My Daughter

   Walking out of the garage and up to my room, I grabbed my Mp3Player and laid on the bed. I put it on Me Against the world by Simple plan. After a few minutes blasting my music, Kenji came in and laid down next to me.

   " Is this supposed to make me or you feel better?" I said when he scooted next to me and once again, put his arms around my shoulder. Turning off my mp3Player, I put it on the table beside my bed.

   " Both, and I think it's working." He said, rolling until he was laying on his side.

   " I think so too." I said, rolling onto my side so I was facing him. " You're tired."

   " Yea, so are you." He pulled me close to his body and put his chin on my head. Pulling the blanket's up over us, we stayed like that for a good half-hour.

   " Well, look at what we got here. Both conscious and laying on the same bed. Can you say there's going to be some action going on?" Azumi said, standing in the doorway with Osamu behind her. How long they had been standing there, neither of us knew.

   When we sat up, Azumi flopped on the bed behind us, with Osamu sitting at the end.

   " You are so lucky I don't have to fart." Kenji said.

   " Actually I think I have to." I said. A few second later Azumi moved next to her brother.

   " Jeeze Mizuki, what did you eat?" She said, plugging her nose.

   " Beans."

   " So, what are we going to do?" Osamu asked.

   " The police said, that since I'm sixteen and if I can pay the bills, we could stay here, but I don't think Misaki wants to, and I don't blame her. We hate this place."

   " We could always give my mother this house and we could stay in hers, add a few extra rooms, plus our bills are cheaper." Osamu said kicking off his shoes and sitting with his legs crossed. Following his example, we figured a plan.

   " Okay, we give your mother the house, we stay in hers, we add onto the house, and we all live happily ever after. Anyone else see the flaws in this plan?" Kenji said. " One, how do we get your mother to accept. And two, it'll cost thousands to add onto the house."

   " Some Life insurance money should come in soon." I said, looking at them.

   " Isn't that for paying your fathers' left over bills?" Azumi asked.

   " No, the one good thing about him was that he could not stand to be in dept. and over paid everything. And he's not my father."

   " What?"

   " I'm adopted."

   " We knew you couldn't be related to them, but the only question is, Why does Misaki look like you?"

   " I have no clue, but for now there are more important matters to attend to." I said, looking at them. Pulling a notebook from under my bed I opened it and wrote down everything that was to be done.

   " So how much is it?"

   " Around seven hundred." I said, not looking at any of them.

   " Seven hundred isn't going to fully pay for anything." Osamu said.

   " Thousand."

   " What?" Azumi asked, looking at me like I was crazy.

   " Seven-hundred thousand."

   " Holy crap, Mizuki! With that kind of money..."

   " We could buy a bigger place to live."

   " I know, but four to five bedroom houses cost around a million, and even three bedroom houses cost about seven hundred thousand. So unless you have money stored . . . " Hopping off the bed I walked over to my rug. Lifting it up, I pulled the loose floor board up. Under it was a wad of cash, about the size of a baseball.

   " Damn, I almost forgot about this money." I said, picking it up. Walking over to the bed, I gave the wad to Osamu. " You're the smart one, count it."

   " Why me? You’re better at math, Azumi." Osamu grabbed her hand and put the money in it.

   " No way, I am not counting that. Here Kenji you do it." Azumi pushed it into Kenji's hands.

   " I'm good at English, not math. So I guess Mizuki you get to count it up." He handed me the money. " Sorry."

   " It's fine, I know you’re not good at math." Putting the money into piles of worth; five, ten's, twenties, and hundreds. I put them into piles of five hundred dollars. After counting it all up, there was about eighteen thousand dollars.

   " Damn, 'Zuki. Where'd all this come from?"

   " When I was born there was a safety box in my name left at the hospital. Soon after I turned ten, I was allowed to see what was in it. I hid it under my bed. After looking in it again, I noticed a few hundred dollars was missing. Finding the loose floor boards, I put all the money in it. Every year since then, a thousand dollars appeared every year for my birthday, we don't know who gave it to me, but I always hid it."

   " How much was in it when you first looked in it?" Azumi asked.

   " Ten thousand."

   " But then where did the extra three come from?"

   " I started getting two thousand when Misaki was born."

   " You're being watched, Mizuki." Kenji said.

   " More like being watched by a guardian angel. But anyway, it's almost eight, I think we should go get Misaki. We staying at home tonight?" Azumi asked.

   " Yea, do you think you two can pick her up? I need to talk to Kenji, alone." I said.

   " Yea, have fun you two." Osamu said, dragging his sister out the door with him. A few minutes of silence, Kenji finally spoke,

   " What did you need to talk about?"

   " I want you to come with me to the doctors office tomorrow."

   " Why me and not Azumi?" He asked, pulling me close to him.

