"Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away"

So, this is a segment from a larger Fan-fiction for the anime/manga Ouran High School Host Club called Semicolon Blues.  As it is a fan-fiction. the main events and characters are part of  another fictional work.  In it I have an original main character whom I adore and am thinking of writing an actual fiction piece with.  Some of the same events that happen in the fan-fiction will happen in the actual fiction, so I've been rewritting bits and pieces here and there when I have time.  This part is particularly long.

Content Warning:  My main character Kate curses like a sailor, so there will be expletives used.  This section also deals with many dark themes such as death and the abuse of children, etc, so keep in mind that this is a work of fiction and any similarity to actual events is purely coincidental. 

"Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away"


"It wouldn't 'ave done no good, darlin.'" Mom placed her hand on my head, stroking my hair down until she grabbed my chin, carefully lifting my face up to hers.

"Dammit, Mother! You don't get to decide that!" I slammed my fist down on the bed, pulling my face from her grasp and glaring at her piercing green eyes with my matching pair. All my life she had been deciding things under the pretense of protecting me. Newsflash: I didn't need protection from anything or anyone, "Every year we go through the same thing, and every time I happen to be out of the country, up to my neck in final exams, or a graduate thesis. I get a call from your doctor saying that you were rushed to the emergency room and that they did a bit of surgery or gave you a new batch of antibiotics, and you were fine."

"Kathrin, I know, but this time it's different. At my last appointment my docta said that even though I may look halfway past fifty on the outside, inside I'm as shriveled as an eighty nine year old. It's my time, Kathrin. I've been dyin' ev'ry day since that day. Half of my liver is shut down, my stomach's still gone, the only kidney I 'ave left ain't barely doin' nothin', and that doesn' compare to how bone weary and tired I am. I'm ready ta go. There's no poin' ta just getting' myself shot with more drugs. It jus' ain't worth it."

Her breathing showed, I could tell by the hand that was clasped within mine that she had lost a lot of weight. She was my mother; I knew that she never let on how tired and in pain she really was. She could run a marathon while suffering from a kidney stone and would still be smiling and boisterous afterwards. To be honest, I knew that what she said was true. She should have died when I was eleven, and she should have died the next year, and the next, and the next…but she didn't, and I wasn't prepared for it to happen now.

"Mom. I can't accept that…"     
                                                
"Darlin,' you 'ave to accept it. Now, you look exhausted, and I happen to know that there are a few people out there waitin' for you. I want to get some sleep, and you better too."

"But…"

"No 'buts' little lady. Don't worry; I'll be around tomorrow." Mom shook her hand from mine and rolled over on her side, stroking my cheek with the back of her fingers. I didn't want to leave her side, but her words were as good as a promise. She was too stubborn to die when she told me she would see me tomorrow. I smiled at her and nodded, walking out of the room and shutting the door, coming face to face with Kutano Hisugawa.

"Jaime said that he was only in town for today because he had to head back up to Seattle. He told me to tell you that he had already talked with your mom, and that he would see you next time you came to the states." My fiancé Kurt told me as I stepped around him and into the kitchen, opening the cupboard and pulling out a bottle of Southern Comfort. Jaime had been my best friend throughout elementary school and college, he could have, no, he should have said goodbye to me himself. One would expect as much from a best friend, "Kate, don't you think that…"

"This bottle hasn't been opened since the night before that man killed Lily. Now that he's about to have successfully killed Mom, might as well have a drink for the old man." I poured myself a glass and sipped the hard liquor, ignoring the look that Kurt was giving me. The straight alcohol was sweet, but burned as it went down. I wasn't sure what was hurting me more, the fact that my mother was dying or the fact that I completely understood the rationality of what was going on and couldn't tell her to not give up.

"Kate, I heard what went on in there. Have faith in your Mom's decision."

"Faith? What the hell is faith? I lost any faith I had a long time ago. She has made up her mind that she is going to die; I can't do anything again, just like with Lily. I can't save anyone." I downed the rest of the glass and reached towards the bottle to poor some more when a heavy hand grasped my wrist and squeezed, shaking the bottle from my grasp so that it fell over on the counter.

"Look at me, Kate." Kurt growled from behind me, turning me around to face him. I avoided his eyes. There was nothing he could do, nothing I could do. It was pointless to fight it. Meaningless.

