“Not that I know of. I don’t think they’d be allowed to.”
“You mean the people who take care of the shrine would disapprove? Or the gods enshrined there wouldn’t allow it?”
The young man laughed. “The people who take care of it. Who knows? Maybe the heron you saw was a god.”
“I thought the same thing,” Sedge said. He watched the young man check the tightness of the tire in its frame, then stand and pat the bicycle seat as if to tell Sedge he could now go wherever he liked. “May I pay you for the repair? You saved me from having to push the bicycle back to town.”
The young man shook his head. “You did enough buying my mother’s kusa dango.” He dumped the dirty water in the bucket onto the grass beside his mother’s shop and without another word walked inside.
The young man’s mother was peering at Sedge through the shop’s glass door. He collected his bicycle and, waving to the woman, pedaled slowly back toward the ryokan. He stopped a moment later in the middle of the road to see if he could spot the heron atop the ancient cryptomeria. All he could see, however, was the canopy’s mass of leaves that floated cloud-like in the sky.
7
Sedge’s alarm failed to go off on Sunday morning. He woke up confused and in a panic at someone knocking on his door. Only when he opened it did he remember having requested an early breakfast. It was seven a.m. He had agreed to go to Kanazawa with Takahashi at eight.
Since they planned to visit Takahashi’s mother, they spent the beginning of the hour-long ride talking about his parents’ health. Takahashi’s seventy-year-old mother lived in a semi-rural community behind Mt. Utatsu, but her husband, six years older, had recently entered a care home. Last year he’d suffered a stroke and was struggling with dementia. Nozomi had been particularly close to her parents, especially her father. Because of his declining condition it was even harder to believe she had run off. Takahashi once told Sedge that she was closer than he to his parents, though he tried to visit them every month. Yuki, who rarely accompanied Takahashi to see them, often sent wagashi sweets from Sankaidō, an old Yamanaka Onsen confectionery his parents were fond of.
Sedge and Takahashi had always talked easily, without ever quite having an easy friendship, and since Nozomi disappeared Takahashi had not only helped Sedge in unexpected ways but also spent more time with him. At the ryokan he frequently came to Sedge’s room in the evening, sipping sake while Sedge ate. Sedge sometimes thought Takahashi’s kindness was motivated by the fear that Sedge would break his promise about Nozomi, disgracing his family and business. But at other times he felt that Takahashi, if he weren’t simply keeping tabs on him, had his own social needs that this arrangement satisfied. In any case, he had become a confidant since Nozomi left Sedge—or left them both, as Takahashi sometimes reminded him.
As they drove along the highway, two herons descended into a field from overhead. They had glided by only fifteen or twenty feet above their car.
Takahashi said, “I heard your last English lesson covered birds.”
“That’s right.”
“Why exactly?”
“Haven’t you seen all the birdlife around the ryokan? I’ve spotted a dozen bird species just through my window. Anyway, that was only for fun. And it was about animals in general, not just birds. Your guests are sure to notice the animal life, so I thought it might be useful.”
“Maybe you should take me birding one day. It might awaken in me a latent passion.”
“You probably have no idea what a great bird habitat the ryokan is.”
“Come to think of it, Nozomi once told me something similar.”
It occurred to Sedge that Nozomi would inevitably arise again in conversation when he met his mother-in-law, and he wondered where it might lead. He hadn’t seen either of her parents since she disappeared.
“Did you tell your mother I’m coming with you?”
“Of course. I’m not sure how much time the three of us will have together, though. She wants to be at the care home to speak with my father’s nurse before having lunch with him.”
Sedge decided to ask a question that had long bothered him: “Do your parents blame me for what happened?”
“With Nozomi?” He paused to think about it. “My father doesn’t always remember what happened, and my mother’s confused, too, but for different reasons. She can’t understand why Nozomi ran off and wants to find a reason to forgive her. Anyway, you know what they’re like.”
At her house they found her packing clothes, toiletries, and food for her husband. Until he had entered the care home, she had dyed her short hair black. But her hair had reverted to its natural gray, Sedge noticed. She still looked younger than her age, and there were times when Nozomi emerged in the angle of her face, in various expressions passing through it, and in certain movements of her eyes and mouth. Realizing he was staring, he retreated from his close focus on her.
She had set out tea and cookies in anticipation of their arrival.
“Why did you prepare refreshments for four people?” Takahashi said, looking at her strangely. She had put placemats, napkins, and cups and saucers out for one more person than was there.
She glanced at Sedge, her mouth open either in surprise or to explain. But she only shrugged and removed the fourth setting. Had she been thinking of her husband, who normally would have joined them? Or had she imagined that Nozomi would be here as well?
Sedge hadn’t visited her home since morning on New Year’s Day last year, a month before his father-in-law moved out. The house struck him as unusually clean, with its knick-knacks arranged in the windowsills and on the low shelves along the room’s perimeter, and with the tatami floor free of his father-in-law’s things. On a long shelf across from them, family photos were aligned. A few of Nozomi when she was a child had been added since his previous visit: praying at a crowded shrine during a summer festival; wading to her knees in a sea the color of fire, turned halfway to what remained of the setting sun; bent down on the edge of a marsh, peering into the distance. And there was one he had never seen, taken at a small river: Nozomi clinging to Takahashi’s back as he waded through the shallow water, laughter contorting their faces. Takahashi couldn’t have been more than ten years old in the photo, Nozomi no more than five.
Takahashi and his mother spoke about the care home, Yuki, and the ryokan. Sedge didn’t want to interrupt them, but during lulls he tried to join the conversation. At one point he asked his mother-in-law if she planned to visit Yamanaka Onsen soon.
“No, I don’t. Visiting Otōsan every day keeps me too busy.”
“You visit him every day?”
She nodded. “He couldn’t get by if I didn’t.”
She set down her tea and looked at him, and he read in her eyes an invitation to continue speaking. “Does he ever come home?”
“He hasn’t yet. I wonder if he wants to. It might be difficult to return to the care home if he came back for a visit. Are you planning to see him today?”
Takahashi broke into the conversation. “Not today. I’m not sure if Otōsan would recognize Sedge. And if he did, he might not remember that Nozomi has disappeared. I thought it would be better not to risk upsetting him.”
She turned back to Sedge and said, “Have you heard from her?”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I expect you and Takahashi will hear from her before me. If I ever hear from her again.”
The ticking of a clock filled the room.
“Do you think she’s all right?”
Again Takahashi answered for Sedge. “What would she need all that money for if she didn’t plan to spoil herself?”
