Author's Note: This was originally posted to the CLAMP Fanfiction Mailing List on June 24, 2001. I asked that it not be archived on the website, so it's long been lost in the ML archives. I'm putting it here primarily for my own benefit. The following fic- though it starts from Tomoyo's POV- focuses on Tomoyo's mother, Sonomi, reflecting on her relationship with Nadeshiko when Tomoyo is confronted with a similar situation upon Syaoran's return to Japan. R&R if you like, but if you point out any typos, I might have an aneurysm.
Pale skin, almost white, framed by a dark fall so black that it shone violet and blue; a creature of velvet and snow. The familiar stranger gazed back at her impassively from the mirror's polished surface. In silence they studied one another.
She had been smiling all day. Her face ached. The smiles were sincere, of course, but painful. The nagging, silent voice of admonishment started to badger her once again; She Should Be Ashamed of Herself. Her happiness was tainted.
Just barely, but tainted nonetheless. Jealousy, sadness... anger? No. Certainly not anger.
Maybe a touch of anger, then. It wasn't totally unreasonable, she thought, after so many years. The reflection of her camera sitting aloof on a shelf behind her caught her eye. The lens gleamed in the late afternoon light, its uncaring, mercilessly passive gaze fixed directly on her. Appropriate. She laughed softly. The rows of tapes lining the shelves, all home videos, were cold now, unwatched for years, save a few nostalgic occasions.
Tomoyo turned back to her own reflection. White skin, black hair. She was very pretty.
It wasn't so bad. She had been spoiled, in a way, allowed to monopolize her friend's attention. She would just have to learn to share. She should be ashamed of herself.
She was very pretty. It would be easy for her to find a nice boy, and...
"Tomoyo?"
The thickness of the bedroom doors muffled her mother's voice. Sonomi knocked again. Tomoyo called back to her, told her that it was unlocked. A gentle quarter turn of the knob and the hammer withdrew with a small, barely audible click.
Sonomi entered quietly, easing the door shut behind her, making as little noise as possible. She approached Tomoyo with the reverence of a mother seeing her daughter through a ritual coming-of-age. This had once been her burden, now time had doubled back on itself and the burden had been passed on to her child. Sonomi had not expected love, of all things, to prove to be a genetic disorder.
Sonomi sat beside the girl on the long bench before her vanity table. Tomoyo managed an absent half-smile, hardly registering her mother's presence. Sonomi sighed and touched the dark, thickly woven rope that ran down Tomoyo's back. It was soft to the touch, gleaming where it caught the light as it shifted beneath Sonomi's fingertips.
"Can I brush it?" she asked quietly. She weighed the braid in the cup of her hand. Tomoyo looked at her for the first time, startled. She seemed to have forgotten Sonomi altogether. Catching her eye in the mirror, Tomoyo smiled the same half-smile and nodded.
Sonomi slid the heavy elastic band off onto her wrist. Somewhere, a dam broke, and a slow cavalcade of memories became a juggernaut. The good, the bad, the ancient all rushed at her at once, nearly blinding her to the present.
Tomoyo turned, adjusting herself to allow Sonomi better access. Unbound, her hair cascaded over her shoulders in dense, raven waves. She folded her hands in her lap. Sonomi smiled at the girlish gesture, still lost in her own motherly nostalgia. She had done this so often, years ago, when Tomoyo was only a little girl, before their lives relied completely on their intrusive yet indispensable cell phones and beepers. She was in her twenties again and Tomoyo was still her baby girl.
She glanced at the vanity and chose a hairbrush, silver-plated, delicately engraved with elaborate, curling designs. Flowers sprouted from silver vines in pink mother-of-pearl inset. It was sweet and girlish, like many of Tomoyo's old things, mostly birthday and holiday gifts sent by her father in years past. The endearingly childish trinkets were almost comical in her daughter's room, a girl so adult that she sometimes worried her mother.
"Tomoyo." Sonomi hesitated.
"Yes, mother?" Tomoyo asked, granting just enough intonation to indicate polite interest. Her hair streamed through the stiff plastic bristles, the rounded pink tips surfing on the dark waves.
"I heard that Li-san is back in Tomoeda," Sonomi said carefully. Tomoyo swallowed audibly.
"He is," she answered, with scarcely obvious strain. "Sakura-chan has missed him. She's very excited." Sonomi ran the brush through another midnight lock; it stopped, caught on an unseen tangle.
"I'm sure she is. You told me how upset she was after he left," Sonomi said. "You're happy for her." She kept her tone at a deliberate level; it was neither a question nor a statement. Tomoyo closed her eyes. Sonomi monitored her expression, profiled in the mirror.
"Yes," she whispered. Sonomi put down the brush and stroked her daughter's hair with gentle fingertips, filled with affectionate concern. This was so familiar, so alike, the present again a distorted mirror of the past.
So alike, yet so different...
"You're so much better than I am..." she said softly, sorrowfully.
"Mother..."
