"She had a prescription for barbiturates."
"And you didn't know about the prescription?"
"No," Yori answered. "She never seemed ill, just a big high-strung. But you know her; she's been like that since I met her."
True, maybe they should have noticed something amiss way back then. "How is she doing?" Satoshi asked.
"She's unconscious, but she's breathing on her own since they pumped the pills out of her stomach."
"How much did she take?" Masaaki asked.
"The whole bottle," Yori answered with a sob. "If I hadn't gotten there..."
"But you did," Satoshi told him. "That's all that matters."
Ichiro came over and sat down on the other side of Yori.
"We will get through this," he said. "She is family and family stick together no matter how many arguments we get into. I am sorry for any part I played in this little mishap."
Yori raised his right hand and stroked Ichiro's cheek, but did not say anything. At times like this it wasn't the sentiment said but the love behind it.
"Satoshi says that Amaya's still in recovery," Cristal told Shaundra after she got off the phone with him. "They'll be home after Yori returns. They sent him home earlier to change and to get some rest."
"That's good," Shaundra said adding sugar and lemon to her tea.
"Why would she do something like this?" Cristal asked.
"What good does ending your life do?"
"She's weak," Shaundra replied. "And has low self- esteem."
"I suppose you're right," Cristal said. Shaundra didn't seem broken up by what had happened. In fact, it didn't seem to faze her at all. "I don't think she'll be able to go to Europe. Satoshi said her parents want to take her home with them while she recovers."
"That's what parents are supposed to do when their kids make stupid decisions," Shaundra said.
"Ouch, why so cold, Mrs. Yoshida?"
"Because it's true. It is as much their fault as Amaya's. No man is worth killing yourself over. Her parents should have taught her that."
Cristal raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Not even Ich?"
"No, not even him. I have enough trouble dealing with my own body trying to wipe me out without me helping it.
Granted, I did stupid things like eating food with salt, but I never tried to kill myself with it. And like you said, what purpose would it serve?"
"Satoshi also told me that she slit her wrists."
"Still a cowardly way to do it. Amaya didn't want to die,"
Shaundra told Cristal. "She knew Yori was on his way home.
She did it for sympathy and to see him suffer. Women do things like this all the time."
"How do you know this?"
"Because I've been around a long time and I've seen just about everything," Shaundra told her. "She thought she could guilt Yori into loving her."
"Maybe you're right." Damn, Shaundra has such a brutal outlook on life. She wondered what had happened to her in the past to make her feel this way. "Do you think Yori will change?"
"For a while," Shaundra answered. "But then he'll revert back to his old self. The man loves me and nothing will change that. Amaya knows this and I'm sure it's hard to be second in your husband's life. But instead of taking her frustrations out of me she should have found a way to make him love her. Her death wouldn't have changed anything except maybe make Yori free to come after me and interfere in my marriage."
"Don't you feel a tiny bit guilty about some of this?" Cristal asked.
"Hell no," Shaundra answered coldly. "Well, let me take that back, yes. I should have refused to ever come to Japan.
Had I stayed my ass on American soil most of this would not have happened. But I didn't cause her to become suicidal. If it wasn't me, it would have been some other woman Yori messed with. I won't take responsibility for her shortcomings."
Well put, Cristal thought as she lifted her teacup. But still very negative. The farmhouse queen did have a lot of issues emotionally and probably needed more help than she'd admit.
She had learned that Shaundra wasn't the kind of person to burden someone else with her problems. She just kept it all bottled up inside and just toned it out or fainted when it became too much. Like the coma. What had she seen that was so frightening that rendered her unconscious for four months? And Shaundra still had a big decision to make about her marriage, which wasn't getting any easier the closer she got to delivering. Do you stay with a man