   " Because, I need to have a test done. When I was thirteen, I lost my memories for about a year, when I did get them back, I couldn't remember anything about what had happened that year."

   " You think Misaki is your daughter, don't you?"

   " That would explain why she look's like me. I don't know what I'm going to do if she is. Thinking I was taking care of my sister is easier than thinking I'm taking care of my daughter." I said, putting my head into my hands.

   " Hey you still have us, don't worry." He said, pulling me onto his lap. Kissing me on the forehead, he stood up. Putting me on my feet, he walked to the door.

   " Yea, but I'm only 16 and I might have a three-year-old daughter. I think I'm losing my mind." I said walking up beside him.

   " Join the club." Taking his hand, we walked down the stairs and into the livingroom. Looking at the picture of my "mother" on the wall, something clicked in my head. Walking over to it, pulling Kenji with me, I pulled off the picture. Behind it was a hole in the wall, with a note in it.

Dear Mizuki if you are reading this, I am dead. I am sorry for all that I have done, but know this, I loved you and Misaki with all my heart. Your mother is a mad woman. She is mentally unstable. If you can, get her help. I am sorry I took the path that I did. I'm guessing your mother told you. But there is something else, When you were 13, Someone snuck into the house while we were gone. When we came home, You were unconscious and crying, we knew something happened. Mizuki, Misaki is your daughter. When you had regained consciousness, You did not remember anything

And would not until your fourteenth birthday. The reason why I became a drunk, was to cover for your mother. She was unstable and would not let anyone help her. She would beat Misaki when you weren't home and I was passed out. I love you Mizuki, and no matter if you are adopted, you are still my daughter, and Misaki, my granddaughter. There will be more money in the life insurance than $700,000. I only told your mother that to keep her from killing me off sooner, seems it worked. There will be a total of seventy million. I want you to move out of the house, then burn it. I love you Mizuki, and Kenji, I know you're there, take good care of my daughter.

   " Dad." I said, falling to my knees and crying, Kenji beside me with his arm around my shoulder. After a few minutes passed and Osamu and Azumi came through the front door with Misaki in her arms.

   " Hey, what’s going on? Why are you crying? I did not say you could cry!" Azumi said, putting Misaki on the couch. Kenji took the note from my hand and gave it to Azumi to read. After handing it Osamu, she fell to her knees and cried with me. After a few minutes, Misaki started to wake up.

   " 'Zuki, what's wrong?" She said crawling over to me.

   " Come here, 'Saki. I need to talk to you." I stood up with her in my arms, walking up stairs, I went into our bedroom and shut the door. Sitting on the bed, I pulled her into my lap." Now I want you to tell me the truth. Was it Dad that hit you, or Mom?"

   " Mom, she said . . . "

   " I don't want to hear what she said. I want you to forget all about what she said. I do not want you to think of her again. We will never see her again." I said, making her hug me. She sat back on the bed and grabbed my songbook. When she opened it, I grabbed it from her hand.

   " You can look at it when we're down talking, I promise. Misaki, did you ever feel like mom was your mother?"

   " No, she was too mean. You were my mom, 'Zuki. You took care of me."

   " I am your mom, 'Suki. Dad said so. Mom wasn't my mom either, 'Suki."

   " Really?" She said, looking at me with hope in her eyes.

   " Yes. But you want to know what. Dad really did love us. He left us a lot of money. More than we expected."

   " Mommy, who's my daddy?"

   " I don't know, 'Suki. I just don't know." I said, looking at her.

   " Can Kenji be my daddy?" She asked. In a way I couldn't say no.

   " We'll see, baby, we'll see." Grabbing my songbook, I opened it to the last page, the newest song I wrote. " Tonight we will go, and fight our way through. To a place we can call home, a place I once knew. A home for us, not so far away. A place where we can hide. A hope is all that it would take, to leave this awful place. I wish to go, but I cannot do to this darkness inside my heart." I sang picking her up, I laid her on my bed. " Go to sleep. We’re going to pack this place up tonight."

   " We're leaving it?" She asked.

   " Yea, then we're burning it down. Dad's wishes. We're taking some of his stuff with us, but we're leaving hers." I pulled the covers up to her chin.

   " Okay, Mommy. I love you."

   " I love you too, baby girl. Get some sleep." Turning off the lights as I walked out the door, I left it open a little.

Walking down stairs I was greeted by Azumi.

   " So Mizuki, what's it feel like to be a mom?" She said, grabbing onto my arm and draggin me into the livingroom.

   " Really good actually." I sat on the couch bed with everyone else.

   " So, 'Zuki. Do you like being a teenage mother?" Osamu asked holding a microphone in his hand pushing it toward me, looking at me.

   " What is this? Dr. Phil? Ignore my life for now, let's get this place cleaned up." I said, going into the kitchen and grabbing the spare boxes from behind the fridge.