by Mari Yamaoka
She feels a little better, and calms down a few moments later. Using a spatula, she begins scooping the cracked eggs into a bowl.
He can have this for breakfast tomorrow. I’ll find something better for myself.
Next, she takes out a roll of paper towel, and soaks a few strips with water and detergent, then begins wiping up the rest of the egg on the table, as well as what’s spilled on the floor.
Mika writes down the address and telephone number of Kenji’s mysterious female admirer, and also takes a few photos of their text message exchanges with her cell phone.
Mika tiptoes back to the bedroom, puts Kenji’s cell phone back on the nightstand, and then lies down to try and get some sleep.
For a while, it feels impossible as she sobs quietly, her mind buzzing with questions. Why would he do this to her? Hadn’t she been a good wife? Eventually, exhaustion overpowers her, and she drifts to sleep.
At the breakfast table the next morning, Kenji eats omelets made with the broken eggs Mika threw last night.
"Hey, you came back late last night, Kenji.
What kind of customers were you seeing?"
"An important one," Kenji says without looking up from his breakfast.
Mika glares at him. "You’re not meeting another woman, are you?"
"No, I was drinking with clients."
"Really? That seems kind of strange. Lately, you’ve been coming home late pretty often."
"You know I have a hard time keeping track of time." He takes another bite of omelet.
"You say that like I’m accusing you of something."
"Aren’t you?” He drops his fork on his plate. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore."
Liar! If he won’t admit he’s cheating, I’ll get the evidence myself. He doesn’t know I have the mistress’ number, and I won’t tell him until I have all the evidence I need.
As soon as Kenji leaves for work, Mika calls the mistress, nervous but determined to get to the bottom of things. No one answers, but Mika keeps calling until, finally, someone picks up.
"Hello, who is this?" a timid voice asks on the other end of the line.
"This is Kenji Tanaka's wife, and I’m calling because I saw a bunch of texts and calls from you on my husband's cell phone."
The woman says nothing. An uncomfortable silence stretches between them.
With a sigh, Mika continues. "My husband comes home late a lot these days, and I feel certain that he’s been cheating. How do you explain all the texts and phone calls? How long have you been seeing my husband?"
When the woman finally answers, she doesn’t sound threatened at all. "It will be two years pretty soon," she says in a bored tone, “So what?”
"Two years?" Anger springs up on Mika, and she begins shouting. "He’s been deceiving me for 2 years?”
Mika remembers an article written by a biology scholar she’d read a couple years back, which claimed that the expiration date on love is only 3 years long. Had Kenji’s love for Mika died out after just 3 years of being married? Is that why he started looking for new romance with another woman?
"I know you don’t have children with him, but I gave birth to his child," The woman says in a triumphant tone. "What? You have a child with him? That can’t be true, he doesn’t want children! Please, tell me the truth."
There’s a pause before the woman answers.
"It was an accident. I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was already 3 months into the pregnancy. When it was confirmed by an obstetrician, I thought about it a lot, and decided I did not want an abortion, so I waited a couple more months, and then told Kenji after it was already too late. "
"Did he…want to have the child?"
"Well, at first he was against it, but by then there wasn’t really any other choice, so he eventually accepted it, and recognized the child as his son. He agreed to pay child support. And now he loves and cherishes the baby."
Mika is at a loss for words. The bitterness of defeat falls on her like a heavy blanket.
This woman got what she wanted, and a child with him. She used the baby to trap him.
Mika starts crying loudly. "You don’t understand how much I love him, and how desperately I wanted a child with him."
The woman remains silent once more.
"I committed my life to him. We are married, doesn’t that matter to you? You said you gave birth to his child, but he is my husband. Do you have no morals? I could sue you for adultery!"
The threat doesn’t seem to bother the woman. The woman said with a tone of disgust. "I don’t have any money to pay you.” She continues, “I’m not working right now, since I’m busy taking care of the baby every day. I live on Kenji’s child support."
This conversation is going nowhere. Mika hangs up the phone.
That night, Mika talks to Kenji about his mistress.
"How did you know about her?" he demands.
"I saw the text messages and phone records on your cell phone."
"You snooped through my phone without permission? How could you violate my privacy?” he asks, voice shaking with anger. “I’m not going to forgive you for that.”
"You’re telling me I’m the one in the wrong? How could you say that? Which is more serious: reading your phone messages one time, or having kept hidden an extramarital affair and a love child?"
Kenji flinches.
"You said you weren’t ready for children yet, and I respected that. So I've been patiently waiting, even though I really wanted children. And now I find out you had a child with another woman."
"She was going to have my child with or without my permission, and me to acknowledge it after she entered into the late stages of her pregnancy. What was I supposed to do?"
Mika shakes her head in disgust. How could he be so irresponsible?
"You haven’t even apologized for being unfaithful to me. How could you be so careless? I always thought you lacked some respect, and a sense of responsibility by showing up late every time, but I never imagined it would extend this far. Marriage with you was a mistake."
