“I’m sorry,” she said in a faint voice, and started to tremble. “Don’t you hate this? You know that I …”
I didn’t want to force her into anything and break the gentle equilibrium that still held between us. And yet I wanted her so badly it felt like I might burst into flames. Hardly able to control myself, I was at a loss for what to do. I held her closer, ignoring my urges as I stroked her back for a long time. I kept whispering “It’s gonna be all right” into her ear until her trembling subsided.
It’s gonna be all right.
They were the words Dad had whispered to my mother the first night they made love. I had known that and said them anyway, because there was no better phrase to use at such a moment.
The night is young, there’s no need to rush. It’s gonna be all right. I repeated it for my own benefit, like an incantation. I brought my lips to Chie’s, which were wet with tears.
One day when it was raining for the first time in a while and business was slow, I called Yohei.
“Hey, Ryo. You never got back to me. I was wondering what happened to you.” He sounded grumpy. It was before noon so he’d probably been asleep.
“You could have called me if you were worried.”
“Nah, not worth the effort.”
As blunt as ever.
Yohei and I were cousins, I supposed, not even brothers. I knew I would never be able to change the brotherly feelings I felt for him. I wondered how it would be for him. For that matter, had he figured out the truth yet?
“I went to see Dad the day before last. I thought about asking you along, but …”
“Why didn’t you? How was he?”
“Really, really thin. I kind of …”
“Oh,” I muttered in response, but my words trailed off, too. I remembered the last time I’d seen him, how deathly pale his face had looked.
“I … I went with Miyuki. Wanted him to see her, while he’s still well enough,” he said unexpectedly, sounding despondent.
“Miyuki? The one you called Myukki, who dumped you ages ago?”
“Of course. Obviously.”
“Okay.”
“We bumped into each other on the bullet train when I went to pick up the family register.”
“Really?”
“She was on her way to visit some relatives in Nagoya, but she changed her mind and came with me instead. She said she’d never been on the Hato Tour Bus, ever.”
“The Hato Tour Bus?” I was dumbstruck, nearly literally. So that was why Yohei had suddenly wanted to stay overnight in Tokyo. “And had you ever taken it yourself?”
“Nope.”
Yohei had dated Miyuki for a while right after the start of freshman year of college. She was two years his senior at the same school. He’d been a surprisingly late bloomer and she was his first girlfriend. After about a year they suddenly stopped seeing each other—I don’t know what happened—and she graduated not long afterwards.
“And what you just said about her dumping me? It was the other way around. I dumped her. How many times have I told you that?”
“Oh, is that so? Even though you dumped her, you spent a hell of a long time down in the dumps, and even had to repeat a year. And you kept howling her name when you drank—‘Myukki, Myukki!’ ”
“I already told you, that was because I realized she’d forced me to dump her.”
“Yeah, and normally that’s referred to as ‘getting dumped.’ ”
“And I’ve stopped calling her Myukki. So don’t call her that.”
“Oh, really. Why’s that?”
“You’ll find out when you see her. It doesn’t really suit her anymore. Nope, not at all.”
Myukki was a cutesy name, and, as far as I knew, Miyuki didn’t quite have the looks to pull it off. She was short and rather unattractive, to be honest. When I first met her I couldn’t work out why Yohei had chosen her as his first girlfriend, but the confusion soon gave way to understanding after we’d chatted a while. It wasn’t just that she was smart, she had her own unique energy, a sensitivity that was quicksilver, like shoals of fish darting through her head.
“That’s all good, just don’t run away this time.”
“Yeah.”
I’d expected him to talk back; the one-word response left me feeling startled. I supposed he wouldn’t care about the notebooks or the stuff in the family register now, not if he was in love again. I was sure he would notice things eventually, but that was that, and I decided to leave it alone for now.
“I’ve got some news, too. Chie came back.”
“No way.”
“Yes, way. She’s been through a lot. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
After the O-bon holiday, Chie had recommenced her work at the cafe. Nachi and the other part-timers took her reappearance in stride. I only had to rush in and intervene once; Nachi, spouting some nonsense about how an old flame being rekindled makes for an even sturdier foundation, had proceeded to try to hug her. The dogs remembered her, too—they tried to outdo one another in expressing how glad they were to see her, trying to lick her hands and enthusiastically wagging their tails.
“Wow, that’s great news, Ryo. Really great news.” It sounded like he was exaggerating a bit, but I didn’t mind. “I was really worried, you know. I thought it would be cruel to tell you about Miyuki. You weren’t yourself after Chie ran away, I didn’t want to add to that.”
“But you just told me.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you might try to steal Miyuki away from me if you saw how she is now.”
“Like I would, you moron.”
“You can’t say that until you’ve seen her. Never can be too careful around love-starved men.”
“This from the guy who was always giving Chie lustful looks.”
“That wasn’t lust, just affection for my future sister-in-law.”
“Sure, sure,” I said, about to take the opportunity to end the call when Yohei suggested the four of us all go for dinner soon.
Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “Oh and I don’t care if you’re my brother, cousin, or just some random stranger. You never were the typical elder-brother type, so I guess I’ve always considered you a life-long best friend.”
