Stranger Than Fanfiction(20)

Mo lit up with bright eyes, and a big smile grew.

“But, Mommy, I’ve got a great imagination!” she said. “If I wrote stories about the Incredible Sleepy, Shrinking, and Shedding Woman, maybe it would help the doctors out!”

“Mo-Bear, that is the best idea I’ve ever heard!” Mrs. Ishikawa said. “I start another round of meetings soon—this time I’m staying in the hospital for a couple nights for more superpower tests. How about you write some stories for me and we can read them together when I get home?”

“You’ve got it!” Mo said.

While her mother was away at the hospital, Mo religiously worked on her stories about the Incredible Sleepy, Shrinking, and Shedding Woman. She wrote how her mother used her superpowers to sleep through the loudest noises on the planet, how she shrunk to the size of a mouse to retrieve things that fell under couches and behind dressers, and how she shed her hair into food to get free meals at restaurants.

Mo couldn’t wait to share her new stories with her mother, knowing they would make her laugh harder than all the other ones had. Her aunt Koko didn’t appreciate her creativity like Mrs. Ishikawa did, so Mo was very eager for her parents to come back. After almost a week, her dad finally returned home, but Mrs. Ishikawa wasn’t with him.

“Daddy, is Mommy done with her superhero tests?”

“No,” Mr. Ishikawa said. “No more tests.”

Mr. Ishikawa had trouble looking his daughter in the eye and Mo worried he was mad at her for something.

“When is Mommy coming home?” Mo asked.

“Mommy isn’t coming home,” he said.

“Why not? Where is she?”

Mr. Ishikawa paused like he always did when he mentally translated his words into English. However, this time he knew exactly what to say, he just didn’t want to say it.

“Mommy is gone.”

“Gone? But where did she go? I have to give her my new stories.”

Mo tried to hand her father her stack of stories but he wouldn’t take them from her.

“No more stories, Moriko,” he said. “Mommy died.”

In time, Mo learned her mother had been battling cancer for over two years before she died. Then, during a simple procedure at the hospital, Mrs. Ishikawa went into kidney failure and was too ill to recover. She had never thought her and Mo’s conversation about the Incredible Sleepy, Shrinking, and Shedding Woman would be their last.

However, none of this was explained to Mo by her father. After his wife passed away, Mr. Ishikawa never spoke of her again and barely spoke at all. He worked late six days a week to avoid their house and spent his days off alone in his den watching Japanese television. He didn’t have friends—most of his family still lived across the world—and the only communication he had with his daughter was to give her commands such as Clean your room, Study for your test, and Go to Stanford. Mo felt closer to her deceased mother than to her father—he was the real ghost in their house.

Even after thirteen years, Mo and Mr. Ishikawa had never adjusted to being a family of two, but became more and more like strangers living under the same roof.

“Dad’s staying extra late at the office tonight,” Mo said, and glanced at her clock. “What’s taking him so long? How many Japanese people need legal advice this late on a Saturday?”

Her bedroom rattled as the garage door opened below it. She heard her father park his car and enter the house.

“Oh gosh, he’s home,” Mo said. “Here I go! Wish me luck, Peaches.”

The cat gave her a look that said, Go jump off a bridge instead. Mo neatly organized the information about Columbia University in the order she planned to disclose it. She walked down the stairs and found her father in the dining room. He was eating a bowl of soup and reading a Japanese newspaper.

“Hi, Dad. How was work?” she asked.

Mr. Ishikawa never looked up from his newspaper.

“Fine, fine, fine,” he mumbled. “Are you all packed for your trip tomorrow?”

“Almost,” Mo said, and cleared her throat to begin her prepared speech. “Dad, we need to talk. I don’t mean to ambush you, but we need to discuss my education—”

“Ambush?” Mr. Ishikawa asked. “What’s an ambush?”

She hadn’t planned for any interruptions but wasn’t surprised. Most of Mr. Ishikawa’s English died with his wife, consequently turning his daughter into a tutor/interpreter extraordinaire.

“Oh, an ambush is like a surprise,” Mo explained.

“Surprise?” he asked. “You’re going to surprise me?”

“There’s no surprise, Dad. I just need to have a conversation with you and I didn’t want you to be caught off guard by the subject matter.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Well, that depends on you,” she said, and went back to her speech. “I know it’s always been your dream to see me go to Stanford—”

“Oh yes,” Mr. Ishikawa said with a big nod. “Stanford is a great school. A great school will lead to a great job, and a great job will lead to a very successful life.”

“Um… right,” Mo said. “But after a lot of thought and reflection, I’ve decided Stanford may not be—”

“Reflection?” Mr. Ishikawa asked.