Yuki makes the decision to go on the pill. Even though she is certain Alex won’t mind, she does not tell him. She cannot shrug the sense that telling him would be an admission of something terrible. Something shameful. Yuki knows that she loves her daughter. Everything about Mei-chan is bright and soft and good. She makes life make sense in a way that had been a secret to her until now.
But Yuki also knows that she shares her heart with something other than love. Something that a mother is not meant to feel or admit. A contamination. A darkness that Yuki attempts to flood with smiles and the same, used refrain,
I’m just tired.
She is deficient, she is certain. She is in love with both husband and baby and yet.
(And yet.
And yet.
And yet.)
Through the glass of the kitchen window, she watches the planes overhead, and imagines she is on her way back home. Through the glass of the living room window, Yuki watches and waits for estate agent Lucy to return from her work. She watches and waits for Lucy in her black leather heels to pass beneath the window, and in through the apartment building doors. Yuki makes sure to time her walks perfectly so that when Lucy reaches her door across the hallway, Yuki and the pram are halfway out the apartment.
Yuki talks to her. That is all she wants. She asks questions about work. The trials and tribulations of office life, a life unbound by the walls of a husband’s apartment, the cries of a baby. Lucy is kind, she coos at Meiko, and never gets her keys out prematurely. It is only when the questions turn back around onto Yuki, that Yuki finds herself deep below, underground where nothing honest is able to surface. Yuki smiles, says she’s tired and pushes her pram away.
She’ll go twice around the park with Meiko. Then she’ll feed. Then she’ll put Meiko to bed. Then she’ll cook dinner for her husband. Then she’ll feed. Then she’ll feed her husband. Then she’ll feed herself, but she’ll still feel hungry.