Dumpling Diplomacy

"You can't imagine the way I feel. You have cracked open my heart in ways I don't want to heal, and now, I wanna…"Ranko sighed, rolling her eyes and shaking off her disappointment as she trailed off mid-verse. Nah. That sucks too. Fuck, what am I gonna do? I've only got six days!She brushed a bit of stray flour from the front of her black vinyl apron, sighing furtively as she looked over the yellowish blob of dough resting on her countertop with no small measure of intimidation. Man, I hope this comes out okay. Akane had said she wanted gyoza for dinner, and Ranko hadn't found the time to make it to the grocery store for dumpling wrappers after cheerleading practice. So, to avoid disappointing her lover with the last Sunday dinner they would ever have as unmarried women, she'd decided to attempt making them from scratch."Flatten the dough, and then use a cookie cutter to make circles," she read from the open cookbook on the counter. "I think I can do that." She sliced off a hunk of the log-shaped dough blob, beginning to roll it flat with a rolling pin.Shit, it keeps sticking to the thing! How'm I gonna… wait a minute. That time Mei made the giant cookie for Hoshi's birthday, she put flour on the roller thing. Let me try that. She dusted the wooden cylinder in her hand with a bit of white powder and tried the tool again, finding that it now glided with ease over the damp dough. Fuck yeah! What's up, science!"I'm gonna love you forever," Ranko tentatively half-sung as she bent over the counter to flatten the dough, as if trying the words on for size. "Forever and ever and let you go never and dammit to hell! I'm never gonna come up with something in time!"Disgusted with her continued lyrical struggles, she looked back to the cookbook. Use a cookie cutter to make circles. Where the shit am I gonna get a cookie cutter? She studied the photo of a round aluminum ring. Can I just rip 'em? Nah, it'll come out all jaggedy and weird. Think, Ranko! Her eyes darted around the kitchen, settling on the rice bowl in the sink that still waited to be washed from her lunch. A-ha! She opened the cabinet above the sink, pulling out a clean red earthenware bowl, one of the gifts she and Akane had just received at their wedding shower. Looks about the right size…"Alright, let's try this out." She flipped the bowl upside-down, pushing it down on the dough until it struck the counter top. She gave it a little shake to wiggle the dough loose and lifted it to find a perfect circle of dough resting in its silhouette."Yes!" Ranko pumped her fist victoriously as she started to use the bowl to shape more circles from the misshapen sheet of dough splayed across her countertop. "Yeah, I'm a bad-ass girl, makin' the stuff for Akane," she sung to herself in celebration as her improvised tool continued to work as well as she'd hoped. Her hips rolled gently side to side in a little culinary victory dance as she worked."Whoa-ah-oh-oh, oh!" She trilled her voice in a high run in the meat of the fifth octave as she rolled out another sheet of dough. "Whoa-ah-oh-oh, oh!" Each time she sang the same sequence, it shifted one note higher, testing the upper edges of her vocal range. "Whoa-ah-oh-oh, oh!" Ranko cringed as the last note escaped her throat in a flat squeak. Nope. Can't get there yet. Gotta keep practicing."Whoa-ah-oh-oh, …wha?" Ranko whirled to face the front door as a loud chime supplanted her voice. I didn't even think our doorbell worked. But who the…"Coming!" Ranko slipped off her flour-dusted apron, hanging it from the brass knob on one of the overhead cabinet doors. She put on her brightest homemaker smile, channeling Kasumi as she reached for the doorknob and pulled it open. "Hello, and welc…""Hello, Ranko." The middle-aged brunette in the teal kimono bowed at the waist as Ranko's voice trailed off mid-word."I thought you were leaving town," Ranko said standoffishly, the smile instantly fading from her cheeks as she stepped out of the way of the door to permit her mother to enter the little apartment."I am," Nodoka said with no small measure of sadness in her voice as she stepped across the threshold into the little nook that served as the apartment's dining room. "I'm on the first train in the morning. But… I couldn't leave without seeing you one last time."Ranko nodded sullenly, but said nothing, so Nodoka continued. "If you knew I was heading out, I suppose that means you got my note?"Again, the redhead bobbed her head. "Yeah, I did. And the comb is really pretty. Thank you." That, at least, she meant sincerely, even though she didn't know how she felt about it being a family heirloom from a family that had long since turned their backs on her. She'd sooner have received something handed down from Hana. She sighed quietly, leaning on the half-wall that capped the end of the counter dividing the kitchen from the living room."Ranko, I… I meant what I wrote, truly. I'm so sorry I couldn't find a way to…"The redhead waved her off, retreating to the kitchen to find something to distract herself with. "Just don't, okay? You're never gonna understand. You don't want to understand."Nodoka removed the blue cloth-wrapped bundle from her shoulder, propping it gently in the corner by the front door. She stepped to the edge of the counter, watching her daughter work. "Try me? Hopefully I'll do better than you expect this time?"Ranko rolled her eyes and scoffed quietly as she dolloped a bit of raw ground pork and a pinch of shredded cabbage in the center of the first of her homemade dumpling wraps. "I don't expect nothin' from you. It's the only way to avoid gettin' disappointed again."With a sad nod, Nodoka leaned on the edge of the countertop. "I deserved that, and everything else you've said. I know there's no excuse for any of the things I've said and done, Ranko. Before I go, I want you to say everything