Mika puts together her personal belongings and leaves home.
It seems she made another mistake changing the past to have this abominable married life.
I should return to the time of my date with Kenji and stop seeing him just like I did originally. My instincts must be better than I thought.
Mika goes into a hotel and quickly gets a bedroom. Once inside, she grabs the time machine, and sets it to the date when Kenji arrived late.
* * *
When Mika opens her eyes, she’s once again at the Shibuya Station Hachiko Exit. She looks at her watch; 30 minutes past her and Kenji’s schedule meeting time.
Then her mobile phone rings. Of course, it’s Kenji.
"Mika! I’m sorry but I was swamped with the part-time job and couldn’t leave. I’ll be there in 10 minutes. Can you wait a little bit longer?”
"Again?” Mika asks, not bothering to hide her irritation. “You’re late every time, and I’m tired of it, both physically and mentally. You know, your life is such a mess because you just don’t care. You are an inconsiderate, insensitive bastard. Enough is enough."
Mika hangs up, and leaves the ticket gate behind.
Chapter 6
Learning
Mika wakes up and finds herself in her old studio apartment. The date is Saturday morning.
“Back in the studio, and a bachelorette, again,” murmurs Mika.
She is both disappointed and relieved. Life with an unfaithful husband had been far more stressful than being a bachelorette without love. Maybe being single for a while wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“Better to be alone than in a horrible marriage,” she says to herself.
“All my life I’ve been waiting for ‘Prince Charming’ to come and make me happy. But expecting someone else to make me happy is wrong.”
She paces back and forth in her tiny apartment.
“Maybe I haven’t worked
hard enough to achieve something on my own, since I’ve been so focused on getting married and enjoying life as a housewife.”
“Maybe ‘Prince Charming’ doesn’t even exist. And finally, I’m over 40. I have become a so-called middle-aged woman.”
She realized the reason she ended up a temporary office worker in her 40s was because she never tried very hard to be anything else, always expecting to end up as a care-free, full-time housewife. She could have worked so much harder, obtained qualifications for better jobs. Instead, she was fired from her full-time job when the company restructured and became HAKEN SHAIN, a dispatched contract worker. Because she was expendable. And not she’s a mere clerk, who’s never been promoted.
She’d always made excuses to herself for quitting work when it was too demanding, or too much effort. She’d stopped going to the accounting class after she flunked a lesson on a stormy day. And once she’d stayed home, it became too bothersome to catch up again.
* * *
She remembered that day well, because it had been raining cats and dogs, the raindrops creating a constant patter on her office rooftop. The sky was dark, lit sporadically by jagged lightning, followed by the dull booms of thunder.
Mika had just left the office, and looked up at the pouring sky.
“Umm, I don’t feel like going to class with the weather like this.” So instead of walking to the metro station to go to her accounting class, she hopped on the bus and headed home.
As soon as she got home, she took off her soiled shoes, her coat, suit, and her wet blouse, followed by her underwear. She went into the bathroom and hopped in the shower to wash off the dirt.
After the shower she was feeling much better, and put on a loose-fitting, long pajama T-shirt that reached all the way to her knees. She switched on TV, grabbed a snack from the fridge, and munched on it while lying in bed.
“Ah, it’s just too much effort to sit in class after such a hard day’s work. I’m fed up!” Mika muttered with a sigh.
* * *
And from that day on, she stopped going to class. The tuition she’d paid had gone to a complete waste.
Mika paces around her apartment once more.
“I wonder if I hadn’t stopped taking that accounting course, would my life have been different? Would I have a full-time job and career? Maybe something with more responsibilities, and hopefully a higher salary. Or maybe I would have opened my own accounting office, and earned a bunch of money and lived in a nice, comfortable apartment. Who knows?”
She stops in her tracks, mouth dropping open.
“Why don’t I find out? I’m going to go back and redo that day!”
Excitement races through Mika, her fingers shaking as she sets the time machine to the rainy day when she decided to skip class.
The time machine hums and the electro-magnetic field appears. Mika jumps in without hesitation.
* * *
When Mika opens her eyes, she’s standing just outside her office door.
She looks up at the sky. It’s dark, and raining cats and dogs just like she remembered. Flashes of lightning light up the sky, and thunder roars.
“OK, this time I’m not going home.”
Mika unfurls her umbrella, and steps into the rain. She holds it in front of her like a shield, to resist the rain and wind, and hurries towards the subway station.
By the time she arrives at school, Mika is soaking wet. She takes off her coat, and heads to the classroom. Half of her classmates are absent. The class starts as usual.
Mika listens attentively to the lecture, and takes detailed notes.
Chapter 7
Discovery
Mika wakes up in a full-sized bed in a modern room. Is she in a hotel? Mika looks around for clues. The bedroom is in pristine condition: no dust or discarded clothes or dirty dishes. On the walls and counters she finds pictures and decorations that seem to match her personal taste.
She checks the closet, and sifts through racks of women's clothing. Many are business suits. Then she finds her favorite silk scarf—that makes her certain: this is no hotel room, but her residence.