So he was just as shrewd as I’d hoped. He’d figured it out. I could almost see his smug look on the other end of the line, feeling he’d got one up on me. Despite his not knowing how the author of those notebooks had died.
“Life-long best friends? That’s not bad. It makes me happy to hear you say it. So I guess we’re splitting the bill from now on when we go out for steak?”
I heard him swallow, but he didn’t respond.
“So, I’m looking forward to seeing Myu—sorry, Miyuki. Let me know when you’ve settled on a date. I’m always free in the evenings.”
I hung up, holding back a laugh. I paused for a breath, then brought the phone back up to my ear.
“Hey, so it’s you.” Dad’s deep, gravelly voice was the same as when he’d been well.
“I won’t ask how you’re doing.”
“That’s appreciated, thanks.”
“I hear Yohei came over with a girl.”
“Yeah, Miyuki, she came over several times way back when. You met her, right? Full of life, she is. Talking to her makes me feel spry myself.”
Our conversation lingered on Yohei for a while, about how the girls he’d become involved with after his split with Miyuki had all been good-looking, like models, but had never lasted beyond a few months. Yohei always said they were the ones leaving him, but I suspected he was the one doing the running away. I thought he was afraid of the relationships getting serious.
“Well. I never knew he went through so many girlfriends.”
“In the end, it was only Miyuki he ever brought to see you.”
“So maybe this time, just maybe, this is it.”
“Listen, Dad. Chie came back.” I’d been trying to work out a good time to bring it up, but in the end I just
blurted it out.
“I see.” That was all he said. He didn’t ask anything else. His reaction made it sound like he already knew.
“I’ll bring her over soon.”
“I always knew she would, you know. I knew she’d come back to you eventually. I’m glad she made it in time.”
I had to admit Miyuki had indeed changed, although she still wasn’t so awe-inspiring she shouldn’t be called “Myukki.” I think she had probably realized how fruitless it was to try and play up her feminine side. She’d cut off all her long, permed curls and wore her hair short, her face was free of makeup, and she wore a tank top that clearly showed off her flat chest. It was like she was laughing out loud, making an open declaration of who she was. I still couldn’t say she was beautiful, but she was striking in a way that would have been impossible if she had been beautiful.
She’s definitely something.
Right?
Yohei and I exchanged looks, speaking with our eyes as we chewed our steaks.
I guessed she was a lot more comfortable in her own skin now. Her keen, logical wit was the same, not even a step behind Yohei’s, but her former tendency to take pleasure in arguing people down had abated, and she enjoyed herself more freely as she joked and verbally sparred with everyone else.
It was great when the four of us got together to eat, drink, and have fun. Chie and Miyuki got on immediately, and after a while, they started to hang out together to watch tearjerker movies or shop flea markets and to do other things Yohei and I weren’t interested in.
They both liked to cook, and one time they prepared a bunch of different dishes that we brought with us on a visit to Dad. We laid the table and drank some beer, and the drab house echoed with laughter. Dad looked like he was really enjoying himself. We didn’t stay for very long. By the time he saw us off at the door, it was plainly evident to everyone that he was completely exhausted.
On the way to the station I told Yohei, “That was probably the last time we could do something like that.”
After that I dropped in to see him every now and again. Much of the time I bumped into Yohei who was doing the same. Although Dad was taking the medicine the hospital had prescribed, he continued to refuse to be admitted. He wouldn’t try any new drugs or alternative treatments or go to another hospital for a second opinion. We both stopped trying to force him into things.
When the three of us were in the kitchen, drinking beer and chatting about nothing in particular, it felt very familial. We shared a comfortableness with one another that seemed to soften the edges of our emotions.
The photograph of Mom watched us from its place on the small bureau in the living room. Whenever my eyes drifted that way during a lull in the conversation, my heart filled with warm nostalgia. In reality she was my aunt, Emiko. But just as Yohei was still my kid brother, I knew she would remain as my other mother for the rest of my life. I could never forget all the years we spent together, all the years she spent loving me unconditionally. I didn’t know what mad thoughts had been swirling through her head that time she watched me sleep with the pillow clutched to her chest. Even if her thoughts had turned to murder, I was no longer naive enough to think that that negated her love for me.
So much had happened in so little time. It felt as though I had aged ten, maybe even twenty years all at once.
A murderous prostitute, a passerby client. I asked myself what I felt for these people, my real parents, but I never came up with a viable answer. All I felt was a knotted mess of contradictory emotions. I supposed the answer would never be clear for the rest of my life.
Some part of me wondered if getting old meant embracing chaos for what it was, bringing it close and living with it. Maybe part of maturing was learning that the human heart is forever unfathomable and itself a form of chaos.
The summer passed slowly.
The cafe grew busier, new members joining practically by the week. Ms. Hosoya said that Chie’s return broke whatever jinx it was that had cast its shadow on Shaggy Head.
“We couldn’t expect business to thrive with our key member, the boss, looking as down as you did. Everything’s all better now,” Ms. Hosoya said, and she herself seemed more cheerful. She would often give a faint smile as she watched Chie running busily between the tables.