you have to say, no matter how much it hurts me. Whatever you're still carrying, I'm inviting you to put it down, baby."Wiping her cheek just below her eye with the back of her right wrist between dumplings, Ranko shook her head. "I'm past all that. I've gotta be. I know you're expectin' me to be all strong and brave and unflappable and all that stuff around you, and I just can't do it anymore. I'm getting married in six days. My heart is so wide open right now, and I can't wall it off enough to deal with you the way you think I should. And there's…" She gave a quiet sigh. "There are some doors that are kept locked for a reason. There's some shit in there you really don't wanna see me let out. Shit I don't even want to remember."Nodoka nodded in quiet acknowledgement, looking for anything she could say to put her child at ease. "It smells wonderful in here, by the way. You're doing a great job."Ranko cracked the smallest of tentative smiles, motioning with her neck to the pot of soup simmering on the back burner of the gas stove behind her, and gave a little shrug. "Soy milk in the zosui. Who knew?"Cracking a timid smile of her own, Ranko's mother motioned to the pile of still-empty dough circles, looking up hopefully. "Would you like some help? If I'm just going to stand here, I might as well do something with my hands.""If you want, sure, I guess." Ranko picked up the two bowls of filling ingredients with a shrug, setting them to her right side so that both women could reach them. As she did, Nodoka stepped into the bathroom behind her, returning moments later having washed her hands.Ranko motioned to her mother's still-damp hands. "Good idea, taking your ring off. I should probably start doin' that when I'm working, too. I just… I hate not having it on, ya know? Especially right now."Nodoka shook her head. "Actually, I…" She shrugged, suspiring audibly. "I've stopped wearing it at all." Her eyes met Ranko's, a deep sadness behind them. "I don't think I can ever forgive him.""Yeah, I guess he did do you pretty rough too, huh?" Ranko pinched another stuffed raw dumpling closed around the edges and tossed it into the bowl to her right with the others."No, child." Nodoka's voice sounded as if her heart had been taken out with an ice-cream scoop. "I can't forgive him for what he did to you. And I say that knowing I didn't do much better.""Just let it go," Ranko said, almost defensively. "I have."Pursing her lips, Nodoka took a step closer. "No, you haven't, honey. I can see it in your eyes. I know you're still hurting, and you have every right to. I was wrong about you. About everything. I had a responsibility to do better, and I failed you."You just won't quit, will you?! Ranko threw a pinch of cabbage back into the bowl, growling angrily. "I already told you! You're just not gonna get it! Stop trying! You never will!" Nodoka tried to reach for her shoulder, but Ranko stepped away, backing all the way off in the narrow aisle kitchen until she was trapped between her pantry and the porcelain cooktop that still radiated heat from the simmering soup.Nodoka just looked over her child, her eyes filled with… sadness? Pity? Shame? Ranko wasn't sure she could tell. She wiped her hands clean with a paper towel, just watching the teenage girl cornered in her own kitchen like a wounded animal. She said nothing. For once, she would say nothing. For once, she would just listen.Ranko wiped her eyes with her right wrist. It took a full thirty seconds of pregnant silence before Ranko understood that the standoff would continue until she spoke. So, she did, and once she started, she could not stop."I was alone for so long. Even before I left the dojo, nobody would talk to me for months. It was like I was a corpse sitting at the dinner table that nobody wanted to mention or think about. And I was scared, and I was confused, and I had a girl's body and no idea what to do with it, and I had all these new feelings I didn't understand, and…"Nodoka interrupted, putting her hand up. "I know, baby. I know it must have been h…""I FUCKING NEEDED YOU! You knew what Pop was. You were married to him; you HAD TO! You knew how fucking damaged and irresponsible he is, and you stood by and let him do this to me! As afraid of you as I've seen him, I know you could have stopped him. And sure, I'm happy now, but it doesn't change a damn thing about how broken I had to get in order to get here. It doesn't give me back one fucking night that I spent crying in the mirror. And now, after I had to crawl half-dead onto a stranger's doorstep to find somebody willing to care about me, and had to work my ass off for two damned years learning how to live all over again? I finally get to a place where I've found my footing and can stand on my own, and NOW you somehow have the audacity to walk into my life and tell me you don't like the way I'm put together? Lady, you've got bigger balls than I ever did!"Torturing me with fucking hot wax - in public - after I told you I couldn't tolerate heat on my skin? What the fuck was that?! A test? Or just some sadistic punishment for daring to wear a dress or put a ribbon in my hair? I could barely walk for a fucking week after that, but I sat through it because I wanted to prove myself to you. I needed to. I've got Hana and my sisters now, and I love them to death, and I wouldn't trade them for the whole world, but damn it, I wanted my mom! I wanted somebody, anybody, that had the same blood as me and wasn't ashamed of me!"My whole life, I dreamed about what you might be like. Then, after I first got cursed, I used to make up this fantasy world in my head where you would show up one day, and take me shopping for clothes, and hold my hand, and brush my hair, and teach me what the hell to do with all these new feelings. I didn't tell nobody, not even Akane, 'cause everybody and everything in my world