Maybe there wasn’t anywhere for him to eat around his office. Or maybe he was eating at home for me — for my benefit. Either way, it didn’t matter how late it was when my husband came home. That’s when he ate. For the most part, I was happy with this arrangement. I think I’d feel guilty if he ever said, “I don’t need dinner tonight.” I’d probably feel like something was missing, like I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain. Not long after the move, I asked him if he ever got hungry working that late without dinner. He told me there were snacks at work — nothing substantial, but enough to hold him over. I asked him where the snacks came from, who brought them. He said no one brought them — they were always there, in the office, free for the taking. I imagined my husband, working overtime and digging into a giant bag of chocolates or maybe some manju from a client. The thought of it was too much to bear. “It’s usually just Kameda Crisps, but sometimes we have dried squid.” “Squid?” “Yeah, on sticks. Skewered. They’re just there in the break room — who knows why. Maybe there were a bunch left over from some party or something.” Every workplace has its own logic. At my old job, no one saw squid as an office snack. There’s no way anyone would have gotten away with it. Anyone who dared to eat Kameda Crisps would’ve faced an even worse fate. Why would anyone make that kind of noise when everybody else is trying to finish up for the day? If someone did that at my old job, they’d never hear the end of it. I thought I knew what kind of place my husband’s office was, but maybe I knew less than I realized. It’s not like I didn’t care. He didn’t know that much about my old job, either. Whenever someone asked me what my husband did, I had my answer ready. Still, I have to admit, I didn’t have a firm grasp on how his business turned a profit, or what role my husband really played in it.
My husband kept an eye on the news as he swallowed the rest of his dinner with inhuman speed. “Sounds dangerous. You’d better watch out for holes. Stay away from those animals, too, whatever they are.” “But I’d never seen it before.” “I bet it was just some weird breed of dog. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes. Or maybe it was a weasel. Seriously, raccoons don’t look the way they do in comics. I’ve never seen one in real life either.” But it wasn’t a dog, and it wasn’t a weasel or a raccoon. Not that I knew what it was. Regardless, I didn’t have any hard evidence to prove him wrong, so I just nodded while his attention returned to the phone in his hand. I watched as his fingers sped across the screen. There was a small, hard lump on my finger where the bug had bitten me. It felt hot. I put a bandage over it and went to sleep.
It was another two months before it really rained. We’d had brief showers and a little drizzle, but nothing significant. Every day was unbearably hot. If it hadn’t rained so heavily on the day of our move, we probably would have been in a drought. Or maybe the local river and reservoir simply had that much water. The next time it really rained, I went around the house, closing all the windows so the water wouldn’t get in. Looking through the upstairs window on the west side of the house, I could see Grandpa. He was out in the garden wearing a raincoat. I stood there for a little while, watching him, trying to understand what I was seeing. There he was, hose in hand, watering the plants in the middle of the rain.
In the gray downpour, Grandpa was maneuvering the hose, its green body wriggling in the dark. I wondered if I should go down and say something. But what could I say? Even if I knew what to say, I wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear me. I drew the curtain and headed downstairs. Looking out the garden window, I saw mounds of exposed earth turning muddy in the rain. On the other side of the concrete-block wall, I could still see Grandpa. I closed that curtain, too, then went to the couch and opened up a magazine to look for jobs — not even expecting to find anything reasonable within walking distance. There were a handful of listings for pharmacists and nurses. I found some for truck drivers, too, but I couldn’t drive stick. No office jobs. I couldn’t even find a part-time job working as a cashier. I got up and went to the kitchen. I watched the rain from the small window — the only one where I couldn’t see Grandpa. I had a view of the street. There wasn’t anyone walking or driving past. Every other window in the house was shut, but the sound of rain filled the house. Cicadas are quiet when it rains. It got me thinking: What would a cicada do if it emerged from the earth and there was nothing but rain for days on end? Would it just die without ever making a sound? The doorbell rang. I jumped. When I opened the door, I saw Sera. The rain behind her was falling harder than before.
“It’s really pouring, isn’t it? I suppose we needed it, but this is a lot of rain.” She folded her black umbrella. It was full-size, the kind that businessmen carry. I invited her in. She took one step inside, then asked, “Are you sure you don’t mind? My shoes are soaked.” “No, of course not. Come in. And thanks again for the other day.” She propped her umbrella against the wall by the door. Sera said her shoes were soaked, but they looked more or less dry to me. She had a cotton bag over her shoulder, but that wasn’t wet either. “Oh, it was nothing. How’s Mune-chan? It looks like he doesn’t get home until pretty late at night. He’s almost like the man of the house, isn’t he?” It took me a second to process, but “man of the house” had to mean my husband’s father, my father-in-law. I had to remind myself how, in her mind, the Matsuuras could only be my husband’s parents. Muneaki was “Mune-chan” and I was his “bride.”
We were standing in the entryway. What was I supposed to do? Ask her to come in and sit down? Offer her some tea? Would mugicha be okay? Should I give her something to snack on? The house was hardly a mess — it was as clean as it could be — but Sera didn’t seem at all interested in coming inside. “He gets in after midnight a lot, doesn’t he? Is his office far from here?” “It’s a thirty-minute drive, but he’s still getting settled. It seems like they’re keeping him really busy,” I said. Sera put her hand up to her lips and mouthed the word wow. “Amazing. Mune-chan’s a real working man now. Scary how time flies, isn’t it? Ten, twenty years, in the blink of an eye.” It looked like she might have been wearing the same outfit as last time, when she helped me out of the hole. White blouse and skirt. Of course she wasn’t wearing sunglasses this time. I could really see her eyes. They were a little sunken and tired-looking, but her eyelashes were long and beautiful. She must’ve been a real beauty in her day. “What about you? Are you working? What are you doing to pass the time?” I glanced at my feet. I’d painted my toenails the other day when I had nothing else to do. They didn’t stand out — I didn’t have any bright colors like red or blue. I only had a couple of subtler shades: beige and light pink. You could hardly tell I’d done them. I felt a little embarrassed standing there barefoot, but realized it would have seemed weirder if I had been walking around my own house in socks in the middle of the summer. “I’m not working right now. I’m looking, but I don’t have a car, so it isn’t easy getting around.” Sera nodded sympathetically. She had the same sweet smell as before. “I know what you mean. You need a car around here, don’t you? I don’t even have a license. I can barely ride a bicycle, so I need to rely on my husband wherever I go. I can walk if it’s close enough, or take a bus — but they don’t come here very often. I’m from the city originally. About twenty years ago I got married and came here. A little longer, maybe. Back then, this place was literally the middle of nowhere. I kept asking myself how I’d ended up way out here. In those days, even getting a taxi was hard. If you called the company, they’d tell you it’d take thirty minutes for the car to come. It’s a whole lot better now, but it’s still not like the city, is it? Especially when it comes to finding a job.” “Well, I could try finding something I could reach by bus or train, but . . .” “Free time is a real problem, isn’t it? Who needs a summer vacation that never ends — am I right?” As I nodded, I thought I could feel tears welling in my eyes.