Sister – distance
I was shocked to hear how much my sister earned at the hostess bar. Her hourly rate was about 3,000 yen per hour, while her former job of washing dishes paid about 780 yen per hour. When she washed dishes, she was in pain as the skin on her hands peeled. Now her painted nails shimmered at the tip of her silky hands.
In the evening, she put on her make-up that looked like a composition of strong brows, thick-rimmed eyes, and dark red lips placed on a white sheet. Her body-conscious black dress accentuated her ample flesh in bosom and tighs. When she put on high heels, her hips protruded to balance her limbs. She left the apartment after we ate dinner, and I spent the rest of the evening alone.
I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard the clicking of heels on the asphalt road of the quiet residential neighborhood. It beat a steady rhythm, a firm staccato. I thought of her reassuring, straight strides I saw from her back when she carried me home as a child. It felt like her heartbeat, and it gave me comfort. But now I didn’t know my sister. She was distant, even when she was next to me. She told me not to tell my parents about her new job. She had always been candid about her life, at least to my mother. I thought if she considered the job was respectable, she could have been honest.