was specifically said, "They said, she doesn"t know who her children"s father is and where he is, also that she"s sleeping around with other peoples husbands."
I wanted to cry when I heard this, it seemed that my past was repeating itself and affecting my children.
Yos.h.i.+no got up and walked slowly over to the girl, that was speaking to her father and smacked her again.
He did so in front of her parents.
She looked at him wide-eyed and then at her father, he father pushed Yos.h.i.+no out of the way and asked how can he hit her.
Yos.h.i.+no: "I told your daughter that if she speaks lies about my mother again in front of me, I"m going to hit her, she just repeated what she previously did and did not listen to my warning, so I showed her I"m going to hit her again and if she continues, I will hit her again."
The man looked at Yos.h.i.+no and I could see that he wanted to hit my son but held himself back.
He looked over at me then looked back at his wife and daughter and dragged them out of the office.
Yos.h.i.+no turned around and looked at me and I couldn"t look my child in the eyes, I was ashamed.