Kelly Murashige

Inumommy

The first time you spoke to me, I was five years old and bleeding.

My mother was in the kitchen, talking on the corded phone. Bored, I decided to race around the living room. A quick slip on a sock led to my hitting my jaw on the edge of the coffee table. Something started gushing. I stuck my hand into my mouth and froze at the sight of my scarlet fingers.

Don’t panic were the first two words you ever said to me.

I promptly disobeyed you, the beginnings of a scream rising in my throat.

No, you said. No crying. You’re fine, child. You’re fine.

My eyes rose to the bookshelf beside the television. My gaze hooked on your snout. After the passing of her childhood dog, my grandmother’s father gave her you. From then on, you had been her good-luck charm, the something old at her wedding.

My mother was the first one to call you Inugami. She had heard the term in an old Japanese movie and, perhaps still clinging to the resentment of having never gotten to play with you as a child, named you after the villain’s familiar.

This did not please my grandmother, but once she passed away, you became my mother’s. I therefore grew up calling you Inugami—or, in my young vernacular, Inumommy.

Rise, you said, your voice rusty, and go to your mother.

I stared up at you, my eyes wide. Before that day, the only times I had ever heard a toy talk was when my mother voiced one for me, her voice pitched up or down to fit the personality of a teddy bear or elephant.

Keeping my eyes on you, I pushed myself to my feet.

Then, with one hand still stuck in my mouth, I made my way into the kitchen and presented myself to my mother.

She screamed and dropped the phone, leaving an ugly chip on its side.

Over the next few days, while recovering from what had turned out to be a fractured jaw, I sat in bed and waited for my mother to spoon-feed me soup. Every time she left me long enough, I returned to you and prayed.

At first, I asked you for a simple thing: the ability to eat regular food. Then, as I got older, my asks gradually grew bigger. I doubted I had truly heard you but continued praying anyhow. In my mind, it was better than asking no one at all.

Ten years after you spoke to me, I fell in love with a boy. I lost my mind over him, convinced if he didn’t learn to love me back, there was no point in living.

I knelt before you twice a day and prayed through every class. Instead of filling my notebook with dates and bullet points, I penned you supplications.

The day he showed up with a girlfriend is the day I forsook you.

I skipped most of my classes, leaving campus before lunch, and stormed back to the apartment. Once I had unlocked the door, I made a beeline for your shelf.

“YOU’RE WORTHLESS,” I shouted at you. “WHY EVEN PRAY TO YOU, THEN?”

I swept you off your feet, the way I wished that boy had done to me.

“Why pray at ALL,” I continued, “if I don’t even know if you’re real?”

You stared back at me, your eyes black and soulless. You said nothing to me. You hadn’t spoken in ten years, if you had ever spoken at all.

My grip around you tightened. Your paint began to chip. I thought of my mother’s old corded phone; we had gone through two more since then.

I marched into the kitchen, as I had after fracturing my jaw. As soon as I was close enough, I tossed you in the trash. You landed hard, hitting the plastic back and bouncing once before landing on a banana peel.

I slapped my hands over my face, trying to stop the tears. My fingers came back gray. I had just started wearing eyeliner, hoping if I did, someone would love me.

“I want to die. I want to die. Please. Please. I want to die.”

I collapsed onto the floor and crawled back over to the trash. After pulling you out, I peeled a fibrous banana string off your back. I then ran my thumb along your muzzle, tracing the ridge of your snout.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Help me, please.”

Say my name.

My breath caught in my throat. “Inugami.”

You made a disapproving sound. Mmm-mmm.

“Imumommy,” I said instead.

Have you ever considered, you whispered, that there’s a reason some prayers go unanswered?

Because you hated me. Because you had forgotten. Because you wanted to punish me.

Mmm-mmm, you said again. Because I love you so. I know things you cannot know. See things you cannot see.

My grandmother’s beloved pet choked on a chicken bone. My grandmother had scolded that dog countless times for taking what it shouldn’t have had.

Yes, you said. That’s exactly it.

“But I love him,” I told you.

I know you do, you replied. Just remember: Chicken bones aren’t the only things that can choke a girl.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

You were silent for a while.

Then you said, I want you to help her.

“Who?” I asked.

You know.

I did.

For a while, I kept my distance.

Then came her first bruise.

I intervened immediately, taking that boy’s girlfriend out of class, and led her to the nurse. While she wept beside me, I called her mother on her phone. The whole time I was with her, wiping her tears with one thumb, I bowed my head and thanked you for saving us both.

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Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels THE LOST SOULS OF BENZAITEN and THE YOMIGAERI TUNNEL, as well as the upcoming adult novel MILKIVERSE (2027). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. Though she can be shy, she loves obsessing over books, video games, and strange animals.