Sisters of Heart and Snow Read Online Free PDF Page B

pinned Yoshinaka down, Kanehira kicked at the ground, sending a cloud of needles upward. He stomped his feet. “Stop it, Tomoe!”
    â€œTantrums are for babies, Kanehira.” She transferred the fruit to her other hand, wiping her palm on her trousers. “But I suppose that’s to be expected from you.”
    â€œYou just wait, Tomoe.” Kanehira took off through the copse. Tomoe considered going after him, but decided against it.
    â€œAh, going to get Father, I suppose.” Tomoe spoke as if she didn’t care, but her stomach seized. There would be a consequence to her retaliation. Father would not be happy. They were supposed to be guarding Yoshinaka, not beating him up. Though he’d legally lost his title, he was still Lord Yoshinaka in the eyes of the Minamoto clan. Tomoe’s family were but his servants.
    â€œTomoe, I can’t breathe.” Yoshinaka’s fingers played a tune on her anklebone. It tickled. He squeezed her calf, rubbed the muscle. “Let go.”
    She took her foot off his chest and sank into the damp new grass. Yoshinaka sat up so they were side by side, facing each other. His face was streaked with dirt. His hair, normally pulled back, was loose around his face. His eyes, normally impish, were sad.
    Beaten. Thoroughly beaten. She couldn’t stand to see him like this. She leaned over, the last bit of fruit in her palm. For a moment he ignored it.
    â€œCome on,” Tomoe said, moving the fruit under his nose. Always, the boy could be swayed by food. She put it to his lips and he glared at her—she thought he’d smack her hand away. He opened his mouth instead and allowed her to feed him.
    Â 

Two
    S AN D IEGO
    Present Day
    T he next morning, I pull my minivan into the absurdly long middle school drop-off line, behind the fleet of identical minivans. These minivan car dealers must lurk outside hospital delivery rooms, capturing new parents. “What’s going on today? Any tests?” I brake as two kids leap out in front of the car and scurry into the school. I turn up the music. The group’s name, The Naked and Famous, pops up in digital letters on the display. “Young Blood,” my favorite.
    I flip down the visor mirror and put on a little lipstick, singing along. I look good, I think. No makeup, but my skin’s kind of glowing, no doubt thanks to the hijinks my husband initiated this morning. I flip my ponytail sassily and grin, showing most of my teeth. I even remembered to brush before we left. A pretty big accomplishment.
    Chase shoots me a withering look and turns down the volume. “It should be illegal for a mother to listen to a band with a name like that.”
    â€œOh really? What about moms dancing to it?” I shake around in my seat, flailing my arms around, and he slides down as far as he can, pulling his hoodie over his eyes.
    You can’t tell my children are one-quarter Japanese. Chase has light hazel eyes and curly light brown hair perpetually bleached blond by the sun. Quincy has hair that was full-on blond when she was little and turned to medium brown when she get older. Quincy and Chase are taller than I am—Quincy about five-ten, Chase already nearly six feet—and both are athletically built.
    Perhaps they don’t look Asian because I don’t, either—I’ve got reddish brown hair and a smattering of freckles. My face turns red when I drink. I look more like my father’s side, of indeterminate Western European heritage.
    I dance some more, not caring who sees.
    In the past, I was
that
parent. The one who had no life outside of school. The too-into-it room mother who sends out thirty-page e-mails detailing class potlucks and craft projects. The one who takes carpool duty as seriously as military service.
    And that’s who I wanted to be. I wanted my kids to have a
CHILDHOOD: Now Without Traumatic Family Dynamics
. To glance up from their timed math tests and know