Chapter 5:
The Everyday, the Special Days
SHE COULD HEAR LOUD VOICES OUTSIDE OF HER room. It sounded like her granddaughter Mizuki had returned from her school trip to Tokyo.
Reluctantly leaving behind the suspenseful drama she’d been watching, which was nearing the end, Ishiie Emiko got up from the sofa. She took the gray stole she’d had covering her legs and wrapped it around her shoulders as she left her room, feeling she should at least get a look at her granddaughter’s face after not seeing her for five days.
Holding the railing, she carefully walked down the stairs. Having seen friends in her age group injure themselves out of the blue, she’d started feeling like she had to tell herself that she was elderly. Next month, she would be turning seventy. Even when her emotions were rushing her, there was a little lag between when she thought of an action and when her body actually moved, so she had to be especially careful when descending stairs.
The moment Emiko opened the door, she saw Mizuki and her daughter, Mayumi, standing there glaring at each other.
“I’ve already decided I’m gonna go to a university in Tokyo!”
Mizuki’s high-pitched voice pierced Emiko’s eardrums. Despite getting scolded daily about how the way she wore her school uniform was indecent and being told to stop, her skirt was still rolled up short around her waist.
“Give it a rest. If you want to go there so bad, then you can just get a job there after you graduate, can’t you?” Mayumi shouted back at her daughter, undaunted. Here she’d been waiting excitedly, having cut work short so she could be home when Mizuki got back from Tokyo today, so what happened?
“If I’m gonna go to Tokyo to work, then it’d be the same going there for university,” Mizuki countered.
“Quit doing nothing but having your nose stuck in a book and get your grades up high enough that you can go to university in the first place! Your grades in your last school year aren’t the only thing they take into consideration when recommending you. Your grades up until then count too.”
“You’re so annoying!” Mizuki said, pouting as she looked away.
As Emiko stood there flustered, watching them go at each other, Mayumi looked over to her for help with a frown on her face.
“Listen to this, Mom: Mizuki used all the allowance she’d been given for her Tokyo trip on books instead of buying even a single souvenir for us! Unbelievable, right? She can buy books anywhere!”
“I can’t buy these books just anywhere. They’re special!” Mizuki insisted before slamming the living room door open. Grabbing the luggage she’d left in the entranceway, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. She was going to hole herself up in her room.
Mayumi heaved a sigh, cleaning up the tea set she’d had ready on the dining table. She must have really wanted to relax and listen to her daughter talk about her trip.
Emiko walked over to her. “Mayumi, we gave her that money, so does it really matter what she spent it on? Mizuki was so happy before she left, talking about a bookstore she really wanted to visit in Tokyo.”
“Going to Tokyo and buying books is one thing, but I told her! I told her that since her grandma gave her lots of money to spend, she absolutely had to buy you a souvenir as thanks. And yet here she is with nothing, saying that she wanted the books no matter what!”
“I didn’t need a souvenir. As long as Mizuki’s happy, I’m—”
Mayumi interrupted her, shaking her head. “It’s the fact that she never thinks of anyone but herself that bothers me. All she had to do was buy one fewer book. Apparently, she had so much luggage on the return trip that she’d needed to convince her friends to let her put her stuff in their bags. Why is she so reckless when she’s already in her second year of high school?”
She kept complaining, saying forget Tokyo, she could barely let her go to Osaka for university. Emiko thought the situation was heartwarming, the fact that Mizuki had friends who she was close enough to ask to do that. But that wasn’t something she should tell Mayumi. If Emiko negated her, then Mayumi would lose faith in her parenting skills.
“Want something to drink, Mom?”
“I’ll get something for myself. You must be tired from work.”
“I’m fine. Here I’m always making you do all of the housework, so I’d have no right to be here in this house if I didn’t make tea at the very least. How about I break out that new tea?” Mayumi said, opening the cupboard above the sink and pulling out the can of Darjeeling.
Mayumi and Mizuki had been fighting for the past few years. Emiko had hoped that Mizuki’s school trip putting some distance between them might do them some good, but it looked like five days hadn’t been enough time.
Emiko gazed at her daughter’s back as she stood in the kitchen. Her hair, cut shorter than her shoulders, was bundled up. The length was the same as it had been for ages, overlapping with her memories of her in junior high and high school, when she would help her with the chores. But now, there were white hairs mixed into the bunch. She would turn forty-seven on her birthday next month.
Mayumi worked at a chilled-food manufacturing company. After a sudden promotion in the spring, she’d become the chief of the product development section and was thus coming home later than before. Seeing as she was at the age where menopause began and her body was changing, she got tired more easily, so Emiko was doing her best to take care of all of the household chores. If she didn’t, Mayumi’s perfectionist ways were liable to force herself to do even more.