"Look. At. Me." He forcefully grabbed my chin and pulled it towards him, shaking my head slightly so that I wouldn't avoid his eyes, "If everything you've told me about her is true, it means that she's taking initiative of her own fate and going out with dignity and pride. Now maybe they don't pride that in American culture. Maybe you all would rather fight using any means necessary to scrape any life, even a life of poor quality, out of your decaying bodies, but I would rather see my loved one go out with honor and acceptance of death than fear of it, on their own terms. Wouldn't you?"

In Japanese history there was an ideal called bushido and a part of that was seppuku, ritual suicide. In my understanding, a samurai would take his own life instead of falling at the hands of an enemy in order to preserve his, and by extension his lord's, dignity and honor. Though the tradition wasn't practiced anymore, the idea was still prevalent in the culture, especially where death was concerned. So, Kurt, who was sometimes too Japanese for his own good, was viewing my mother as the honorable samurai not giving into her sickness' hands.

I knew what he said was exactly what my mother was thinking, but was that what I really had a problem with? I wanted my mom to be at peace, but I wanted something else too. I just…I just fucking hated it when everything was so damn confusing! You would think that God would give someone like me a break, but no, no breaks for me.

"I can rationalize everything you just said. I can even go so far as say that if she dies it would be better than having her suffer, but I can't accept it. I can't accept…I dunno what I can't accept about it, I just can't accept it."

"Kate!" Kurt panicked when I fell to my knees and then back onto the floor, my back hitting against the dishwasher rather harshly. I could feel him wrap his arms around me, pulling me into his lap and cradling me in his arms as if I were a little girl. Before I knew it my cheeks were wet, my tears squeezing between the almost nonexistent gap between his chest and my cheek, my hands grabbing him around the neck, my body weeping with me.
"I'm so scared." Raw emotion spilled out with every tear.  It didn't feel comfortable.  It didn’t feel right. I wanted to take back my actions, my tears, my words, but I couldn't stop clutching onto him and completely exposing myself.

"Kathrin, it's okay to feel afraid. It's okay to feel confused, and it's okay to feel helpless. Everything will turn out the way it is supposed to." Kurt's voice was soothing. Did I believe his words? No. It was too emotional for me, too attached to the situation. I didn't want to feel anything, especially fear, confusion, and helplessness.

"It's not supposed to happen this way. I've prepared myself for it so long that I can't accept it. I've told myself that it would be one more year, one more year, one more year. Now that that year is over I can't face it." I nuzzled my nose into him, his chest muffling my words as I choked them out through the tears. What was it I couldn't face? I was suffering because there was a wall placed between my heart and my head. I understood all of this, everything Kurt and Mom had said, and I could rationalize it and keep my distance. Yet, something inside of me didn't want to accept death because it meant that something else was being taken away from me, and I could do nothing to stop it. I was crying now because those two ideas were in competition with one another, and I wanted to choke the life out of the last one. Too emotional. Too attached.
"Kathrin. You don't have to face it alone."

IIIII

"Come here you little bitch!" He screamed at me as I tried to run from him, but he caught me. He caught me by the wrist, wrenching it in his hand that was so much larger and more powerful than mine.

"Mommy! Mommy!" I screamed towards Mom. She was bleeding, laying in the kitchen, not moving. He slammed his hand over my face to shut me up. I did what I could do; I bit his hand and ran back inside.

"Katie, over here!" Lily whispered to me from somewhere. Slowly the coat closet door opened and I saw Lily's small arm peek out, waving towards where I was standing. Without even thinking I opened the door and squeezed myself inside and, before I knew it, Lily had grabbed me around the middle and buried her face in my chest. I could feel her salty tears through my shirt, "I'm scared Katie. Why's Daddy doing this? Help me." Her little voice cried into me. I had to protect her. I couldn't protect Mom. I looked down at where his knife had bit me too, down on the wrist. It hurt, but it didn't matter as I began stroking Lily's head, my blood mixing in with her blond hair.

"There you are, both of you. Nice work, bitch." He smiled as he opened the closet and grabbed both Lily and me by the hair, dragging the two of us out. I struggled, smacking the hand that was latched onto Lily's hair. Maybe if I could hit it enough times he would let go of her, and she could run away.

