Episode 69: I’ll Hold You, Secret and All

I made another mistake.

That was the first thing I thought, watching Shion motionless on the stage.

I had wanted to spare Shion what I had gone through. The pain of being betrayed by sound. I wanted her to be able to carry the Kanzaki name in her playing. That sense of responsibility, of duty, had pushed me ahead of everything else — I had been hard on her, had driven her into a corner. And Shiko-chan had confronted me for it.

So I decided to change.

I wanted to be able to love Shion more gently, more softly. The time with Shiko-chan — the first person Shion had ever said she wanted to cherish — I wanted to cherish it too.

And it had seemed, for a while, as though that was working. As Shion accumulated time with Shiko-chan, as she deepened her dependence on her, her sound kept expanding, kept growing richer — the tone becoming as vivid and full of colour as fireworks blooming in a night sky. As if she were pouring everything Shiko-chan had given her into the music. As if she wanted to show Shiko-chan the most beautiful version of herself she could.

The fact that it was Shiko-chan, not me, who could bring Shion’s playing to its highest point — that was as good as a denial of everything my life had been. I had been passed over by music, again. I knew that with a bitterness I couldn’t avoid.

And yet I was just as glad of it. Watching Shion show sides of herself through Shiko-chan that I had never seen before — I loved it.

I loved the time we spent listening together, in the car, to the music Shiko-chan had introduced her to. When Shion went out with Shiko-chan, I had secretly practised hair arrangements to surprise her — and the look on Shion’s face when I did made me happy. The way Shiko-chan shared the secret of her writing with me, saying Secret like a friend — it made something warm curl in my chest. I loved watching them in the back seat through the rear-view mirror, their fingers laced together. The moment before the summer festival, when I photographed both of them in their petal-print yukatas — the click of the shutter, the imagined heat of film catching the light, the way my chest rose — I thought I would never forget it as long as I lived. Every expression Shion showed through Shiko-chan — every side of my child I had never known — I wanted to burn into my memory.

Everything I was given, watching over their summer together. Happiness beyond what I deserved. The joy of being able to pour love into my own child without the distortion of what I had been before.

But it wasn’t only that. My life was not going to let me be satisfied by that alone. I could not extinguish the passion for music that would not die in me, the clinging obsession that wouldn’t leave.

Shion’s playing, refined day by day. Her tone deepening with every deepening attachment, every deepening dependence on Shiko-chan. How far could it go? How far could Shion’s piano reach?

Shion was clearly, abnormally, oriented around Shiko-chan. Every principle guiding her actions had Shiko-chan at its centre. I had seen that distortion. I should have made space in Shion’s heart for something other than Shiko-chan — that was my job as a mother. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t become a place in Shion’s heart. I didn’t want to dilute whatever was purifying in her sound, and so from the beginning I hadn’t even tried.

The result is what’s in front of me now.

A flower given too much water rots at the roots. A flower given none withers.

I made another mistake.

The hall is wrapped in a silence that almost hurts. Shion has not moved from the piano bench. How long has it been?

I was in the dark of the wings, crushed by despair, when a stage attendant rushed out past me. That was when I understood that Shion’s competition was over.

And for a moment I felt a small relief — that this bed-of-nails waiting would end, that Shion wouldn’t have to be exposed to the audience any longer. That tacked-on maternal feeling sickened me. When it’s me who has kept Shion standing on that stage. Me who brought her into this harsh world and kept sending her back to fight in it.

And then Shion came trudging back from that cold and lonely place, her face blank, dazed. Her complexion, always pale, was white as paper — drained of all colour. I went to her without thinking. I took those hands — small, for a pianist. I held those white fingertips.

Shion’s hands were shockingly cold.

“Shion — are you all right…?”

She was obviously not all right, but I couldn’t help asking. And Shion murmured back:

“Don’t tell her…”
“What?”

When I voiced my confusion, Shion raised her face, grief twisting her expression, and said it plainly:

“Don’t tell Uta. That I couldn’t play today. Keep it secret… please.”

Clutching my fingers with barely any strength, she looked up at me, as though clinging. A single tear spilled from her eye. The moment it fell, tracing its path down her face, Shion crumpled from the knees.

This Secret was different from before. This one was sad.

All I could do, right now, was hold her — her and her sad secret both.