He moved over for her to sit beside him. They gazed at the sky until she said something he never expected and didn’t fully understand at first.
“I think you should try to forgive Riku. And not just for the time he attacked you, though I’m sure that’s foremost on your mind. It would be good if you could also forgive him for the things he’s never done.”
Sedge looked at her inquiringly. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“By accepting him. As long as he doesn’t try to hurt you again, please try to let go of your distrust of him. Wouldn’t it be better to start over?”
It was a lot to ask of him. He had already forgiven Riku more than he thought he should. Was it possible to forgive him more?
“Forgiving him everything,” Mariko went on, “will help the three of us overcome some big obstacles we face. And it will get Riku faster to his destination.”
As she handed back his glass he thought about this, then drank what was left in it. “Where do you think that is?”
“Wherever he can be loved and accepted. And have a life where his pain is in the past. You should forgive him so he can reach that place. He could if more people gave him a chance.”
“But if he thought he could always avoid repercussions for what he did, wouldn’t it encourage him to do bad things? Things that ultimately hurt himself?”
“It would do the very opposite.”
He had been receptive to her until then. Forgiving Riku for everything he might yet do seemed too dangerous.
“I’ll do my best to forgive him,” he told her. “But it won’t stop me from worrying about you.”
“Thank you. I guess I trust him more than you do. Which is natural, isn’t it? He knows I want what’s best for him. And that I’m trying to be a good mother.”
Sedge was going to reply, but she spoke over him.
“Don’t confuse Riku for what Kōichi did. If you’re better to him, he’ll be better to you, too. Whether you intended to or not, you’ve taken over the place his father occupied. But you haven’t done it in a way Riku needs. And please understand—I need it, too. Not for me, but for him.”
“You need me to be more of a father to him?”
She shook her head almost violently. “No, no. But can’t you be more compassionate? If you can, you’ll fit the role he needs. As a sympathetic man in his life. If I can be like that with him, can’t you, too?”
Her words echoed uncomfortably what Nozomi had told him. “You sound like Nozomi.”
She glared at him. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Don’t be angry. Nozomi really did say something similar. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
She looked at him dubiously. “What did she say?”
“That I didn’t understand the suffering of other people. Do you think she’s right?”
The anger in her face fell away. She lay a hand on his arm and didn’t answer.
“I’ll try to be better,” Sedge said, though he wasn’t sure he could. “I may need your help and reminding along the way.”
She tried to lead him inside, but he wanted to sit under the night sky longer. She carried his empty glass inside. A minute later she returned it to him, newly filled. From behind her back she pulled out a second glass and the remainder of the sake he’d left in the kitchen. They drank together as the clouds floated past and in the distance the wind rustled the trees on the mountain.
23
Sedge and Riku descended into Sugatani-machi on what appeared to be a hunter’s trail or road to maintain electricity pylons, several of which they’d seen while looping back from the woods at the end of Mariko’s street. Though it was late afternoon and relatively cool for mid-July, the wooded area they’d gone birding in had the humidity of a rainforest, and they were sweaty and itchy where mosquitoes had feasted on them. The winds that had arisen out of nowhere were so strong he and Riku would soon dry off, unless it started raining, which looked increasingly likely.
“Normally I see more birds on the mountain,” Sedge said. It had been Riku’s idea to return to the village rather than hike to another clearing.
“If we go back in the morning we’ll probably see more. The crows and sparrows we saw didn’t do much for you, did they?”
He’d said this lightly, hoping to draw Riku out. As usual, when the boy fell silent Sedge couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Perhaps he was disappointed he hadn’t seen the birds Sedge tried to point out—brown-eared bulbuls, Oriental turtledoves, and azure-winged magpies—though they were common enough Riku at least knew what they were. His disappointment had been so intense, kicking at the vegetation around them to see what he might scare up, Sedge half-expected the boy to accuse him of making a fool of him. More than anything, birding required patience; he’d thought wrongly that Riku understood that.
They continued down the dirt path beside the village’s Hachiman shrine, from which the clay-tiled roofs of many houses in the village were visible. From her bedroom window Mariko could point to the tops of the shrine’s two-thousand-year-old ōsugi, and she and Sedge came here most evenings on their strolls.
Riku led him down to the torii at the shrine’s entrance.
“I thought you wanted to go home,” Sedge said. “Are we coming here now?”
Riku looked at the sky. “Do you think it’s a waste of time?”
The weather had changed since they’d set out for the woods on the mountain. With the wind gusting and the sky darkening with storm clouds, the birds would be seeking shelter. Already, crows were flying high into the trees around the shrine. But because Riku didn’t want to give up yet, Sedge said, “We won’t know unless we try.”
Before walking beneath the torii they bowed to the shrine atop the hill, which they’d passed on the way down from the woods. Sedge headed to a covered ablutions basin to wash his hands and mouth. Riku only did so after Sedge told him to.
Opposite the ablutions basin stood an iron horse on a stone plinth, one foreleg pawing at the air. Before it was a short, fenced enclosure, inside of which sat seven round rocks of varying sizes. Sedge stopped to read the sign behind them, but the cursive script was indecipherable.
“Do you know what those are?” Riku said, running up from behind.
“I can’t read the explanation.”
“They’re banmochi-ishi. People here used to compete to lift the heaviest stone. Whenever I see them I want to try, but my stepmom won’t let me. She says they belong to the shrine.”
