He didn’t know how to answer that. He couldn’t understand why even Miyoko was suspicious of him now. The throbbing in his left hand made it hard to think straight.
“Why aren’t you answering me? Also, did you go to the school today?”
That only confused him more. “Stop talking nonsense. Why would I go to the school?”
“Sae said she saw you standing outside the gate.”
“What?”
“Weren’t you supposed to be at work? Why were you loitering like some weirdo? Were you trying to take Sae back to the condo?”
The thought that someone was trying to take his daughter suddenly popped into his head, and he shuddered with fear. Why would they do that?
For “compensation.” He couldn’t find Yoshikazu Hara. His family would have to be put in the hole.
“No! Miyoko, it wasn’t me! That’s not me! Tell Sae not to believe anything she hears!”
“Huh? Not believe— Tell me what’s going on!”
“I don’t know either! I’m just doing my goddamn job!”
His emotions exploded again. He just couldn’t bear to hear Miyoko’s voice anymore.
“Look, can you just come over here for a little bit? Get out of our condo.”
“You want me to live with your parents? You know they won’t—”
“Just get out of there! You’ll feel a lot better once you’re out! There’s something wrong with that place!”
Mitsuhiro stamped his feet in frustration. He couldn’t bear to imagine this home completely empty.
“It’ll be over soon, all right? Then our place will be all normal again!”
“Again, what are you talking about? What’s gonna be over soon? I’m telling you, I feel so much better when I’m not there.”
“How much of the mortgage do you think we have left?! Are you telling me to sell this place? We’ll lose so much money! I’m finally home, okay?! Can’t you think about protecting this place a little?!”
“That’s not the point! What do you mean, you’re ‘finally home’? Are you talking about when your parents’ house burned down?”
The house was on fire. He sat on the side of the road, unable to do anything, watching it burn. He hated it. Why was she making him remember that?
“Just shut up! Stop griping about my work! I have things to do! Important work! Why are you getting in my way?!”
He was almost out of breath now. He braced himself, expecting Miyoko to sass back at him, but all he heard was the sound of sobbing and Sae’s voice asking, “Mommy, why are you crying?”
“It’s nothing.” Miyoko sniffled. “I’ll call you back.” Then nothing.
Mitsuhiro felt his limbs trembling with agitation and guilt as he picked up his bag and entered the dark dining room. He put it and his phone on the table.
Hang in there.
His father’s voice didn’t make the trembling stop.
As he sat in that dark room, head bowed, he noticed that his father had sat down in the chair across from him. He was smiling.
“Now you can focus on your work, right? And once you’re done, the whole family will be together forever.”
He imagined the three of them huddled together at the bottom of the hole. No, four. The baby in his wife’s womb would be there, too. It was a horrifying thought, but now he realized that it was a relief, too. He couldn’t take any more of this. More and more now, he felt like he didn’t care what happened as long as this job was over soon.
Mitsuhiro helplessly looked at his father. “You weren’t there for me,” he said resentfully.
“Where’d that come from all of a sudden?”
“I was lonely for so long. I felt like you didn’t even see me anymore. I didn’t want Sae and Miyoko to feel the same way.”
Hang in there.
His father’s voice. It didn’t sound quite like the voice of the man in front of him, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
“No? Well, I’m sorry I made you feel lonely. But in the end, we’ll all be together as a family. Like how the fire turns everyone into ashes and makes them one.”
His father looked back at the window behind him. Suddenly, a dazzling light shone through it, revealing his father’s silhouette.
Mitsuhiro stood up in a daze and looked over his father’s head.
Everything was on fire. Every building around them was engulfed in flames and collapsing. Something fell from the sky with a loud screeching sound, exploding on the street and sending columns of flame into the air. People were burning everywhere, running around in panic, then falling to the ground.
There was an inferno out the window. An earthquake. An air raid. The aggregated memories of countless fires over the years were now dancing around with the blizzard of embers flying past the window.
His father turned his face back to Mitsuhiro. With that turn of the head came a strange smell. The smell of something being burned until even its bones were ashes.
Before Mitsuhiro’s eyes, his father’s face and body were burned to a crisp. His skin was charred black; his bones cracked with a crunching sound. Blood and pus oozed from his body, which was now swarming with flies and maggots.
There was a small sound from the hallway.
A thumbtack had fallen, leaving newspaper hanging off the wall. The stain on the wall was spreading. Soon it would burn like his father, spilling boiling blood, cracking from the heat, crawling with maggots.
“You see now, don’t you? This is how we all become one.”
His father smiled. He was no longer burning. Outside the window was the usual quiet night view.
Mitsuhiro slowly sat back down on the chair and nodded to his father. The way fire destroyed people was no longer on his mind. He understood now why his father wanted to live near water. He wondered if Dad had always been this afraid of the scene he just witnessed.
“Were you cursed, too, Dad? That’s why you got so angry when I left the kerosene heater on in my room back in middle school.”
“Ahh, maybe. But let’s get ready for work, okay? We’re almost done now. All that effort will go to waste if we just sit around here all night.”
“Yeah…”