"Daddy! What's wrong? Why are you doing this? Daddy!" Lily screamed as the man got us both outside. I stopped hitting him for a moment, my eyes transfixed on his face. He wasn't Daddy anymore. He was a monster. I tried to start struggling again when I felt my face smash into the water of the pool. It felt like a thousand needles were stabbing me all over. I heard Lily scream beside me. No! I wanted to scream. Don't swallow the water! I wanted to tell her, but if I opened my mouth then I would suck in the cold liquid too. I tried to struggle, but I could feel the man's hand firmly on the back of my neck. I had seen our cat do that to her kittens when they needed a bath. This was different though.

"Katwie" No Lily! Don't talk underneath the water. I heard her call my name and I looked over, seeing her eyes plead with me for help. All I could do was fling my hand out to grab hers and squeeze. She grasped mine back, but only for a second. Then I felt her grip slacken, so I screamed and kicked. It didn't matter now, all I needed to do was get away so that I could get her out. Mom had taught me CPR when I was ten, I knew what to do. If only I could get away. If only I could get out of his hands I could save her, but it was getting harder to move and my chest hurt. Mommy! Mommy it hurts!

IIIII

"Kate. Aw, hell. Kate!" I was shaken awake by Kurt. I didn't even remember getting in bed at all. I just remembered sitting on the floor in his arms. I was still in his arms, my head on his arm and the rest of my body falling between his legs. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had stayed up all night watching over me. I could feel fresh tears start running down my face. Fuck this. I really thought I had cried out half my body weight in water by this point.

I sat up and wiped the trace of water from my face, turning around and forcing a smile, "I'm fine. Just a bad dream."

"Kate. Don't lie to me." Kurt had gotten up and turned me to face him, the same way he did the night before. I turned and walked away from him, going towards the drawers and pulling out a pair of socks, heading back to the bed to put them on.

"Do you know if Mom is up?"

"Kate."

"Would you mind running to the grocery store to pick up a few things for breakfast? Mom's keys should be on the table by the door. You remember how to get there right?"

"Kathrin Joy Ame…"

"We only have bread in the house for breakfast. Man cannot live by carbohydrates alone, complex or otherwise." I shook my finger at him. Kurt glared at me for a few seconds before grabbing his wallet and walking out the door. I heard the keys scrape the table out in the hall and the outside door open. With a sigh I hung my head between my knees, placing my head in my hands. Heaving another gigantic sigh I stood up and walked to Mom's room and knocked on the road.

"Well it's about time, Kathrin." I couldn't help but feel relieved when I heard her voice and saw her face as I opened the door. She didn't look good. Her normal pink skin was tinted gray, and her eyes didn't seem to focus well enough on me, cloudy as they were, "Darlin' you look like you slept on a pincushion all night. I thought that Jap was gonna take care of my lil girl. He promised me so early this morning."

"You talked to Kurt this morning?" I moved a chair over by her bed and sat in it. She reached out and set her hand on top of mine, stroking it with her fingers.

"I only tol' him 'e needed to watch o'er my lil, Kathrin, and that if you two are sleepin' together that he should make an honest woman out uh ya. Even in the afterlife I ain't gonna be ready for a grandchil' out uh wedlock."
"Mom!" I turned my face, trying to hide a blush. She closed one of her eyes, leaving the other one open with the eyebrow lifted. It was her 'I caught someun in the cookie jar again, didn't I?' look, and I never liked it, even now.

"Now, be honest with your momma. You 'ad one of those nasty dreams last night, about your father? You 'ave one every time we see one another. Truly, it makes me a bit depressed." Mom took her hand off of mine and crossed her arms in front of her chest, breaking eye contact with my face, raising her nose to the ceiling as if she were a Parisian walking her poodle.

"He's not my father."

"Bull-crap. 'E's as much your father as 'e is my ex-husband." That was pretty much as close as my mother got to uttering a single curse word, but it carried its weight when she said it, "I went to that prison last week and talked to your father. Now don't you scowl at me like that, Kathrin. I needed to make peace with him. You need to do it too. Once you forgive him, you can start workin' on forgivin' yourself. Now I toll you not to scowl at me like that."

"Why should I forgive him?" There was no reason too. I just needed to live and let live. He was on death row; he wouldn't be alive much longer; he didn't deserve it.

