Oniisan… Ohitori Desu | Ka?

“My grandmother used to say,” she started, rolling the lollipop between her fingers, “that when you say ‘ohitori desu ka’ to someone, you’re not really asking if they’re alone. You’re asking if they’re lonely.”

“My father,” she said. “He left three years ago. Not dramatic. No fight. Just… one day he was at breakfast, and the next day his side of the closet was empty. My mom doesn’t talk about it. She just works more. And I sit here and count the cars going down the mountain.” oniisan… ohitori desu ka?

I was twenty-two then, or maybe twenty-three. The kind of age where “alone” still sounded like a choice you made, not one that was made for you. I’d come up the mountain to escape a thesis I wasn’t writing, a city that buzzed like a trapped wasp in my chest, and a voicemail from my mother that I’d listened to four times and still not answered. “My grandmother used to say,” she started, rolling