Sonomi knew this; she had lived this once, long ago. The circumstances, her reaction, her feelings had been different, but that was simply due to contrasting temperaments. Tomoyo was her father's daughter; her calm and soft-spoken disposition was entirely his doing. Naturally, she possessed hints of Sonomi here and there- the smile, eyes, capacity for all-consuming, concentrated love- but possessed none of her mother's impetuousness, brashness or even her envy. Tomoyo said that she was glad for Sakura and meant it. Sakura's happiness was, to an extent, her happiness. For Sonomi, the other's happiness had been her torment. For Sonomi, there had only been pain.
The memories of those days were still vivid. They were ages ago, ancient history. They were days ago, just last week, years condensed into days. Nadeshiko smiled brilliantly in the dappled afternoon light and announced that she was marrying her teacher, marrying That Man. The trees, the light, the wind lifting long, gray locks from Nadeshiko's shoulders were forever engraved in Sonomi's memory.
That Man. Kinomoto-sensei, sapling teacher, cradle-robber and infuriatingly perfect-caring, kind and intelligent; it was positively sickening. Sonomi loved Nadeshiko then as much as she ever had, maybe more, but she hated HIM. He was a thief, a successful thief. Nadeshiko belonged to him in so many ways, her heart so completely his. He was disgusting. Sonomi still couldn't stand the sight of him. Her intense hatred may have dissipated, but she refused to like him. Ever.
It was horrible, seeing the two of them together. Nadeshiko actually seemed to glow by his side. In spite of herself, Sonomi visited their apartment once or twice, at Nadeshiko's persistent entreaties. It was the perfect setting for young newlyweds. It was horrible. The sparse but sweetly decorated rooms and the matching lunchboxes and his glasses on the end table and, oh God, the bedroom... it was all terrible, absolutely terrible.
/It wasn't the kind of love I wanted.../
It wasn't fair.
The pain faded to a dull ache. Sonomi, like Nadeshiko, found a man older than she, and unlike Nadeshiko, half-convinced herself that she was in love. She was, at least, fond of Daidouji Jin, and married him. It was all she could do. Nadeshiko belonged to That Man. Sonomi didn't want to be alone.
She had a child as soon as she could. She and Nadeshiko had been pregnant together, miles apart and each unaware of the other's condition. Sonomi had been told that Nadeshiko and Kinomoto-sensei had one child and were expecting another, but otherwise knew nothing. She had gone away to school years ago, hadn't come back but for a few sporadic visits, had married away from home and hadn't seen Nadeshiko since the day of her own wedding. Nadeshiko had been so happy for her that day.
The baby was a girl and Sonomi was thrilled. Tomoyo. It was a pretty name, and fitting for her dark-pale infant angel. Sonomi yearned for genuine love and affection. She still sought a replacement for the love she lost the day her Nadeshiko fell from the schoolyard tree and, subsequently, in love with someone else. A child would surely fill that void.
It hadn't been what she had expected. It wasn't until some time after Tomoyo's birth that Sonomi even began to comprehend her newfound instincts and this totally new, surprisingly intense emotion. She adored her new daughter and, during the necessary time away from work, would lavish attention upon her, brimming with love for her flawless child. Despite the occasional fit of worry that she would prove to be a failure as a parent, that Tomoyo would be taken away from her or that someday, her child would grow to hate her and run away from home--attacks prompted mostly in the first month by diaper rash or misplaced bottles, Sonomi considered her first venture into motherhood a dazzling success.
Tomoyo had her eyes. She had black hair, not just dark brown, but true black, the jet black of her father and his brothers. She was wonderful.
Thus, for some time, Sonomi was happy. She had a beautiful baby and beautiful home and an admittedly beautiful husband, whom she really thought of more as a legal roommate than a spouse, and rarely saw. She was fond of him and loved Tomoyo; Jin, in the end, was simply fond of both of them.
It was an arrangement that couldn't last, as the two of them began to spend more time at work, Sonomi making fast progress up the corporate ladder and Jin amassing and protecting their already considerable wealth. Stress and tension built silently, until they fused into one being that gradually took on a life of its own and began to breed destruction.
Fondness and peaceful coexistence devolved into exhaustion, bitterness and angry outbursts; they were divorced before their daughter's second birthday. Sonomi, of course, had complete custody. Jin had never known what to make of the baby. In her earliest days, when he held her, he would peer down at Tomoyo with a sort of perplexed interest, as one would regard an intriguing yet incomprehensible new household appliance. After the divorce, he was-- and would always be--content to father from afar, sending expensive gifts at regular intervals to the unprogrammable-VCR/child that somehow, by mysterious biological means, had come from him.
Nadeshiko never left Sonomi's thoughts, despite their total lack of regular or significant contact for years. The Amamiyas were still angry, too busy licking their wounds to bother themselves with reconciliation or reunion.
Things happened quickly. One day, Sonomi was sustained on the subconscious belief, buried deep in her heart, that she would one day have her Nadeshiko back--or, at least a part of her--and things would be as they had been those years ago. The next day, Nadeshiko was terminally ill, had been for some time and was failing fast.
