“It really doesn’t have to be anyone we know— we don’t mind, do we?”
Hidaka asked Toshiko.
“I’d like to have two young couples on the second floor—two couples
who really get along well together. Then I could try to make things work
with the children in the small room downstairs. I’d like it to be a young
couple. You chose the print for the quilt on this kotatsu, didn’t you,
Toshiko? Did you sew it yourself? It’s nice.”
The front door rattled open downstairs.
“Shinichi? Fumio? Are you here?” They heard Numao’s gruff voice.
“Hey, hey, there you are! You know, out there just now, boy was that
terrible! It was so sad I couldn’t stand to look. Someone’s boy got hit by a
car.”
The four children had evidently stopped their game of twenty questions
when they heard Numao’s shout. It sounded as though they were going out
to meet him.
“He’s come back,” Shizu said. She stood up hurriedly from the kotatsu,
and then, as if it embarrassed her that Hidaka and Toshiko had seen her
hurrying for her husband, said, “It must have been for the boy—the
ambulance earlier.” She left the room.
Suddenly Tokiko’s voice came from downstairs. Shizu must have
criticized Numao for coming home with Tokiko, judging by the way he
now spoke.
“Me? No, no, let me tell you—this person right here! She’s the cruel one.
A little kid gets hit by a car, and what does she do? Just like a woman, she’s
there mixed up with the rest of the rabble, staring. I couldn’t believe it. But
what can you do? A woman with no children of her own is like that.”