was screaming at me that I wasn't supposed to feel that way. Looking back, it was probably the first sign of my brain realizing I was supposed to be a girl after all, I don't know. I had so many questions, and fucking nobody I could go to with them. All I know is when you finally showed up, I was scared to death, and I was so fucking angry at you, but I ran full speed ahead anyway because I wanted that dream so damn bad. Stupid me, I thought I'd earned it, and I was finally proud of myself, and I was finally gonna get the chance to show you what I've made of myself, and maybe, just maybe, make you proud of me, too!"You'll never know what it's like, spending twelve hours cold and wet huddled in a glass phone booth to get out of the rain, and feeling like you're on fucking display while you're falling apart. It's an awful lot of fucking time with nowhere to go and nothin' to do but think about the fact that the dream was never real and nobody fucking wants you, okay?! Imagine finally falling asleep on a park bench, for the first time in three days, and waking up an hour later to some smelly drunk guy's hands on you, and knowing it's all happening to you because neither of the two people who fucking made you think you're worth anything at all! It's one thing to be in trouble and feel like nobody can help you, and another thing entirely to know that it ain't worth bothering to ask, because you know nobody wants to!"I know you're never gonna like me the way I am, and I'm coming to terms with that, but… finally, finally, after all this work and all this time, I do. I tried on my damn wedding dress a few days ago, and I tried to tell myself I didn't know that pretty girl in the mirror. I really did. But the reality is, a little bit every day, I'm forgetting the boy I used to see in it. And, damn it, I fucking want to! I think maybe some part of me always did, somewhere deep down, and I didn't let myself acknowledge it because I had Pop and everybody in my ear all the time talkin' about man among men and shit. It took that Amazon psycho giving me no other choice to get me to explore it, but once I did, it didn't take long for me to figure out that being a girl just… fit me better, somehow. It just took a lot longer for me to be able to give myself permission to admit it."I am so ashamed of the person I was, all angry and full up of testosterone and Pop's bullshit, and ready to punch my way through the whole fucking world and never feel anything. The shit I did to Akane alone? Forget wanting to marry me, she should want to kill me! I used to think it was 'cause she had the patience of a saint that she could forgive the way I treated her, and you know what she told me? You didn't do those things, Ranma did! She don't even see me as the same person, and you know what? I'm good with that, 'cause Ranko Tendo has a mom, and four sisters, and friends, and a wife, and legions of fans, for fuck's sake, and never got told by anybody that she wasn't good enough the way she is!"As another pair of salty tears streamed down her cheeks, Ranko reached to her left wrist, unclasping the silver dragon that all but permanently lay coiled around her arm. It sprung open, and she tossed it to the countertop with a sharp metallic ting. She turned her arm upward to show Nodoka the angry red ridge that would never leave her skin, a mountain range dividing her hand from her arm and her old identity from her new one."So, Mrs. Saotome, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but your son is dead. And I don't…unf!"Nodoka closed the remaining three steps between them in the space between heartbeats. Her body crashed into Ranko's with enough force to expel the air from the teenager's lungs and slam her back against the kitchen wall separating her apartment from Mr. Gao's as she wrapped the shaking, crying girl in a tight hug."Then I'm awfully lucky that I have a daughter that I love so much. Baby, I'm so sorry. I was trying far too hard, far too late, to be your mother, and I didn't know what I was doing, because I never got a chance to learn any more than you did. I messed everything up. I was hearing my own parents in my head telling me the way you'd changed wasn't natural and couldn't be okay, just like you must have felt when it first happened to you. It took way too long for me to stop listening to my head and let myself start listening to my heart. And my heart was screaming for you, honey. I never meant to hurt you, baby. Not with the wax thing, not with the things I said, not with my absence, none of it. I was so, so, so wrong, Ranko."I don't want to lose you again. Please. The last time, I could at least tell myself it was your father's fault we were apart, but if it happens again, I will know it's because of my own actions, and I can't live with that for another fifteen years, or another fifteen minutes. I'm so sorry that you had to slam the door in my face to make me realize how desperately I needed it to be open, and how little everything else matters by comparison. I'm so... I love you, and I want you, and… I'm just sorry."It took nearly two full minutes, and losing all remaining control she had over the torrent of brine flowing from her eyes, before Ranko raised her arms from her sides and took hold of her mother in return. She wailed limply, letting Nodoka hold her weight."Say it again? Please?"Nodoka nodded, her chin still resting on her child's shoulder. "I'm sorry, honey." The elder woman did not see the younger one shake her head, but she felt it against her chest."Not that. The other thing."Nodoka released the quaking songstress from her grasp, taking a step back to allow Ranko to look into her eyes and see the sincerity in them. She rested both of her hands on her child's shoulders, bracing her with locked elbows."Your name is Ranko Tendo. I accept you as my daughter. And I love you, no matter what."