“Yeah. Let me join you, too, Fuuka.” At Sora’s suggestion, Tamuramaro got up from the bench, rubbing his neck.
“Coo.” Fuuka whined.
“I wasn’t inviting you to come with us. We’re already living under the same roof, pursuing the same case from opposite directions.”
“Are they opposite?” Tamuramaro laughed, as though he could see through everything.
“You really are keeping an eye on me. Don’t you get tired of it?”
It couldn’t have been by pure chance that they’d confronted each other in the same projects; Sora wasn’t fooling himself. But when Tamuramaro had told him that he’d actually been watching him, he was honestly surprised.
“I consider it the life’s work of the sei-i taishogun. Though I guess it’s no joke to throw around my title too casually in this park.”
There were several shrines near Shakujii Park, as well as some small ones scattered through the park itself.
“After twelve hundred years, I don’t even know what’s a joke and what’s not anymore,” murmured Sora. He wondered whether these words came out of the ambiguity he’d recently learned to embrace.
They passed by elderly people playing a game of shogi on a portable board and others painting the scene in watercolors. They made their way toward Hyoutan Lake, where children were eagerly searching for crayfish with their parents.
“Oh, how lovely. Taking a walk, you three?”
As soon as he heard her voice, Sora knew who it belonged to. “Ms. Tatsuko, thank you very much for the delicious hot pot the other day,” he said with a bow. She was sitting on a bench by herself.
“Yes, I couldn’t believe how amazing it was. Even the zosui rice porridge at the end was so good, I savored every bite! I’m so glad I moved to Shizukuishi!!” Tamuramaro was finally back to his usual buoyant self as he also thanked her.
“Woof, woof!”
“I’m happy to hear that. Did Fuuka have some of it, too? Better not eat anything with bones or strong flavors,” she said as she stroked Fuuka’s cheek.
“Are you by yourself today?” Tamuramaro asked casually, since it was a Sunday.
“Some days I want to wait alone.” Tatsuko was gazing toward Hyoutan Lake, as if she was waiting for someone to come.
Tamuramaro flinched, regretting his words, and fell silent.
“I see you’ve heard the story, too, Mr. Tamura?” she asked without any surprise.
“It wasn’t me…!” Sora blurted out. “Oh.”
For a long time, Tatsuko had been open about her wish to divorce Rokurou. Everyone in Shizukuishi knew why, but no one brought it up in front of the couple.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Why apologize?”
About forty years ago, when the residential district of Shizukuishi had largely become what it was now, a three-year-old son suddenly appeared at the Kashiwagis’. They were in their late thirties at the time. The adorable boy looked just like Rokurou, so everyone could surmise how matters stood, but from what Sora heard, there were very few who gossiped behind their back.
The Kashiwagis hadn’t been able to conceive a child for a long time, so it was understandable that Tatsuko loved that boy even more than a biological son. She doted on him, raising him with the sternness of a truly loving mother, and everyone agreed that she went above and beyond what any woman would do for a child born of her husband’s adultery.
“Mr. Lawyer, you should be the one to do the divorce settlement between Ms. Tatsuko and Mr. Rokurou.”
Keita, who was younger than their son, probably remembered him from when he was little.
“I hope you’re going to take care of Ms. Tatsuko’s divorce.”
For Natsuki, the son might have been in the same year at school, or a friend in the neighborhood who was a couple of years older than her.
“I know. He’s never coming back, but still, I can’t help waiting.”
At seventeen, the son had discovered that he was born from his father’s affair. He’d been sympathetic to Tatsuko and furious with Rokurou, and he’d stormed out of the house. He had been gone for twenty years now, as everyone knew.
They did everything they could to find him when he disappeared. In this day and age, when someone couldn’t be found after all the avenues had been exhausted, they could only assume the worst. By the seventh year, when the missing son could be legally presumed dead, everyone found it painful to see Tatsuko still awaiting his return.
Sora had picked up from various sources that Tatsuko had begun talking about divorce after seven years of waiting, unable to forgive Rokurou.
“Let’s say, for example…,” Sora began cautiously.
Everyone in Shizukuishi took care not to touch the subject in front of the Kashiwagis, and they probably told the story to any newcomers who became close to the couple so that no one would open old wounds by accident. Many of them saw Tatsuko sitting here, staring absentmindedly, still awaiting her son’s return. Very few of them seemed to believe he was still alive.
“What if he…can’t return for some reason?” Sora went on, touching on the forbidden subject.
“I doubt it. It’s been twenty years, you know.”
“But suppose…when he came back…he’d be happy to find you waiting for him together.”
It was completely out of character for Sora to say such a thing to Tatsuko. She’d always waited by herself; she wanted to get a divorce. But he meant what he said. If the son returned, even after twenty years, and saw his mother waiting for him, surely he would be happy. Sora wanted Tatsuko and Rokurou to live on in Shizukuishi, just as they’d always done, and that was only one reason. This was his honest wish.
“What a dream,” Tatsuko said with a lonely smile. “I still have dreams like that, where that boy comes home. But he’s never older. Still seventeen.”
She sighed. Even after twenty years, her love for her child hadn’t changed at all.
“I’ll wait here forever. As long as I live. I’ll just wait.”