Sayoko

Sayoko (小夜子) is the mother of Kaoru Nishimi.

Plot
She came from a very from poor family and always had to work in the fields instead of going to school, because of this, she never learned to read or write. Depiste that, she married a man who looked passed her background and class, but she begged him to hide it from the rest of the family out of shame as she knew how society would look down on her. Things went well for her after giving birth to Kaoru, and would sing lullabies to him while her husband would play the piano, but a maid revealed to family about her background and started treating her like a gold digger always reminding her about being the mother and nothing more. Despite her plea's to get her husband to stop, he didn't as he was working from ship to ship and only blamed her for keeping it a secret in the first place.

She couldn't take it anymore after that decided to take Kaoru with her and run away, but at the train station the head of the family stopped her and took Kaoru away, she ran back as she approached the gate, she stopped herself realizing that even if she did succeed what good would it do her as she only had field working skills and would not provide her son much and decided to let her son be and left, never to return depiste that they never divorced. Because she was unable to write she never sent any letter's and her husband never talked about the past which led Kaoru little to no memory and would not meet again until Kaoru was 16 and told him everything how and why she never came back and always loved him. At the train station Kaoru gave her a record Lullaby of Birdland before leaving.

Etymology

 * The name Sayoko means "small" (小) (sa), "night" (夜) (yo) and "child" (子) (ko).