"I let go years ago. This was jus; the last step for me so that I can move on with no anger in my heart and no regrets. Thas's all. Ya need to do it too. Y'are one of the most intelligent people that I know, but sometimes that just makes you more thick-headed. Dagnabit, can we get me off of these here machines; they are drivin' me crazy"

"Mom, they need the machines to monitor how you're doing. Stop being so stubborn."

"Kathrin, please, let me spend my last day with my daughter in peace, without the annoyin' beep beep beep soundin' off like a ticking clock. Clock's already tickin,' and I don' need no darn reminder." She gave me the 'cookie-jar' look again, so I got up and turned off the machines. I could immediately tell that the machine was helping her do more than stay away. He breathing slowed, and at every exhale there was a small wheeze. Granted there had always been a wheeze because she had grown up in the south, but this was different.

"Darlin', do y'all remember the day ya came home from school so frustrated because ya couldn't use a semicolon." I chuckled as I sat back down. I did remember that day. It was in middle school, probably when I was about thirteen or fourteen, and my teacher had spent the entire afternoon re-teaching the class grammar because no one knew the correct way to use a comma or a semicolon.

"I was heartbroken because I loved English so much, and I had always been taught that you put commas when you breathe."

"But you had never experienced a semicolon in anythin' other than the book you'd read."

"And you said, 'Kathrin, just think of it this way. A semicolon is as strong as a period, but it never signifies the end, only a new beginning. Like the calm before the storm, or the breath before a sigh. Then you carried the metaphor too far."

"We'll, I'm your mother, ain't I? I 'ave to teach you life principles and it's never easy to just sit a chil' down and tell them the ways of the world. It stuck though, didn't it."

Of course it stuck. I'm a linguist now, you can't just forget everything you learn about semicolons when your career goal is based on language. I remembered what she said to me then. She said 'you can have semicolon joys, semicolon fears, and even semicolon blues, but all those things just lead up to a finish because there is no end to life's semicolons, just like there isn't an end to life's beginnings. You may put a period on the end, but that just means you're ready to start another sentence'

"I didn't understand that then." I sighed, brushing a strand of blondish gray hair out of her sweat laden face.
"Do ya now, Kathrin?"

"I…I don't know." The truth is that I did. It was the same idea as the metaphor of life being a book and all the chapters' different parts. You might end the chapter, but the book keeps going until there is nothing more to write, until death took you away.

"Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out someday. I want you to promise me somethin, Kathrin. Hush-up and listen while I'm talkin' to you," She uttered her preemptive strike at my interruptions. I never liked her promises. They were difficult to follow through with and always taught some profound lesson. It was more tiring than fulfilling.

"Alright. But only that one, you got it?" I pointed my finger at her, making her smile as she rearranged herself on the bed, a painful wheeze coming from her.

I wan' ya to call your Father. I gave your man the phone numbuh of the prison so that ya don' tear it up or anything.' If ya don' call 'im I promise to haunt you until ya do." Mom reached out a shaking hand and dotted me on the nose with one of her fingers. It was cold, almost like ice. I nodded. I wasn't going to promise out loud, and by her smile she seemed to think I was good for my word. I usually was, but calling that monster was not on my top ten list of things to do, "Kathrin, come up here with your momma for a little bit. I wanna hear ya sing our song. Ya still remember it, don' ya?"

"How could I forget?" I faked a smile as I climbed into bed with her and laid my head on her chest. It was even easier to feel how frail she had become when I was holding onto her. Her heart was barely pumping, and I could hear gurgling in her lungs. No! It was too soon.

"Well, get on with it then." I felt her weakly kiss the top of my head, and I forced back tears. It's nearly impossible to sing when you're crying.

"'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." The tears started now, and I heard a breath catch in Mom's throat. I wanted to look up at her face, but as soon as I tried I felt her grasp around me tighten.

"Kathrin. I love you so much, lil girl. I am so proud of you." I clutched onto her tighter, my hands creating star-shaped wrinkles in the fabric of her nightdress, as the dam holding back my tears collapsed.

"You'll," beat beat beat "never know, dear," beat….beat….beat…"how much I" beat…beat…"love you" beat…."please don't take my sunshine" beat… "away."

Silence. I looked over at the heart meter, the straight line glaring back at me viciously, I buried my head into her, trying to find any warmth that I could.

"I love you, Mommy."

And she was gone.