He didn’t intend to imprison his wife, and he didn’t remember ever forcing her to be a different person. He just acted appropriately for a working man in society, and he wanted Junko to do what was natural for a woman watching over her family and home. Was there anything wrong with that? But when he said that, Nanao responded with a warning: “Have you heard of gray divorce? A man who neglects his family’s needs gets thrown away, Father.” Takiji laughed it off as nonsense, but Junko didn’t laugh. She just apologetically said, “Let me do as I like.”
They’re both making fun of me, he thought. It’s not like I’ve been oppressing Junko all this time. I took us all on family trips every year, and she had the clothes she wanted, visits to the beauty parlor, no limits. She had plenty of freedom. Why do they have to make me out to be the bad guy?
Takiji had more to say, but realizing that Nanao was just going to take his wife’s side, he swallowed his words. Instead, he said, “It’s fine. Do as you like.” I guess if I can have a second life, then you can, too. I can understand that much, at least.
But if he were being honest, he didn’t understand. Every morning there was a fresh whirlpool of dissatisfaction in his chest. How was he to find an outlet for those feelings?
“Maybe I’ll go get a drink of coffee or something…” When he was alone in the room with nobody there, he quickly started to feel depressed. Takiji left the house, taking nothing with him but his wallet.
Given that he had chosen it for its lovely street scenes, Mojikō was the ideal place for a walk. There were any number of stylish cafés, too, dotting the area. But just to wander in, a single man on his own? That would be far too uncomfortable.
Instead, there was a little coffee shop he’d found just behind their apartment building that had become his regular spot. The old proprietor ran it by himself, and there were always strains of jazz music playing lightly in the background. The interior was somewhat old-fashioned, and with nothing flashy there to catch the eye—what the kids these days called “Instagrammable”?—there were few customers. Takiji liked it that way.
The only thing was, he felt like a bit of an outsider there. It seemed the proprietor was into fishing, and the walls were festooned with fish prints and photos on fishing boats. And then, too, he and the regulars were always waxing poetic about where they fished and what they had caught. Takiji had no experience fishing, so he was left out of the conversation entirely. Today, too, a small cluster of customers were going on about mame aji, baby horse mackerel that were small enough to cook and eat whole, and what quantities each of the several patrons had caught. He settled into a window seat, ordered a coffee, and for the second time that day ran his eyes over the newspaper he had already read at home.
He needed a hobby, but how to find one?
Takiji looked at a feature in the paper about a dance group for seniors and considered the question. Until now, he had never thought much about anything except work. The days came and went easily enough, and he had no complaints. But now he wanted something to kill time. Even better if it was something he could banter about with others, like the group gathered here.
The coffee came, and he drank it slowly. His eye fell upon a young mother pushing a stroller outside the shop. When Nanao has a child, perhaps I’ll…He quickly extinguished the idle thought. It seemed Nanao had decided not to have children. He didn’t know what her reasons were. She had just told him that she had discussed it with her husband and they had made the decision.
“I have my own life. I’m not giving birth to a child just to make you happy, Father.”
Some of his junior colleagues at the company had chosen a childless life as well. At some point, someone had explained to him that there were couples who deliberately avoided having children. They were called “DINKs”—dual income, no kids. Of course, people led all different sorts of lives. He accepted that. But why was it that he felt so lonely when he heard it from his own daughter’s mouth? He searched for the right words to explain it to her, but all he could think to say was that having children was a good thing, and just that was enough to make Nanao angry.
“You’re always saying that you raised me, Father, but you didn’t actually do anything. You think you can just shell out the money and that’s enough? Were you there for my first day of school? My track meets? Any of the big events in my life? If a person like that says that children are a good thing, it carries no weight at all.”
He had always thought she was a cute girl, and he had tried his best, in his own way. But still. A bitter taste filled his mouth and he grimaced, then looked out through the window, and his eyes happened to meet those of a boy on a bicycle. The boy’s thin limbs poked out of his T-shirt and shorts, and there was a plastic bag dangling from the handlebars of his bicycle. He gave a look of surprise, then increased his speed and rode away. He must have thought Takiji’s grimace was directed at him. Takiji stood up, flustered, but the young man had already disappeared.
“Whoops. My mistake.”
He rubbed his head and sat down again. Then he gazed out through the window. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen the young man somewhere before.
I don’t know anyone in this area. And certainly not any children. But somehow I recognize him. Where could I have seen him?
Suddenly there was a roar of laughter, and when he looked over, the proprietor’s fisherman friends were all clutching their stomachs in hysterics. Noticing Takiji’s gaze, the proprietor, still smiling, said, “Sorry, excuse us.” Another of the men said, “Pardon, pardon,” and bowed his head. Draining the remaining coffee in a single draft, Takiji stood.
“I’ll leave the payment here. Thank you.”
I won’t come here anymore, Takiji thought. Feeling something akin to irritation, he left the establishment.