Sedge didn’t stay in the bath long. Uncomfortable wearing her husband’s clothes, he put his own clothes back on and returned to the side of the house.
She laughed when he approached. “You just defeated the whole purpose of taking a bath. Didn’t you see the clothes I put out for you?”
“I don’t want to wear your husband’s clothes.”
Her smile faded. “But they’re clean. You’ve just made yourself dirty all over again.”
The bird was standing now, a towel wrapped around its body. In its box were some of what Mariko had gathered for it. A meter and a half separated it from her, and it made no move to get away.
“Our guest looks better already,” Sedge said. The heron stared toward the sugi forest behind the kura, above which the clouds had thinned since Sedge arrived. The sun had fallen behind the trees.
“It was active when you were away. Your presence has calmed it.”
They observed it quietly together.
“Now that you’re back,” she said, “I’d better make dinner. You’ll eat with us, won’t you?”
He nodded and thanked her.
“Riku will probably want to eat out here,” she said, “so he can watch over the bird.”
“It might not be a bad idea.”
She ran her fingers through his wet hair. “I won’t be long,” she said, and made her way back inside. Riku continued to hammer at the cage he was building.
The heron began squawking and looking for a place on the ground to jump to. Sedge placed himself wherever it leaned toward, and soon it moved back to the other end of the bench. He watched it from the low wall of Mariko’s flowerbed.
Out of the moribund day, as a crow flapped by overhead, new and unwelcome questions flashed through his mind: Did the heron have chicks that relied on it to survive? Did it have a mate that worried why it hadn’t returned to its nest? If so, would it risk leaving its young alone to search for it? Although Sedge had learned about herons over the years, these were questions he couldn’t answer. When he looked at the bird again, he saw it with these unanswerable questions in mind, and he became more determined to help it. Even if it had chicks that wouldn’t survive its absence, at least this heron might survive and be given another chance.
Fifteen minutes later Mariko came back through the carport and down the gravel path. “It’s early,” she called, “but can you eat now?”
He nodded.
“Come inside. I’ll let Riku know dinner’s ready, too, and check on what he’s been doing.”
When she returned with Riku, the boy’s shirt was covered in sawdust. “He made a big cage for the heron,” she said. “It has bars in the door, but he needs to add hinges.”
“That was quick work.”
“I can make anything if I have time and materials.”
“He says he’ll eat outside with the bird. Come on, Riku, let’s get you some food.”
Sedge and Mariko sat at the dining table. Through the veranda’s windows they could see the bench where Riku and the bird shared each other’s company.
“The gorge here, Kakusenkei, literally means ‘immortal mountain of cranes,’” Mariko said, writing the kanji for Kakusenkei on the table with her finger. “But it’s the mountain that’s immortal, not the cranes—or herons, for that matter. I hope it recovers.”
“If it gets through the night,” Sedge said, “I think it stands a decent chance.”
Although Sedge looked often toward Riku to make sure he didn’t touch the heron or feed it—he had told him not to give it food until they could determine it wasn’t in shock—his situation at the ryokan pushed into his thoughts and he asked Mariko if what Takahashi had said about his English class and students a few days ago was true.
She looked surprised hearing the news. “I’ve overheard the staff talk about your class often. Maybe not after every class, but probably three or four times a week they talk about it with each other. I’ve never heard anyone complain.”
“You don’t believe what Takahashi said?”
“It sounds unlikely to me. Maybe it was only one person—someone who decided they didn’t like you, or didn’t like having to study after work, and they claimed to be speaking for the entire class.”
“I’ve thought about those possibilities.”
“But why would Takahashi lie?”
Sedge told her that Takahashi had asked him to leave.
Her face blanched and she spoke with new seriousness. “What are you going to do?”
He leaned back and shrugged. “I still have a little money. It’s enough to rent someplace cheap for a few months until I find a job.”
“Why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. Anyway, you haven’t been in the lounge recently. Even if you had been, I thought that looking for you might jeopardize your situation.”
She glanced at Riku and the bird. “Why don’t you stay here tonight?” she asked Sedge.
The offer pleased him, but he worried what Takahashi and Yuki would say if they found out. Not that it was any of their business. “I’ve never done that before.”
“But you might as well now. And early tomorrow morning we’ll go together to the bird reserve.”
“I’d better call the ryokan to cancel my dinner, though they may have already made it. And breakfast, too. But I’m mostly worried about you.”
