Since her visit to the gynecologist yesterday, her pregnancy is now official, but she doesn't seem any different. Usually the least little thing-her favorite hair salon closing, the neighbor's old cat dying, a water-main break-is enough to get her completely agitated and send her running to see Dr. Nikaido.

I wonder how she broke the news to her husband. I don't really know what they talk about when I'm not around. In fact, I don't really understand couples at all. They seem like some sort of inexplicable gaseous body to me-a shapeless, colorless, unintelligible thing, trapped in a laboratory beaker.

"There's too much pepper in this," my sister muttered, sticking her fork into her omelet. Since she always has something to say about the food, I pretended not to hear her. Half-cooked egg dripped from the end of her fork like yellow blood. My brother-in-law was eating slices of kiwi. I can't stand kiwi-all those seeds make me think of little black bugs, and the kiwi this morning was particularly ripe and soft. Beads of sweat had collected on the surface of the butter.

Apparently, neither of them was anxious to bring up the subject of the pregnancy, so I didn't mention it, either. Birds were singing in the garden. A few wisps of cloud dissolved somewhere far off in the sky. The clatter of dishes alternated with the sound of chewing.

None of us seems to have realized that the year is almost over. There are no pine branches decorating the door, no black beans or mochi in the house. "I suppose we should at least do the cleaning," I said, as if talking to myself.

"You shouldn't overdo it in your condition," my brother-in-law said, turning to my sister as he licked the kiwi juice from his lips. It's just like him to say the most obvious thing as if it were a profound truth.

My brother-in-law's parents came to visit and brought a box of traditional New Year's foods. When they're here, I never know what to call them or what to talk about, and it makes me uncomfortable.

We had been hanging around the house all day with nothing more to eat than a frozen pizza or some potato salad, so the lavish display of holiday food was a bit overwhelming. It looked more like fine art than something you could eat.

I'm always struck by how nice they are. It doesn't seem to matter to them that the yard is buried in dead leaves or that there's nothing in the refrigerator but apple juice and cream cheese. They never have a bad word to say about my sister, and this time they seemed genuinely delighted with the pregnancy.

When they left in the evening, my sister let out a big sigh and collapsed on the couch. "I'm exhausted," she said and fell asleep as if someone had turned off a switch. She seems to sleep a lot these days; and she seems quite peaceful, as if she's wandered off into a deep, cold swamp.

I'm sure it has something to do with the pregnancy.

Her morning sickness has started. I had no idea it came on so suddenly. She'd been saying all along that she wouldn't have it, that she hates that sort of cliché. She's convinced, for instance, that hypnosis or anesthesia would never work on her. But we were eating macaroni and cheese for lunch when she suddenly held up her spoon and began staring at it.

"Does this spoon look funny?" she asked. It seemed perfectly normal to me.

"It smells weird," she said, her nostrils flaring.

"Weird how?"

"I don't know… like sand. Did you ever fall over in the sandbox when you were little? Like that, dry and rough." She set the spoon back on her plate and wiped her mouth.

"Are you done?" I asked. She nodded and then rested her chin on her hands. The kettle began to whistle on the stove. She looked at me but said nothing, so I went on with my lunch.

"Doesn't the sauce on the macaroni remind you of digestive juices?" she murmured. I ignored her and took a sip of water. "So warm and slimy? The way it globs together?" She bent forward and peered at me, her head cocked to one side. I tapped the end of my spoon on my plate. "And the color, does it look like lard?"

I continued to ignore her. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind rattled the windows. The stainless steel counter was covered with the things I'd used to make the sauce-a measuring cup, the milk carton, a wooden spatula, and the saucepan.

"The noodles are strange, too," she added. "The way they squish when I bite into them makes me feel like I'm chewing on intestines, little, slippery tubes full of stomach juices." As I watched these words dribble out of her mouth, I fingered my spoon and thought how sad it was to see her like this. She went on talking until she had nothing else to say and then rose to go. The macaroni was a cold, white lump on her plate.

When my sister showed me the picture, I thought I was looking at freezing rain streaked against the night sky.

It was the size and shape of an ordinary photograph, with a white border and the name of the film company printed on the back. But when she got home from her exam and threw it on the table, I knew immediately that it was different from other photographs.

The night sky in the background was pure and black, so dark it made you dizzy if you stared at it too long. The rain drifted through the frame like a gentle mist, but right in the middle was a hollow area in the shape of a lima bean.

"This is my baby," my sister said, picking at the corner of the picture with a perfectly manicured fingernail. The morning sickness had made her cheeks pale and transparent.

I stared at the bean-shaped cavity. The baby was curled up in the corner, like a wispy shadow that might be blown away into the night by the first breeze.

"This is where the morning sickness comes from," she added, sinking heavily onto the sofa. She had eaten nothing since getting up this morning.

"How do they take these?" I asked.

"How should I know? I just lay there. As I was getting ready to leave, the doctor handed it to me-as a 'souvenir,' he said."

"A souvenir?" I repeated, looking back at the picture. "So, what's he like," I continued, remembering the smell of the paint, "this doctor at M Clinic?"

"He's an older man, white-haired, quite a gentleman. He isn't very talkative, and neither are the two nurses who work with him. They don't say anything unless they have to. They're not so young themselves, probably about the same age as the doctor, and they look remarkably alike, almost as if they were twins. Their builds, their hair, voices, even the spots on their uniforms are in the same places-I can never tell them apart.

"It's quiet in the exam room, just a little shuffling of medical charts, tweezers clicking, needles being taken out of boxes. The nurses and the doctor seem to communicate by signals only they understand. The doctor just moves slightly or glances toward something and a nurse immediately hands him a thermometer, or the results of a blood test, or whatever. It's fascinating how they do it." She sat back on the sofa and crossed her legs.

"Has the clinic changed much?" I asked.

"Not a bit," she said, shaking her head. "After the elementary school gate, I turned at the flower shop, and when I saw the sign I felt as though I'd gone through a time warp. It was like being sucked back into the past." Her cheeks still looked cold and transparent from the walk.

"The examination room is exactly the same, too," she said. "That tall, narrow cabinet, the big chair where the doctor sat, the screen made out of frosted glass-it all looked just the way I remembered it. Everything seems old and out-of-date, but it's absolutely spotless. The only new addition is the ultrasound machine." She pronounced the words slowly, as if she were speaking about something very important. "Every time I go, they make me lie down on a bed next to it. Then I have to pull up my blouse and tug my underwear down below my belly. One of the nurses comes with a big tube and squeezes this clear gel all over it. I love how it feels, all smooth and slippery-it drives me crazy." She let out a long sigh before continuing. "Then the doctor rubs my belly with a thing that looks like a walkie-talkie; it's connected to the ultrasound by a black cable. The gel keeps it stuck to the skin, and they get a picture of what's inside on the screen."