Listening to his mother’s voice on the phone, Mitsuhiro recalled the elegant home in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, where he’d lived through high school.
The house, a testament to his father’s success as a contractor, was apparently not good enough for Dad to spend his final years in. One day, out of the blue, the Matsunaga family had moved to a house along the Tama River in Hachioji, well west of central Tokyo. Mitsuhiro later learned his dad made the move because he wanted to live near water. That same river already flowed through Setagaya, but for whatever reason, he insisted on living more upstream.
After his father died from cancer, his mother had made some jokes about how he must have had salmon blood in him and so on, but she also said the move did a lot to calm his temper. Mitsuhiro’s own memories of the time were fragmented at best. He’d begun living alone soon after getting into college, so the house in Hachioji always felt more like his parents’ home than his own.
Maybe it was that yearning to return to his childhood hometown that had driven him to settle down back in Setagaya with his wife and daughter after kicking off his career. He knew he had at least some attachment to the area, something beyond it just being convenient for commuting and building a family, and his wife Miyoko seemed to sense that as well. Maybe that’s why she kept using vague terms like “power spot” whenever he suggested moving to a place with a cheaper mortgage.
“Hey, are you listening?”
“Ah…yeah.”
Mitsuhiro’s wandering thoughts were brought back to the present. Why was he thinking about his old family home? It had long since become someone else’s property. He went past it once, after it had been remodeled into a completely different shape. He didn’t really feel anything, though, and he hadn’t been back since.
“You want to find a company who’ll perform a purification ritual on our gravesite because Dad’s gravestone got damaged?”
The face of Araki from Tamai Construction flashed before his eyes. He quickly pushed it out of his mind. If they charged two hundred thousand yen for an amulet, who knows how much they’d try to bilk his mother for?
“Oh, right! The stone itself is insured, so the stonemason will work out a new one for us.”
Mitsuhiro blinked. He’d never even thought about that sort of thing. “You took out insurance on the grave?”
“Well, the company I worked for had a good policy, so I went for it. They can get damaged by earthquakes and erosion, you know.”
Mitsuhiro was impressed. His mother, who worked for an insurance company, was what you’d call a hard-nosed saleswoman. Thanks to her, even after his father decided to close the business and retire, they were wealthy enough to never worry much about money. Mitsuhiro was extremely grateful to her for that. Meanwhile, Miyoko’s mother had never once held a job since she was born. That, really, was the core reason why they never got along.
“So, I think we can take care of the repairs for the stone ourselves, but could you arrange to have the broken part properly purified, or whatever you’re supposed to do with it? Because I have absolutely no idea about all that.”
Mitsuhiro sure didn’t either, and he was far too busy to start researching it. But his mother rarely asked him for favors like this, and he didn’t want to just brush her off.
“All right. In that case, can you send me the broken part of the grave marker? That, and maybe some things that used to belong to him?”
Wait. Why did he ask for that second thing? Mitsuhiro was confused.
“His belongings? Why? Oh, for the memorial service?”
His mother seemed to find this logical enough somehow.
“Yeah, just in case,” agreed Mitsuhiro. He had to keep a possession of his father’s with him. Just like Chief Sugawara. A part of Mitsuhiro’s mind was screaming at him to do it right now.
Now, is that really necessary? He felt like a black shadow had slinked into the back seat. It leaned toward Mitsuhiro up front and whispered in his father’s voice. There’s really no point in doing that, Mitsuhiro. Your father’s right here with you. You’re happier that way, too, aren’t you? Wouldn’t life be a lot harder right now if I went away?
It would be, yes. But this is about Dad’s grave. Mitsuhiro had no idea what to make of this conversation.
“His belongings, huh? I’ll see if there’s anything left, but we got rid of most of it. All the albums and stuff got burned, too.”
The sudden sound of his mother’s voice snapped him back to reality, further vexing him. “Burned?”
He could smell the dry scent of fire and ash. The smell of a crematorium, mixed with something even more intense. A house burning. The smell of everything in life reduced to ashes. A strange thought flashed through his mind as well—himself sitting on the side of the road, staring.
“Don’t you…? Oh, well, it was hard for you, wasn’t it? I’m sure you suffered a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house in Setagaya burning down when you were in high school, I mean. Your father was devastated, but after we moved, he got a lot calmer, you know. I’ve told you about it lots of times since you moved out, but you keep on forgetting after a while, don’t you?”
