Even looking back at her age, she didn’t know if she’d gotten raising a child right. But now, she could feel like it was fun, even if she wasn’t sure. People changed little by little to match their heart’s growth, though that growth might be a bit hard to see when you’re with them every day.
“Hey, Mom. Can’t Grandma be a shelf owner? It’ll be fine. I’ll be going to the bookstore with her too. If I think there’s anything fishy going on, I’ll tell the owner.”
Mizuki emphasized that the fact that she could clearly say what she was thinking to anyone was one of her strengths. That might’ve been something to worry about from Mayumi’s point of view, but she said, “Please do,” with a smile. She was letting go a bit, believing in them.
“I’ve got tons of books in my room, so I might get Grandma to put some of the books I’ve finished reading on her shelf and use the money from them to buy more books. I could even save it up to go to Tokyo for fun.”
“No can do, Mizuki. Grandma’s shelf isn’t for recycling,” Emiko said with a shake of her head. “I’ve decided I’ll only stock books that will make people’s everyday happy.”
“Whaaa? You were the one who told me to become a shelf owner in the first place!” Mizuki grumbled, having her plans crushed.
“Ah, that’s true.”
Right as she was about to get back to eating, a memory floated to Emiko’s mind. She quickly stood, grabbing the notepad from her bag. She’d suddenly thought of what she would write in her first book. When she finished writing and sat back down, both Mayumi and Mizuki were smiling again for some reason.
A week had passed since Sumika Bookstore’s opening. How was the little one-shelf bookstore “Ke no Hi” doing? Emiko hadn’t stopped into the store since going in to celebrate on opening day. Had any of the books she’d put out ended up in anyone’s hands? Mizuki had warned her that it wasn’t that easy to sell books, but she couldn’t help but hope.
When she nervously opened the door, Junka greeted her cheerfully.
“Bright colored clothes like that suit you, Ishiie-san! You look wonderful.”
“Really? It feels nice to be complimented.”
Emiko had been worried that her long, mustard-yellow cardigan and flower-printed skirt might have been too flashy, but spring had come early in her heart, and she wanted to wear something brightly colored. Strangely enough, she felt lighter than she had when she’d worn nothing but grays and black.
While she was curious about her shelf, she went to check on the new arrivals first, only for Junka to tell her that something had sold. It seemed that one of the books she’d bought from the bookstore in front of the station was gone, along with her very first folded booklet.
Emiko had had a tough time, recalling the long-forgotten memories of her relationship with her parents as a child, and the first time she cooked for her family.
She and her older sister had wanted to surprise their parents by making them dinner while their mother was out, but it was their first time ever cooking. They’d tried using the ingredients that their mother had set aside for that day’s supper, but they failed. They couldn’t look recipes up as easily as you could nowadays. They hadn’t realized that different things cooked at different speeds and had ended up frying their parent’s meals to a crisp. She’d felt so bad that she and her sister got to eat her mother’s delicious home cooking while sitting at the same table as them that she spent the whole meal in silence.
She’d shut the memory down in the depths of her brain out of embarrassment, but it had changed to a memory that she could feel the warmth of her parents’ love from, as they tried to accept what she and her sister had done without getting angry, and had eaten the meal they’d made.
To write was to remember. Even when remembering, you accepted things in a different way than you had when it actually happened, making you feel like you’d made a new discovery.
“The person who bought your book was a kind-looking lady. She was around my age, maybe a bit older. We chatted about a lot of things, like U-turn entrepreneurship and stuff, but she was surprised, saying, ‘So you can start new things no matter how old you may get,’ and it made me happy,” she said, adding that, strangely enough, most of the store’s customers had been women around her own age.
Maybe there were a lot of people who’d reached a turning point and panicked at their unchanging lives, wanting to change something. As she listened, Mayumi’s face flashed in her mind.
“Sometimes, there are periods where, as vexing as it is, you can’t do anything about it,” Emiko said.
Junka nodded in empathy, before putting her hands on Emiko’s shoulders from in front of her. “From this point on is the real deal for you, Ishiie-san. Let’s make a wonderful book, just like that Japanese-bound one Mizuki-chan brought back with her from Tokyo. I’m sure it’ll reach someone’s heart.”
It felt strange, thinking that her first book had already made its way into someone’s hands. It was comfortable, not knowing who it would go to.
After that, Emiko visited a little café she’d recently found before doing her shopping at the supermarket. Then, she would search for books that she wanted to stick in her heart, and then she would write.
The ordinary were the special days. Not a single day was the same kind of ordinary. And maybe feeling that would bring happiness.