Minoru began unwrapping his lunch box, so Rie decided to put up some tea to go with it. They had already signed and submitted their divorce papers but were still living together, since the construction being done on Minoru’s new apartment in Kyoto was taking longer than expected, and he had been taking forever to finish packing. He said he was leaving today, so this was going to be their last day together.
“All right. This is our last day together, so we might as well.”
“Last this, last that—stop saying ‘last’ so much.” Minoru seemed to relax the moment Rie decided to join him for lunch. “I can leave for Okayama tomorrow, you know. Stay another night here,” he said.
“No, you can’t. Do you know what they’d say if you did that? If you don’t want to go to Okayama today, then go to your apartment in Kyoto and stay there. You don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.”
“Nobody has to know.”
“I don’t want you staying here.”
Rie began making another bowl of soup. After opening his lunch box, Minoru rubbed his hands together with evident satisfaction.
“Meatballs… Nice,” he muttered.
Inside the lunch box were soft simmered meatballs in seasoned broth, pickled lotus root with fried eggs (Minoru loved these fried eggs, so they were a must with every lunch), white rice with black sesame seasoning, and Minoru’s favorite chopped vegetables pickled in salt with red shiso leaves. Rie had made herself the same thing. Minoru let out a satisfied sigh after seeing the two lunches together, then grabbed his lacquered lunch box and began busily stuffing his chopsticks into it.
His appetite was as strong as ever. Minoru wasn’t a drinker, but he was a big eater. He loved food, and he especially loved the food that Rie cooked.
Rie had spent the past ten years working for a company that made and distributed women’s clothing. Things had been extremely busy ever since she was assigned to sales. She often went to boutiques and warehouses on business trips, and she had to make frequent trips to fashion shows and department stores while meeting with designers in between. Most of the time, the week was over before she even realized it.
Once a week, she had to have dinner meetings with coworkers and clients, but even then, she went back home first to make Minoru his dinner. It wasn’t as if Rie was an exceptional cook or anything; she just knew exactly what Minoru liked and what he needed, so she would be hit with new ideas for dinner left and right, which he seemed to greatly enjoy.
“I can’t eat out when dinner at home is this good. Nothing beats your cooking,” he used to say.
“This is delicious… I can’t even imagine not getting to eat your cooking anymore. I can come over to eat sometimes, right?” Minoru asked as he ate the lunch Rie had made for him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What is wrong with you? There’s no reason for you to come here anymore. Besides, I’m planning on moving anyway.”
“You are? You never told me that.” He seemed flustered. His droopy eyes widened. “I mean, not telling me is kind of a mean thing to do. Don’t you think?”
“You’re the mean one, suddenly dropping all that on me and surprising me out of nowhere.”
“Yeah… Sorry about that.”
Minoru gulped. Rie didn’t want to keep blaming him for what happened. They had been married for eight years until…
“Hey, I didn’t wanna have to tell you this, but things have gotten a little complicated with a female customer from work.”
Never once did she expect to ever hear him say that.
“She said she didn’t want to live anymore if I didn’t marry her,” he admitted in a dumbfounded manner while he scratched his head.
“Well, that’s a little extreme. Why’d she say that?”
Rie wanted to complain to Minoru that day because she had some trouble at work, but he dropped the next few words on her the moment she got home, making her recoil in astonishment.
“She told me she’s pregnant.”
Rie sucked in a deep breath, and Minoru averted his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “After debating day after day when I should tell you, the time just flew by.”
“…”
“What should I do?”
Rie unconsciously glared at him in a reprimanding way.
“I’m sorry,” Minoru squeaked again.
Even when he apologized, his drooping eyes and baby face made it look like he was half smiling. Minoru was hanging his head slightly—perhaps he was expecting to be yelled at—but Rie was so taken aback that she couldn’t even get a word out. The gloves she was trying to take off got tangled up because her hands were trembling. What Minoru said shocked her as if she’d been sprayed in the face with ink. Minoru wasn’t a liar, but hiding something was even worse than lying about it.
“She told me she’s pregnant.”
She would never be able to wash that ink off her face. The abruptness of it all made her feel that way even more strongly. The ink had flown all over the place, staining every part of her mind and body in the hardest places to clean.
Rie spent their entire eight-year marriage unable to have a child. Not that she wasn’t capable, however. The doctor even told her it was possible for her to get pregnant, but for some reason, she couldn’t. Time went by, and her and Minoru’s lives as a double income, no-kids household was fulfilling and enjoyable.
“Maybe we don’t need to have a child?”
“Yeah, I don’t really even want one,” Minoru had replied, and with that, the whole idea vanished from Rie’s life.
Which was why the first thing that popped into her head when she heard about the pregnancy was confusion:
We already crossed that bridge. We put that topic to bed long ago, and yet you want to try again?
“What do you plan on doing?”
“I don’t know what I should do. My sister—”
“Oh, you already told your sister?”
“Yeah, and she told me to talk it over with her. Her being the other woman, not you.”
Minoru’s parents had already passed away, so his sister and her husband were like parents to him. Rie, however, didn’t like his sister. She’d been against the idea of her brother marrying a woman three years his senior from day one. Minoru and Rie worked at the same company, so Rie ended up quitting when they married and found a new job. But…
“She’s never going to be able to have a child if she keeps working like that,” Minoru’s sister once said to him. And slowly but surely, Minoru’s attitude of “not even really wanting one” changed.
“I’m sorry, Rie…but I want a kid now just like everyone else,” Minoru eventually admitted. Rie could just tell it was his sister who put him up to this. It was the way he said it that made it clear she had poisoned his mind.
“…How old is she?” Rie asked, her voice slightly hoarse.
“Twenty-three.”
“What’s her name?”
“Hiroko Ohara.”
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but she’s funny and fun to be around.”
Rie settled into a chair in silence, still wearing her work clothes. She couldn’t even joke about this. If she had just a little bit more energy, she would have probably been able to at least respond to what was happening, but the depression had already kicked in. Tears of self-pity began welling in her eyes and she suddenly got the urge to throw up.
And yet all it took was a single word to tease those feelings out.
“Dinner,” Minoru suddenly said. Rie thought she was hearing things.
“What?”
“Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“I don’t care. Make your own dinner if it means that much to you!”
“What are we having tonight?”