She opens the rich orange curtains and admires a panoramic view of Tokyo sprawling below. It appears her room is about halfway up a skyscraper.
“What a magnificent view!” She grins, pleased with herself, and admires the scenery for a few minutes.
Once she manages to pull herself away, she leaves the bedroom and finds a spacious living and dining room, and a modern kitchen with high-end appliances.
Her search leads her into another bedroom with a desk; this must be her study. A computer sits on top, along with a printer. Beside the desk are bookshelves and cabinets, both crammed with books and documents and folders.
My place is enormous! The rent must be terrible, or maybe I own the property? I’ve gotta find out!
One of the desk drawers is locked, so she begins pulling out the unlocked ones in search of the key. Finally, she finds a tiny gold key in the bottom drawer, and uses it to open the locked one. Inside are a few folders, and a blue one that seems to contain important documents.
She sifts through the papers, and comes across a property registration book. The name on type makes her heart leap into her throat: Mika Yamada. There are also the sales contract papers, and a certificate of mortgage loan. The purchase price of the 2LDK apartment was 60 million yen.
As she continues reading, she discovers that she borrowed 45 million yen, with payments over 30 years. The amount required per month is 160,870 yen, which is equivalent to about 2/3 of a contract office worker’s salary. In order to qualify for a loan like this, her monthly income must be at least three times the required payment, in this case about 480,000 yen. Not bad. It’s about double the salary of an employee at the bottom of a corporate position pyramid.
Next, she flips through a bankbook and checks on income and expenditures. Looks like her annual income is about 10 million yen. Not bad for a woman, and a better income than a male employee not in management would earn. She finds no traces of a husband or roommate who shares the living expenses.
“So I am a single career woman. Still not married, but if I can maintain a satisfactory living standard on my own, that's not too bad. Much better than a 40-year-old part-time contract worker or debt-ridden housewife, but best of all, I’m not jealous nor controlled by anyone. This is pretty good!”
“However, I do need to get to work.”
Mika picks through the pile of documents, then sits at the desk and starts working. Indeed, it’s a lot of work, and because she’s self-employed, she’s responsible for everything, rather than getting by as an easy-going employee.
She spends the entire day at that desk, concentrating as hard as she can and working tirelessly to do the best job she can. By the time she finishes, the sun had set hours ago. After a quick meal, she goes to bed.
The next morning, Mika heads to the desk as soon as she gets up. Maybe if she starts earlier she can have some more free time in the evening.
After a while, her stomach starts growling, so she decides to have breakfast.
She goes to the kitchen, makes some toast, pours some coffee, and sits at the dining table. The coffee smells delicious, and warms her hands when she lifts it up to breathe in the delicious scent. But when she takes a sip, she feels a sharp pain in her stomach.
"Ouch!" Mika immediately searches for the medicine cabinet. The pain is so intense she imagines a knife stabbing into her gut.
In the medicine cabinet, she finds a bag that contains prescription medicines. After reading the label, she realizes that it’s an anticancer drug.
"Anticancer? What kind of cancer?”
She reads the medicine book records, and comes across a record of hospital visits, and a list of the medications administered. The hospital card lists a follow-up appointment with the physician at 11:30 A.M. today. She looks at the clock. It’s already 9:17.
I have to get to the hospital! She rushes into her closet and p
icks an outfit before heading into the bathroom to get ready.
After a quick shower, she puts on clothes and then applies make-up. When she brushes her hair, a considerable amount gets pulled out.
“Am I going through chemotherapy?”
She gathers her fallen hairs in her hands, and shoves them into the wastebasket. Her reflection in the mirror shows she is very thin and pale, with baggy black bags under her eyes.
“Maybe I’m just working too hard, and stressing out about having too much on my plate,” she says to her reflection.
She catches a glimpse of the clock and realizes she has to hurry to arrive at her appointment on time. So she grabs her bag and leaves home in a hurry.
At the hospital, the doctor examines her chart, and then begins performing various tests on Mika. He measures her blood pressure and takes her temperature, and looks at the results of a urine test and a blood test. He uses a stethoscope to listen to her heart, first against her chest and then on her back.
The doctor speaks in a quiet, calm tone.
“Ms. Yamada, I am very sorry to tell you this, but the cancer cells are not decreasing, but are actually expanding to more parts of your body. According to the tests and my analysis, I’d estimate your life expectancy to be about 3 months. I’m so sorry."
He reaches out and pats her hand.
Mika jolts forward in her chair. It can’t be true. "Three months? I only have three months left to live?"
Just when I’m on the right track, with a wonderful career and a beautiful home… then this happens, and it’s all meaningless. Everything I worked so hard for will be for nothing.
“I don’t want to die yet,” she says out loud, her voice frightened. “I want to see more of the world. I want to have a child, and then I want to be a grandma.” She lifts her head, stares the doctor in the eyes. “I want to keep living. There’s gotta be a way I can prevent this!”