Maria Bunin’s Reviews > Breasts and Eggs > Status Update

Komi was in her smile. So was Mum. The face was familiar. Smiling at me. It was every face of Makiko I’d ever known.

He was too scared of the ocean. (…) He showed up hugging a bright white tote bag bulging with old books. In that soft voice, almost too soft to hear, he said they were for me (…) I could see him, on a dark night, no sound but the waves, holding a book close to his face so he could underline a sentence he never wanted to forget.

I had my notebooks, my stickers, my sketchbook, my recorder. My bag as like a private room I could take with me wherever I went. We raced into the dark, without my favourite jumper, like a part of my brain had fallen asleep. When I stared into the dark outside the window, it felt like that version of me was still asleep under the covers.