Hiroshi watched the young child playing ball in the driveway with the gardener his father employed after his mother became too sick to tend to the flowers.
He raised his head to look at the pale woman standing at the window watching the same boy. Hiroshi took a step closer to the boy hoping he would be able to shield the boy from seeing what was to come.
He turned to the woman. She wore now wore a smile although he eyes still had a dead look as though all the colours in her life had long faded away. He looked at the child and back at her wondering if he could save her.
That was his mother, the only woman he loved through all his life. The woman who gave him both sorrow and joy. He wanted to stop her so he tried. He didn't want her to die. She was so much better without the illness that took her smile from her.
