Auntie Four-Hearts

by Kaily Harumi Daida

“Ichi,” Auntie Four-Hearts said, then unzipped the seam in her chest to reveal her main heart. It looked like cranberry sauce and smelled like wet pennies. She winked at me when I wrinkled my nose.

“Ni.” 

She undid the remaining buttons on her blouse and showed the stitched smile across her stomach where my cousins came from. The scars puckered around her wrist as she reached in for her second heart. Auntie held it out for me to admire: a yellow orb with dark shadows that swirled across its surface.

“San.”

She took off her wig and bent her head to display her shiny scalp. A small hand pressed out from under her skin, pulsing slowly. I giggled and crawled into Auntie’s lap. She wrapped her arms around me.

“Shi, death. Always with us.”

“Mama used yon,” I said into Auntie’s blouse.

“That’s how I used to count my fourth heart,” she replied. I knew better than to ask to see it.

Auntie fell asleep with me cuddled against her chest, her first two hearts tucked away neatly. The sofa was narrow, so I wriggled up to talk to her third heart. 

“Do you think about her?” I whispered.  

The hand flexed its fingers, stretching out the wrinkles on Auntie’s forehead. Then, it pointed to the picture frames mounted behind the sofa. Photos of Auntie Four Hearts and Mama covered the wall. Auntie never put up Mama’s memorial portrait.

“I think about her, too,” I replied.

Kaily Harumi Daida is a Japanese-American writer from Michigan.