Her voice, hollow and thin, reaches nowhere but my ears.
She invites me to sit on a floor cushion and I do.
Like it or not, I’m faced with the girl’s picture.
She’s smiling. I can still hear her laugh.
I can’t do this.
Looking away from her picture, I ring a small high-pitched bell that has some religious name I forget, and I put my hands together.
I feel like I should know what I want to pray for, but I can’t think of anything.
I finish paying my respects to her and turn to her mother, who is sitting on the tatami mat next to me. I slide off my cushion and match her position. She gives me an exhausted but genuine smile.
I tell her, “I have something I borrowed from your daughter. Is it all right if I return it to you?”
“You have something of hers? Well, yes, you may. What is it?”
I reach into my bag to retrieve The Little Prince and hand it to her. She seems to recognize the book, and she holds it to her chest for a moment before placing the paperback next to the girl’s picture, as if in offering.
Bowing her head respectfully, she says, “Thank you, truly, for being her friend.”
I’m not sure how to respond. Eventually, I say, “Actually, Sakura-san was very good to me. She was always so cheerful and full of life. She brightened my mood whenever I was with her.”
She hesitates before saying, “Yes… She was full of life.”
Oh, that’s right. No one outside her family is supposed to know about her pancreas.
I consider keeping my knowledge a secret, but I realize I’m going to have to come clean either way if I want to accomplish what I’m here to do.
I don’t know how the truth will affect her family, and the part of me with a conscience considers stopping, but I quickly squash that sentiment and say, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Oh?”
Her face is kind and sad. I squash my conscience again.
“The truth is, I… I knew about her illness.”
“What?”
Her expression is as surprised as I’d expected.
“She told me about it. I never imagined that…this would happen.”
Still in stunned silence, she puts her hand over her mouth. It’s true, then: The girl hadn’t told her family she’d revealed her illness to anyone else. I suspected as much. When I visited her in the hospital, she allowed me to cross paths with her friend, but made sure I never ran into her family. That was one awkwardness she spared me.
I explain, “I happened to run into her at the hospital one day. That was when she told me. I don’t know why she did.”
Her mother stays quiet, letting me speak, and so I continue.
“She kept it a secret from all our other classmates. I know this must come as a great surprise, and I’m sorry for springing it on you.”
It’s time to get to the point.
“I came here for more than paying my respects. I have another favor to ask you. She kept a book—a sort of journal—after she got sick. I’m hoping you’ll let me read it.”
More silence.
“Living with Dying,” I say, and it’s like I flipped a switch.
Yamauchi Sakura’s mother, still holding her hand to her mouth, begins to cry. Quietly, quietly, holding back any sound, she cries, tears flowing from both eyes.
I don’t understand why that made her cry. I made her sad, I can see that much. But for reasons I don’t comprehend, finding out I knew about the illness has triggered an even deeper sorrow than was already burdening her. Without understanding why, I can’t find the right words to comfort her. Instead, I quietly wait.
She’s still crying when she stares into my eyes and begins to explain.
“It’s you,” she says.
What does that mean?
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you… I’m so happy you’ve come.”
I’m even more confused than before. Too unsure to speak, all I can do is watch her cry.
“Please, wait here,” she says.
She stands and vanishes into some other part of the house. Alone now, I search for the meaning behind her tears and what she said. Try as I might, nothing comes to mind.
She returns before I find an answer. In her hand is a familiar paperback-sized book.
She says, “This is it, right?”
Still in tears, she gently places the book on the tatami floor and turns it toward me. It is indeed the book, the girl’s constant companion. But for one exception, she had kept its contents secret from me the whole time.
“Yes, that’s it,” I say. “Living with Dying. She told me it was a journal she started when she found out she was sick. She never let me read it, but she told me she would make her writings public after she died. Did she ever say something like that to you?”
Her mother nods once, then again, and she keeps nodding. Each time, teardrops fall onto the tatami mats and her pale skirt.
I bow my head and plead, “Please. May I read it?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Thank you.”
“Sakura left it for you. Specifically you.”
My hand is reaching for the book when I reflexively freeze, caught by surprise. I look to her mother’s face.
“What?” I say.
Her crying intensifies, and she begins to speak between her sobs.
“Sakura told me. She said that when she…when she died, I was to give it to a certain person. She said he’d know about her sickness. He’d know the title of her book.”
Her tears keep falling and evaporating into the air. All I can do is continue listening. Beside me, the girl’s smiling photograph watches us.
“She said that he…that he’d probably be too afraid to come to her funeral. But he would come for the book. Until then, we weren’t to show it to anyone outside our family. I still remember…exactly how she told me. It feels so long ago now.”
She covers her face with both hands now and breaks down completely. I’m still dumbfounded. This isn’t what the girl told me. She left the book…to me?
Memories of our time together flash through my mind.
Her mother’s voice squeaks out through her tears.
“Thank you. Thank you. Because of you, she… With you, she…”
Unable to restrain myself any longer, I pick the book up off the floor. Nobody stops me.