On Sunday morning he still hadn’t come home. Yuichi often went out, aimlessly, on weekends and spent the night away, but for Fusae, being alone in the house only brought back unpleasant memories. Memories of Dr. Tsutsumishita-the man who held those health seminars at the community center-and being surrounded by rough young men who’d forced her to buy that expensive herbal medicine. It was such a frightening experience that she remained upset and shaky.

In the afternoon she called Yuichi’s cell phone. He picked up right away.

“What d’you want?” he said, like he couldn’t be bothered.

“Where are you?” Fusae asked.

“Saga.”

“What are you doing in Saga?”

Fusae had expected that he would be driving and would hang up right away, but when he didn’t she asked him this.

Yuichi didn’t respond. “What d’you want?” he repeated.

Fusae asked him when he would be back. Again Yuichi evaded her question, merely saying, “I won’t be needing dinner,” and hung up.

After this, Fusae went to the hospital in Nagasaki to see Katsuji. She listened to his usual complaints about the nurses for a good half hour, then she thanked the nurses and left.

In the bus on the way back the voices of those men forcing her to buy the herbal medicine came back to her in a rush.

“What d’you mean you’re not going to buy the medicine!”

“Just who the hell do you think you’re dealing with, old woman?”

“I don’t care if you don’t sign, we’re still gonna come to your place every single day!”

The men’s voices pulled her back to that place and time, and seated on the special Silver Seat reserved for the elderly in the bus, she began to shake uncontrollably.

Yuichi finally came back home after eleven that night. As she heard the front door open, Fusae, in bed, felt relieved and called out, “I’m glad you’re back! You want to take a bath?” she went on. She hesitated to get up out of bed, which was just getting warm.

“Nah, I already took one,” she heard Yuichi say from beyond the sliding paper door.

Fusae eventually left her bedroom and followed after Yuichi into the kitchen. Her bare feet on the hallway floor were ice cold. Yuichi had taken some sausages out of the refrigerator.

“You must be hungry,” Fusae said.

“Not really,” Yuichi said, but he ripped open the plastic package with his teeth and crammed a sausage into his mouth.

“You want me to make something?”

“No. I already had dinner.”

Fusae called out to Yuichi as he was exiting the kitchen.

“What?” Yuichi said, annoyed, as he continued to gnaw on the sausage.

Fusae felt oppressed by the look on his face and she sank limply to a chair. She hadn’t planned to tell him, but the words just spurted out.

“The other day on the way back from the hospital… You remember the man who held the seminar at the community center?… The one about herbal medicine?”

This was her own house, and this was Yuichi with her, so she was safe, but still she was on edge, as if she would start shaking again at any moment. Just putting that experience into words frightened her. She had to force herself to breathe.

But just as she was going to continue, the cell phone in Yuichi’s pocket rang. Without a word to her, Yuichi answered.

“Hello?… Ah, yeah. Yeah, I just got back… Tomorrow?… I have to get up at five, but it’s okay… Yeah, me, too.”

As he turned the doorknob, Yuichi looked happy.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll call you tomorrow… Huh?… Yeah, I know. Okay, then… What? I told you it’s okay…”

Fusae sat there eavesdropping. Just when the conversation seemed about over, it started up again. Yuichi took his hand off the doorknob, ran his fingers along the pillar, and turned over a page on the calendar that was pasted to the wall.

It had to be a girl on the other end, probably the person he spent the weekend with. Fusae had never seen Yuichi look so happy. Well, maybe he was happy at other times, but secretly, somewhere Fusae was unaware of. In the twenty years since she’d taken Yuichi in, she’d never seen him with such a look of utter bliss.

CHAPTER 4. WHO DID HE HAPPEN TO MEET?

Toward evening several groups of customers came in all at once. Mitsuyo took care of two men in their midtwenties. As they pawed through the racks of suits, their banter was like a comedy routine; from what Mitsuyo heard, she gathered that the shorter of the two had just had a successful interview for a new job and had dragged his friend along with him.

“I’ve always worn work clothes, so I’m kind of lost when it comes to choosing a suit.”

“Yeah, but usually when guys buy suits they bring their wives along.”

“Don’t be an idiot. If I bring her with me, she’s going to choose the cheapest possible outfit, from the suit to the shirts and ties.”

“So what? You’re planning to buy the top-of-the-line brand?”

“No, not really. Just something in the middle, you know?”

They went on, grabbing one suit after another from the rack and holding it up to see how it looked.

“They’re so young looking,” Mitsuyo mused, “but already married.” She kept her distance, patiently waiting for them to ask her something.

The floor manager, Kazuko, stood over by the fitting room, tape measure around her neck. She’d just finished a break and Mitsuyo had asked her if she had a little free time tonight. “Maybe we could go out for a drink,” she said.

Kazuko tilted her head at the unexpected invitation, then replied, “That shouldn’t be a problem. My husband’s going to be a little late tonight. But where should we go? How about that new kaiten sushi place next to the new bar, the Bikkuri?” Kazuko seemed unusually up for the idea.

Once they decided on a place, Mitsuyo was about to go back to her station, but Kazuko grabbed her hand. “You took last Saturday off,” she said with a grin, “so I was kind of wondering what was up… Any good news?”

“No, nothing really,” Mitsuyo said. “I just thought we hadn’t gone out for dinner in a long time.” She managed to get away, but couldn’t keep from smiling.

After leaving the love hotel on Saturday, she ended up spending the whole day with Yuichi. They’d eaten eel, and were planning to go to the lighthouse, but as they left the restaurant it started pouring so they gave up and went to another hotel.

On Sunday evening Yuichi drove her back to her apartment and they had one long last kiss in the car. That was two days ago, and Monday evening they’d talked for three hours on the phone. Tamayo had come back from work while they were still on the phone, so the last thirty minutes Mitsuyo sat on the staircase outside in the freezing wind.

Less than a day had passed since then, but she was dying to hear his voice again.

She looked up and noticed that the two-man comedy team was rummaging through the rack along the wall. The suits on this rack were three thousand yen more than the others and no extra trousers were included.

“Oh, I went to see that new movie Fishing Nut-the comedy,” one of the men said.

“By yourself?”

“No way. I took my son.”

“To that kind of movie?”

“Kids like them.”

“Are you kidding? The only kind my little one’s interested in are the anime specials.”

Though in their midtwenties, they acted more like college buddies. But here they were talking about their kids and picking out suits.

Mitsuyo watched them, amused. The men may have sensed her presence, for the shorter one turned to her and said, “Excuse me. Could I try this one on?”

His friend grabbed it away and teased him. “You gonna go with this one? Kind of looks like a host in a bar or something.”

The first guy, who seemed more easygoing, said, “You think?” and gave the suit another look.

“Why don’t you try it on?” Mitsuyo smiled. “It does have a certain shine to the fabric, but if you wear a white shirt with it it’ll look more subdued.”