In a few weeks, she will turn nine—the last day of her first life—and I am trying to prepare her for it. Before, she stood four feet four inches tall and registered fifty-five on the scale. Now she only reaches to four feet three-and-a-quarter inches and weighs more than sixty pounds. This is not satisfactory. Every morning I wake her early for a workout and take her measurements.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” I say in my most singsong motherly voice. She groans and burrows stubbornly under the covers, but I don’t take no for an answer. Children need their parents to be authority figures and to instruct them how to stay disciplined.

“Sixty-two pounds.” I sigh in disappointment, recording the number. “Let’s get you running.”

I set the treadmill at a challenging incline and work her up to a healthy sweat. “Faster, Coco!” I encourage over the thumping of her shoes.

“No!” she shouts and climbs off the machine. She retreats to a corner and hugs her legs to her chest. Her hair falls over her face. “I’m not fat.”

“Honey,” I reply, kneeling beside her, “I know that, but you don’t look the way you used to look. You were so pretty and popular. Don’t you want to have that again?”

She raises her mournful eyes to meet mine and nods.

“Then hop back up there!”

After the physical exercises, I put Setsuko through her mental paces.

“Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up before you were nine the first time?” I ask.

“Did I still want to be a professional ballerina?”

“Not anymore.” I frown. “If you get it right, I’ll let you have a treat.”

She scrunches her face in concentration, then brightens and pops her eyes wide open.

“A vet!” she cries. “I wanted to be a veterinarian.”

“Good!” I say. “Do you remember why?”

“Because of Miruku,” she says. I take out a packet of mochi from the cupboard and pass her a rice bonbon filled with red bean paste. She snatches it from my fingers. Our cat, Miruku, as if on cue, jumps up on Coco’s lap. “Miru!” Coco squeals and covers the furry forehead with kisses.

Tonight, I am going to go through with the Miruku incident, no more excuses. For what would be her final Christmas, we gifted Setsuko with a completely white kitten. She doted on the animal and rushed home from school to cuddle her and play catch-the-fabric-mouse. Mistakenly, we let Miruku wander outside. Our house is on coastal property in Malibu, so we thought she would merely chase gulls and dig up hermit crabs by the water. When she didn’t come home one night, we went scouring the beach. But living by the ocean also means that we’re next to the Pacific Coast Highway, and in the morning, a neighbor brought us Miruku’s slender body. The cat had been hit by a car. Setsuko cradled the kitten to her chest, the white coat matted and soiled, and cried. It broke my heart. I knelt down, enveloped them both in my arms, and cried, too. I promised my Coco I would get her another kitten. Of course, I never had the chance.