Chapter 9A

Emiko waited until after dinner, when the plates were cleared but no one had scattered yet — Hana still at the table scrolling through something on her phone, Kaito leaning back in his chair the way he always did when he thought no one would tell him to sit up straight, Midori curled sideways with her knees pulled to her chest.

“Hey, kids. I’ve been wondering something.” She kept her voice light, testing the water rather than announcing anything. “How would you feel if I ever met someone — someone I was interested in, possibly dating?”

Three heads turned toward her at slightly different speeds.

Kaito recovered first. “Why? Do you have someone in mind?”

“Not really,” she said. “Just a feeling.”

It wasn’t a lie. There was no one she could name yet, nothing decided, nothing begun. But it wasn’t the whole truth either — there was a face that had started showing up uninvited in quiet moments, an attention she’d noticed herself returning more than once. She let the smaller truth stand in for the larger one and watched her children’s faces instead of her own conscience.

Hana spoke first, careful. “You mean like ... for real? Dating dating?”

“Eventually. Someday. I’m only asking how you’d feel about it.”

Kaito sat forward, all the easy slouch gone out of him. “Let’s look at this realistically. Everyone sitting at this table is far above the average Joe, especially in intelligence. At forty-one, who or where would you find a suitable mate that would be our equals?” He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t need to. “I’m not positive, but I’m relatively certain none of us could accept a man who isn’t as smart or smarter than us, or who can’t bring anything useful to this family besides being your companion. He wouldn’t enhance our family dynamic one whit.”

“You’re not wrong,” Emiko said, and meant it. “Whoever I choose — if I choose anyone — marries all four of us. That’s not me being sentimental. That’s just true, and I wouldn’t move forward with someone who didn’t understand that.” She looked around the table, at all three of them. “I’m not asking permission to lower my standards for a companion, Kaito. I’m asking whether the idea itself is something you could live with, eventually, if the right person came along. Those are different questions.”

“Mom.” Kaito’s voice had gone flat, direct. “You’re sitting there lying to us. If you didn’t already have a candidate you’re interested in, you wouldn’t have just asked that question.”

The table went still.

Emiko held his gaze a long moment. “You’re half right,” she said. “There’s someone I’ve noticed. Someone I think about more than I expected to. Nothing has started. I haven’t decided anything — that part was true.” A pause. “But you’re also right that the question wasn’t as clean as I made it sound. I wanted to know how you’d feel before I let myself think any further about him. That’s fair to ask. I should have just said that, instead of pretending there was nothing behind it.”

“Why aren’t you concerned with credentials,” Kaito pressed, “and not one word about whether this person’s character would be an asset to this family? To hell with the suave, debonair, good-looks version of it, Mom. You never once thought about whether he’d be worth anything to us beyond ringing your bell.”

Emiko opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Because he wasn’t wrong, and pretending otherwise would only prove his point harder.

“No,” she said finally, quietly. “I didn’t. I felt something, and I let that be enough, at least in my own head, before I ever thought about what he’d need to bring to this family beyond possibly pmaking me happy.”

She let the silence sit a moment before she said the rest of it. “You have every right to be upset with me. Maybe even to feel betrayed. I’ll think about it more carefully before I bring it up again.” She looked at each of them. “I mean that.”

Nobody answered right away. Midori, who’d been quiet the whole exchange, finally spoke, small and certain. “I don’t want another dad.”