I have something to tell you.
It was past the middle of December when Uncle Satoru suddenly made this announcement. I had come into the Morisaki Bookshop in the morning on my day off. With one thing or another, I hadn’t been there in two weeks. The hours before closing went by peacefully, but just as I was getting ready to leave, my uncle called me over. “Do you have a minute?” my uncle said, looking ill at ease.
“Sure, that’s fine, but . . .” Recently, my uncle had become a little bit more taciturn, compared to earlier. I was concerned without really knowing why. To be honest, with everything going on with Wada and Tomo and the normal everyday busyness, I hadn’t been paying much attention to it. Still, my uncle had definitely seemed odd recently. More than anything, just for him to say that he had something to tell me was weird. If he wanted to tell me something, he was the kind of person who would just come out and say it.
We decided that first the two of us would work together and quickly close the shop, and then we’d go out.
The moment we were outside, we could feel the cold night air on our cheeks. A pure, unadulterated winter night. The kind of night where everything around seems quieter, and the air makes you shiver all over. Stars were shining in the black sky.
“Shall we walk a little?” I suggested. I thought it might make us feel better to breathe the air outside and move around a little.
“But aren’t you cold?”
“That’s why I want to walk a bit.”
“Well, then let’s do it together.”
We left Sakura Street, turned after coming out onto the avenue, and then followed the road. For someone with short legs, my uncle walks pretty quickly, and there was no way he was going to attempt to match his pace to that of a less fleet-footed person. As a result, when we walked together, the gap between us would widen step by step. But I knew that after we’d gone a certain distance, he would always stop and wait for me, so I never needed to rush. I went at my own relaxed pace, following behind my uncle, with his back to me. It was just like the old days. Whenever we went for a walk when I was a child, I would end up following him with my eyes as his skinny little back went on ahead of me.
When we came to the moat of the Imperial Palace, we decided to take a rest before heading back.
In the moat, the streetlights shone dimly on the surface of the water, where a black, silhouetted bird swam by gracefully. Back behind the hedges, the Imperial Palace looked dark and deserted. My uncle bought us two bottles of Hot Lemon and passed one of them to me. “This is so you won’t catch a cold,” he said.
That was another thing that hadn’t changed since the old days: he still liked Hot Lemon.
“Ooh boy,” my uncle said wearily as he sat down on one of the benches lined up along the moat.
I smirked and said, “Is your butt okay?”
“Ah, this is nothing.” He gave me a thumbs-up.
From there, we had a good view of the night sky. We could see the slender crescent moon, and a little past that, the twinkling stars of Orion. There were still many lights on in the newspaper building across from the Imperial Palace. Along the avenue parallel to the moat, runners ran, gasping for breath. My uncle and I sipped our Hot Lemons, now and then letting our gaze follow a passing runner.
“Thanks, by the way, for the trip. All in all, I’m glad we went. Momoko was happy. When I think about it, maybe it hadn’t been ten years since we’d gone on a trip like that.”
The trip was over a month ago, but my uncle was just telling me this now.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for always looking out for me.”
“Nah, I don’t do all that much.”
I looked up at the night sky and said, “You’ve been looking after me since I was a kid.” I got a little embarrassed thinking about how well he knew me as a child.
“Is that right? I guess we’ve known each other for more than twenty years altogether.” My uncle and I were both staring up at the sky now, squinting as we looked back with nostalgia. “Time goes by quickly, doesn’t it?”
“Well, we didn’t see each other for a long time. To tell you the truth, once I got to puberty, I really couldn’t stand you. I couldn’t figure out what you were thinking. You were old enough to know better, but you were always just dithering around.”
“That’s harsh. I’m in shock.” My uncle gave the same flat laugh he always did, his breath forming round white cottony shapes in the air.
“Sorry. But when I was a kid, I adored you. When I think back to those times, I have only happy memories. I can see now just how kind you were to me.”
He laughed. “But then you hated me and I didn’t realize it. And I guess that’s why you didn’t come see me for quite a long time.”
“I didn’t hate you. I just had trouble dealing with you. But I don’t feel that way at all now.”
“That’s a good thing, I guess, but . . .”
As we talked, for some reason I remembered that uncomfortable feeling again. Beside me, my uncle was laughing the way he always laughed, and talking the way he always talked. His kind voice was the same as always. But something was definitely different. He was perplexed about something. Spending a quiet evening together like this, I could feel it distinctly, and it left me deeply worried. And then, deep inside my chest, the feeling grew a little stronger.
“Um, Uncle, what was it you wanted to tell me?” I hesitated to ask the question, but my uncle didn’t seem like he was going to get to the point on his own.
“Ah, yes.”
“I’m guessing maybe it’s not very good news?”
I realized that I was tightly squeezing the plastic bottle in my hand. Although my body was cold, my hands were sweating. My uncle glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and then nodded slightly.
“Well, I guess not.”
“So, what is it?”
My uncle nodded again. “Actually,” he said with a serious look on his face. “My hemorrhoids are really hurting me something fierce again. No, really, it’s gotten to be a serious problem.”
I was a fool to be so worried. Without saying a word, I gave him a big shove with both hands. As he was about to fall from the bench, he gave a weird shriek. “Ta . . . Takako, what are you doing? I’m begging you, please don’t give my butt any more excitement.”
“Jerk.”
I let out a big sigh, like I was releasing all the stress that had been building inside me. I felt both incredibly angry and incredibly relieved. Is that right? All this is about your hemorrhoids? I thought to myself. They hurt. I’m sure it’s terrible, but if that’s all it is, we’re lucky. Really lucky.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “you’ve absolutely got to go to the hospital.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Absolutely.”
I sprang to my feet and said, “Well, should we get going?” If we didn’t get home soon, we really were going to catch a cold. But my uncle made no attempt to get up from the bench. Did his hemorrhoids hurt that badly? I guess that’s how it goes. I reached out my right hand to try to pull him up.
However, my uncle just sat there staring at my hand; he made no attempt to take hold of it. When I got impatient and called out, “Hey,” he muttered, “It’s about Momoko.”
“Huh?” I replied, taken aback.
“Actually, she told me when we were on that trip.” He pursed his lips then, as if to pause for a moment. Then he slowly opened his mouth again and went on. “She said the cancer came back before all that. She’d found out much earlier from her doctor. But she couldn’t say anything about it for a long time. And, she, um, said it’s pretty advanced.”
My uncle’s breath turned white, floated up into the sky, and then vanished.
“I’m still the only person who knows, but sooner or later everyone’s going to find out. Before that happens, I thought I’d just tell you . . .”
I was struck then by the strange sensation that the ground had suddenly been yanked out from under my feet. I was having trouble standing. My hands and feet suddenly felt cold. The hand I was still holding out to my uncle, now, without my willing it, went limp and drooped down.
“That isn’t true, is it? It can’t be. I mean, she looks so healthy . . .”
I wanted it to not be true. I was pleading with him. But it was true. The misery in his eyes said it all.