Sonomi had been able to say goodbye only just in time. Even seeing Nadeshiko pale and exhausted as she was, barely clinging to life, Sonomi had been unwilling and unable to regard the meeting as a farewell. The death, expected but still sudden, shocking, overwhelming, crushed her. She took weeks off from work--she was now afforded such luxuries, the hours of slave labor had not been in vain--and left Tomoyo for almost a month in the 24-hour care of a nanny. Eventually, seeking distraction, she worked from home in the solitude of her own bedroom suite, commuting via fax machines and telephones.
All those years, gone. He had stolen those years from her. For months, years afterwards, Sonomi would openly blame him for Nadeshiko's death, often at the dinner table when visiting family, her frequent near-hysteria shattering the polite, stilted conversation. Most of those present had been sympathetic; some slipped business cards of therapists into her purse and, eventually, prescriptions they had written themselves.
Time passed. Again, the pain lessened, but never disappeared. Life went on. Sonomi still thought of Nadeshiko often, but had finally reconciled herself to the fact that she lived on when Nadeshiko did not. Her work was superseding and pleasantly distracting. Sonomi felt an occasional/frequent pang of guilt over leaving her child for such long intervals, but the resulting income made life more than comfortable for the two of them.
She did manage to maintain some semblance of a relationship with Tomoyo. Sonomi taught her daughter to cook, to sew; she read to her and brushed her hair when she was young; she passed on her brilliant fashion sense, let Tomoyo beta test her company's latest products, et cetera, et cetera. As Tomoyo entered junior high, they grew steadily closer, their relationship becoming one more like that of old friends than of a mother and daughter.
And the child was so much better, better than Sonomi had ever been. Sonomi often regarded her daughter with an almost jealous admiration. Often, daydreaming, she would fold time back upon itself. She would imagine Tomoyo in her position, those years ago. She would have been polite to and might even have become friends with the fiance. She would have visited the couple often, would have had dinner with them. She would have been there when the children were born, and at the very least, would have known their names, for Christ's sake, would have made their birthday cakes and watched over them with their mother, sitting together on the patio, sipping tea and making precious, life-giving memories, blithely ignorant of the sand falling with alarming speed through Fate's hourglass. She would have been there during the illness, holding one hand while her beloved's husband held the other, a soothing presence to ease the final days. She might have even been there when they finally turned off the machines. For her, there would have been no destroying phone call, when time would stop and reality collapse...
There had been a small birthday get-together for Sakura some years ago. Of course, Sonomi had been invited- by Kinomoto-sensei, no less.
/How thoughtful,/ she thought acidly. Disgusting. It was typewritten, thank God; seeing the same handwriting now, the hand that had once scrawled in the margins of her high school essays, would have been too much.
Unable to deny Sakura's wide-eyed plea, which had been, unsettlingly, more than a little reminiscent of Nadeshiko's own entreaties, she grudgingly accepted the invitation. Later, scowling at the envelope over her coffee, Sonomi silently vowed to avoid That Man as much as possible. She'd simply pretend he wasn't there, an undeniably pleasant game of make-believe. After all, it was Sakura-chan's birthday; attempted or inadvertent confrontation would be inconsiderate.
It was a relatively small affair, mostly family, with a handful of the girls' friends in attendance. Sonomi watched Tomoyo laughing and holding hands with Sakura, their relationship hauntingly familiar, an unconscious echo of the past. In her mind's eye, she saw the girls as infants, playing together as they might have, had things gone differently, been handled differently. She could have wept. It was an image that would never leave her.
And it was the first time she had ever spoken properly to the boy, now a young man. The words whispered through Sonomi's mind, /Nadeshiko's son,/ and brought with them another wave of wistful sorrow. Nevermind his age, he was Nadeshiko's baby; Nadeshiko was part of him, had loved him and loved him still. His disposition was so like her uncle's, the grandfather that he had met once, maybe twice, and had never really known. He had a faint look of his father about him, very little of his mother, but that hair, unmistakably Amamiya, black as night... Sonomi would have liked to say something to him, something to both redeem herself somehow and to... oh, hell, it didn't matter, she was rendered almost mute for most of the afternoon, anyway, and his natural reticence had been clearly enhanced by the fact that she was a veritable stranger to him. A stranger who seemed to derive a certain pleasure from verbally abusing his father, at that. He responded politely to her bright, desperate chatter before excusing himself.
Sonomi, disoriented and swept up in a maelstrom of emotion, had even smiled at Kinomoto-sensei, but only once. It was all wrong. It was her fault. Tomoyo would have never...
"Don't say that, Mother," Tomoyo said gently, turning to face her with quiet concern. Sonomi smiled and touched the girl's face. She was so pretty. Perhaps life would be easier for her.
"It hurts, doesn't it."
She had lived this once, long ago. Tomoyo folded her hands in her lap, eyes downcast.
"I am happy for her," she said in a small voice, thinned by a carefully controlled, weary resignation.
She had been smiling all day.
Sonomi put her arms around her. Tomoyo allowed herself to be cradled, as she hadn't done since her early grade school years.
"You can still cry," her mother whispered.
She did.