Yuichi stood up and carefully opened the door and peered out. Mitsuyo stood behind him, and when she looked outside, she saw the car winding its way down the logging road, its high beams lighting up the road ahead.

The winter sky was full of stars, and they could hear the waves crashing against the cliff nearby. The strong wind shook the little shack, bending the plywood boards nailed to the windows. Mitsuyo took a deep breath. She looked and saw the lighthouse, bathed in moonlight.

They’d abandoned their car a few days before in Arita. When Yuichi couldn’t decide what to do, Mitsuyo said, “Let’s go to a lighthouse.” She knew they couldn’t escape, but she couldn’t suppress the desire for one more day, one more hour together.

“There’s one lighthouse they don’t use anymore,” Yuichi murmured, finally bringing himself to get rid of his car.

Without a word, Yuichi took his sleeping bag out of the trunk, a red sleeping bag he apparently used when he went on long drives. They took a train, and then a bus, and finally arrived. Mitsuyo let Yuichi lead her by the hand; she had no idea where they got on the train, or where they were going.

They rode the bus along the seacoast and got off at a small fishing village where the lighthouse was. In front of the bus stop was a small convenience store and a tiny gas station, but other than that there were only twenty or thirty homes, with fishing nets hung out to dry in the gardens.

They walked a little while from the bus stop and passed a shrine, next to which was a steep logging road. At the entrance to the road were signs saying Not a Through Road! and Closed Ahead! The thick weeds growing along the road made it even narrower. The two of them held hands and walked up the road for nearly half an hour, feeling as though they were walking through a prairie.

“We’re almost there,” Yuichi said, many times, his hand on her back to help her along the steep road.

When they reached the road’s end, the sky opened up and there was the lighthouse.

“See, there it is,” Yuichi said, smiling for the first time since they’d abandoned his car.

Beyond the logging road was a parking lot. There wasn’t a single car there, of course, and the asphalt was missing in places, with weeds shooting out through the cracks. Beyond the parking lot was the lighthouse, surrounded by a fence. They slipped through a break in the fence, the shabby lighthouse looming above them, looking ready to topple over. Below it was a similarly grubby lighthouse keeper’s shack, painted white. Yuichi tried the doorknob and the door opened easily.

Inside, the space was empty and dusty, the light shining in illuminating the dust in the air. In one corner of the shack were plywood boards leaning against the wall and a pipe chair, the foam rubber sticking out of the cushion. The floor was littered with sweet-bun wrappers and empty juice cans.

Yuichi laid one of the plywood boards on the floor and tossed his sleeping bag on it. Then he took Mitsuyo by the hand and led her outside, right below the lighthouse. A single bird, a kite, was circling in the winter sky. The sky seemed close enough to touch.

The lighthouse looked out over the sea that lay beneath the cliff. A chain blocked the way and there was no path past this point. She could hear the waves crashing against the cliff. Gazing at the scenery spread out before her, it felt less like a dead end than a starting point. From here one could go anywhere.

“I bet you’re starving,” Yuichi said. Mitsuyo, gazing out at the distant horizon, nodded. The sun was out, but the wind was so cold they soon sought shelter again in the shack. They spread the sleeping bag out on top of the sheet of plywood and ate the lunches they’d bought at the convenience store in front of the bus stop.

“Are you sure nobody’s going to come here?” Mitsuyo asked, and Yuichi, his mouth full of rice, nodded.

“Do you really think we can stay here?” she asked, and then Yuichi stopped chewing.

“We can buy some candles and food at the convenience store down there…” As he spoke, his voice grew softer.

Ever since they’d run away from the Karatsu police station, they hadn’t discussed the most important point of all. They knew they couldn’t escape. But they both felt the same way: that they wanted to be together right up until the moment they were arrested. They just couldn’t say it aloud.

The threatening phone calls she’d received at the year’s end stopped after New Year’s. She knew she couldn’t just crouch in fear in the kitchen, but she was so afraid of the phone ringing, of those men pushing their way into her home, that she found herself trembling even while she was sitting down.

So when the front doorbell rang she was even more startled. They’re here, Fusae thought. But it turned out only to be the local patrolman.

“Grandma, you at home?” he called out.

She nearly collapsed from relief and hurried to the front door.

“Have you heard Yuichi mention a friend by the name of Mitsuyo Magome? A girl who works at a clothing shop in Saga?” The policeman asked this as soon as she opened the door, without even saying hello. The cold wind rushed in. The patrolman rubbed his hands as he spoke and Fusae could only weakly shake her head.

“I see. So you haven’t heard of her. It looks like Yuichi took this girl with him when he ran away.”

“Took the girl with him?”

“Yeah, we don’t know if he forced her to go, or whether she went voluntarily.”

Fusae sat down heavily on the step up from the entrance. Knowing, perhaps, that asking any more questions was pointless, the patrolman patted her on the shoulder. “They found Yuichi’s car in Arita,” he added, and then left.

All Fusae could manage to do was stare at his retreating back.

Yuichi abandoned his car. He gave up on his car…

She could see him, walking far away from his car. Where are you going! she shouted to him, but he kept on walking, disappearing into a dark forest she’d never seen before.

Just then the phone in the kitchen rang. She was about to call after the patrolman, but she knew that he’d come about her grandson, the murderer, and wouldn’t listen to some complaint about threatening phone calls.

If she didn’t answer the phone, those men would definitely pay her a visit. If she did answer the phone, maybe they could find some sort of solution. All she could do was cling to this hope. She walked back to the kitchen and, hands shaking, lifted the receiver.

“Hello? Mom? It’s me, Yoriko. What is going on? They’re saying Yuichi is a murderer! That can’t be true, can it? Tell me what’s going on!

“Hello? Talk to me, Mom!”

Yoriko was hysterical. She didn’t let Fusae get a word in edgewise. “Honey…” was all Fusae was able to say.

“The police came to my workplace! Like they thought I was harboring him or something. And they even went through the company dorm…”

“How are you? Okay?”

As her daughter spoke, Fusae remembered how strong-willed she was, even as a child. When Yoriko entered junior high, she started going out at night. On weekends their tiny fishing village was shaken by the roar of motorcycles as a gang pulled up. Katsuji would grab her by the hair to try to stop her, but Yoriko would kick free and run off. More than once, Yoriko was taken into custody in the city and they had to pick her up at the police station. Once she graduated from high school, she started working at a bar, but this didn’t turn out so badly. Working full-time helped her to grow up, and Fusae remembered how, on one of her rare visits home, she politely poured sake for her father and said, “Dad, you should drop by our bar sometime for a drink,” handing him her business card.

But then she went and married a worthless man who ran out on her. Yuichi had been born by this time, and she gave him up to her parents to raise. Ever since then the only contact they had was a phone call every couple of years, an afterthought on her part. She’d say things like “I’m really sorry about what I did to you, Mom,” or “Next time let’s go on a trip to a spa together,” but in all that time she never once came home.