One night, when Chie and I were relaxing in my room, I said, “This is just a suspicion I have, but I sometimes wonder if Ms. Hosoya lost a daughter or something.”
“Why?”
“She just dotes on you so much, and it makes me think: Did she experience something like that in her past? Like, I wonder if she had a daughter who would be your age if she were still alive.”
Maybe losing her daughter had been one of the reasons behind her divorce. Or maybe she hadn’t been able to get pregnant even though she’d really wanted a baby girl.
I was running such groundless ideas through my head when Chie quietly said, “She’s really kind, isn’t she.” Her voice was filled with emotion. “I’m so grateful for everything she did that it’s hard to put into words.”
“I feel the same.”
“I didn’t know you thought about it like that, though. That she saw me as a lost daughter.”
“It’s pure conjecture. What about you? Do you ever feel anything like that from her?”
“I think you’re right, that she thinks of me as a daughter. But probably not in the way you think.”
“How so?”
Chie angled her head as she looked at me, then chuckled. “You’re surprisingly slow sometimes, Ryosuke.”
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“Ms. Hosoya likes you. She’s in love with you.”
“Hey, wait … What?”
“There’s the age difference, of course, and she knows she can’t let you find out. She’s the type who can make rational decisions like that. But I knew immediately how she felt about you.”
“But … But that’s totally … Come on, if that was the case, how could she be so nice to you? She’d be jealous.”
“I suppose, but that’s why she’s so amazing. She’s self-aware enough to know she can’t be with you, so I think she’s entrusted her dream to me. She thinks of me as a daughter, a kind of extension of herself. By making sure you and I stay together she’s seeking her own fulfillment. That way, instead of being jealous, she can do her best to make us both happy.”
I didn’t want to believe what she was saying.
“Maybe people can do such things when they truly love someone. You’d probably have chosen her over me if she was younger.”
“Impossible. You’re the only one for me.”
“But you really didn’t notice? Not even a glimpse of something in the way she acts around you?”
That made me remember the time I helped Ms. Hosoya up after she’d been knocked down by Cujo, the large Bernese. I had held her slender body in my arms and noticed that some of the buttons on her blouse had come undone, giving me a view of the pale-white skin of her chest. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel anything in that moment. And when she wrapped her arms around my neck, didn’t I feel a sudden dizzying sense of depth, like I was being pulled into something? Nachi, too, believed that Ms. Hosoya kissed me on purpose …
“Oh, Ryosuke, you’ve gone red!” Chie said, sounding a little surprised.
18
Now and then I was racked with anxiety about the negatives I’d failed to retrieve from Shiomi. I was scared that some heartless bastard might spread the compromising pictures of Chie around the internet. I was sure Ms. Hosoya shared the same fears, but we never discussed the matter. After what Chie had said I lost the ability to act normally around her. Whenever we ended up alone together, I pretended to suddenly remember something and fled, even though I knew I was being stupid about it. I don’t know if she noticed my odd behavior; she continued to work diligently and seemed perfectly at ease.
After the autumn equinox we still had a few days that were as hot as summer. That didn�
�t stop the dogs from running around the field and gulping down water from the faucet. Their animal instincts apparently judged mid-80’s weather to be cooler in autumn than during the summer.
The seasons changing day by day felt relentlessly cruel. I supposed this was due to having an illness in the family. I couldn’t prevent the sick from getting worse any more than I could halt the progress of autumn. Each time I thought this might be the last time Dad saw the fall foliage, I couldn’t stop myself from getting upset.
It was relatively easier to take time off work now that Chie was back at Shaggy Head. I wanted to see Dad every day if possible, but he was becoming more and more stubborn as his condition worsened, and he got ornery if we visited too often. He would tell us not to treat him like an invalid, even though he had weakened to the point where he could hardly open a jar of jam.
It didn’t take Yohei much effort to loosen the lid, but when he did he lost control, bursting into tears. Before our visit Dad had spent three days eating plain toast for breakfast, having taken a sudden dislike to the smell of butter and wanting jam instead.
“Don’t cry.” Yohei’s head was on the table and Dad gave him a gentle smile as he stroked it, making a mess of his catlike hair. “I can feel that I’m falling apart, but nothing hurts. It’s funny. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not getting off too easily. So there’s no need to worry. No need to get worked up over me.”
He was silent for a while as he ran his fingers through Yohei’s hair, pinching clumps of it into spikes. He ruffled it back to normal, then said to me, “If you can come all this way you should go see your grandmother, too. I won’t be able to visit her for much longer. I know I don’t have much to leave you, and I’m sorry to push the responsibility onto you, but look after her, okay?”
I couldn’t imagine how the end might come for Dad. If he continued to refuse to be hospitalized, he would probably spend his last moments in the house. Would we know, the closer it got, when it was likely to happen? Or would it be sudden, leaving us filled with regret for not having had the chance to say goodbye? All that was left to wish for was that he wouldn’t be by himself, feeling lonely, when it happened.
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