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1
Sedge stumbled up Mayumizaka slope into Kenrokuen garden, yawning loudly enough almost to hasten the full blossoming of its cherry trees. For the last two weeks, since permanently closing the ceramics shop that he and his wife Nozomi had run, Sedge had started each day increasingly late, sometimes even past lunchtime. He was grateful for a reason to wake up early today, though it had been a trial to get here.
Taking his ticket and a map from the attendant at Kenrokuen’s entrance booth, he was keen to walk off more of his anxiety. In fifteen minutes he would meet the wife of the man Nozomi had run away with.
The woman’s name was Mariko. She’d asked him to meet her on the west side of Kasumigaike pond, with its view toward Mt. Utatsu. She had included directions on where to sit and described what she would be wearing. Sedge’s brother-in-law, Takahashi, at whose ryokan inn Mariko worked in the hot spring town of Yamanaka Onsen, had forwarded him her email.