Mitsuhiro was stunned. His house in Setagaya burned down. He knew that memory was somewhere in his head, but it haunted him, how unreal it felt. He did vaguely remember sitting on the side of the road, surrounded by several fire trucks. There must have been all kinds of noise, but his memory was soundless. He didn’t know where his mother and father were. Whenever he tried to recall that moment, the scene would always shift over to a crematorium. His father, dressed in a suit, laid out in a coffin. The dry smell of fire and ash drifting through the air.
Mitsuhiro tried to organize the sequence of events, but his head felt too twisted up. You don’t need to remember, his father said behind him. We are the mi-keshi of the ashes. That’s just the way it’s always been.
“Did you get covered in ashes, too, Dad?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Ah, nothing,” he said. What was he even saying? He was getting more and more confused…and then, suddenly, he felt someone bumping something against the back of his seat.
You don’t need any of those belongings. You have to tell her not to send them.
His father was sternly admonishing him. Someone kept kicking his seat from behind. Stop it, Dad, Mitsuhiro weakly called out in his mind. Please, stop it.
“Hey, are you okay?” his mother asked. “Is work tiring you out?”
“Yeah… No, I’m fine. Don’t worry. But I’m in the middle of work, so if you don’t mind…”
“All right, all right. Anyway, see what you can do, okay?”
“Um, Mom…”
“And I’ll look for anything your father had and send a package over. Take care of yourself, okay? Bye.”
Before he could tell her to wait, she hung up. The saleswoman in her had never retired at all. She retained that same old tendency to set the pace at all times—another reason why she and Miyoko’s mother didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything.
Mitsuhiro stared at his phone, shrinking in fear of what his father behind him might say.
“She always was a difficult woman.”
This time, he could hear the muttering as clear as day. The voice, surprisingly light, was full of sympathy for Mitsuhiro.
“I’m sure you’ve had enough of this, huh? All this extra work at home and on the job.”
Mitsuhiro timidly raised his face. He saw his father smiling ruefully in the rearview mirror.
“No, that… That’s just you.”
The belongings were being sent. He tried to think about it but couldn’t. His father was right behind him, but those belongings still existed. He tried to reconcile those two facts, but his head just spun in confusion. He closed his eyes tightly. An unpleasant ringing sound filled his ears. He feared it might become the only thing he could hear.
The stress is back.
Mitsuhiro didn’t think that so much as remember it for the first time in a while. Back when he was living with his ill-tempered father in his parents’ house in Setagaya, he’d often experience ringing in his ears. He didn’t know exactly when it was, except that it was sometime in his teens.
He felt someone tapping on the seat behind him. It wasn’t the same scolding kick as before. It was more like a soothing shake.
“Calm down, Mitsuhiro. Take a deep breath and get those needless thoughts out of your head. You have important work to do. That’s all you need to think about right now. Nothing else matters, okay?”
He could clearly hear his father’s voice. He took several deep breaths. The ringing subsided. Mitsuhiro opened his eyes and looked around the construction-site parking lot he was in. The reality of this large-scale project right next to him, and the thought of the incredibly important thing underneath it, brought Mitsuhiro back from his state of confusion.
“That’s the spirit. Now, let’s get back to work. You can still use that same basic method to track down Yoshikazu Hara, you know.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Mitsuhiro rubbed his brow and blinked a little. He felt much better. He could hear clearly again. The panicked confusion that had just overwhelmed him was gone.
Yoshikazu Hara had to be nearby. He had no other means of transportation. He probably went right back to that park with the soup kitchen.
With that in mind, he got in his car and drove past the park along the railroad tracks.
Sure enough, Yoshikazu Hara was right there, standing in the food line. It was like nothing had happened at all. No, this was just dementia making him forget everything the moment it happened.
But Mitsuhiro didn’t panic and pull over. If he did it here, right in front of the construction-choked rail station, he’d instantly get a parking ticket, and then he could kiss the company car goodbye. He steeled his nerves, calmly pulling into a nearby lot and reaching into the back seat. The convenience-store bag still had all the booze and snacks inside.
Okay. Third time’s the charm. It’s a big job, and I’ll get it done this time. Mitsuhiro gave himself that pep talk as he got out of the car and headed for the park where Yoshikazu Hara was.