Yuji must have heard him coming in, as he turned over to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing? Yoriko called me, and she sounded concerned. She said the shop’s been closed for over a week.”
“Yoriko. That girl can’t seem to mind her own damn business.”
“It’s all our business. What the hell happened? You sick or something?”
“It’s nothing serious,” which meant there was something wrong.
“What is it?”
“I said it’s nothing serious. I’m not in pain. Nothing’s the matter. Got it?”
“Okay, then why close up the store? I’d like to know.”
Yuji went quiet. Takayuki misread this as a sign of stubbornness, but when he saw his father’s face, he started to realize what was going on. Yuji’s brow was furrowed; his lips formed a hard line. His whole expression was full of anguish.
“Dad, what’s the…?”
“Hey, Takayuki, you still got a room?”
“A what?”
“At your house. In Tokyo.”
Ah, the room. He nodded. Last year, they had bought a house in Mitaka at the western end of the city. It was an older property, but they fixed it up before moving in. Naturally, Yuji had come to see it.
“I imagine you’re using it for something by now.”
Takayuki knew what his father was trying to say. He was surprised by this sudden change.
“No, it’s free. It’s set aside for you. It’s the tatami room on the first floor. Didn’t I show you? It’s not big, but it gets good sun.”
Yuji let out a heavy sigh and scratched the skin above his eyebrow.
“How’s Fumiko feel about this? Is she really okay with it? You’ve finally got a place to yourselves, just you and the kid, and next thing you know, here’s your old man barging in…”
“It’s fine. We had this in mind when we picked it.”
“…You did, huh?”
“You think you’d like to join us? We’re ready when you are.”
Without relaxing his expression, Yuji consented. “I’ll take you up on that.”
Takayuki felt a pressure on his chest. Here they were. The day had come. Still, he took great care not to show his emotion on his face.
“Anytime. Just out of curiosity, what happened? Last time I asked, you said you were never going to close. Are you feeling okay and everything?”
“That’s not it. Don’t kill yourself with worry. It’s just, I don’t know.” Yuji paused. “I guess it’s high time.”
Takayuki nodded. “Yeah.” He had nothing else to say.
A week later, Yuji left the shop behind. They rented a truck and moved him out without hiring extra help, taking only the essentials and leaving the rest in the store. They still weren’t sure what to do with the building. It wasn’t as if it would sell the first week on the market. For now, they would let it be.
On the way over to Mitaka, Southern All Stars’ “Ellie, My Love” came on the radio of the truck. The song had been a huge hit ever since the single was released in March.
His wife, Fumiko, and their son gave a warm welcome to their new cohabitant, but Takayuki knew how they were feeling. Fumiko was definitely putting up a front, not to mention his son. She was just too prudent and kind to say anything. That was why he’d married her.
Yuji seemed to be enjoying his new lifestyle. He passed the time reading in his room or watching TV, taking the occasional walk. Above all, he seemed genuinely happy to be able to see his grandson every day.
But it couldn’t last.
Not long after moving in, Yuji suddenly collapsed. He was in immense pain during the night, so they called an ambulance. Yuji complained to the doctor that his stomach was in unbearable pain. It unnerved Takayuki to hear this for the first time.
The next day, a doctor gave the family the diagnosis. He still had a few tests to run, but he said it looked like liver cancer.
“Late-stage cancer at that,” the doctor said in an even tone, looking at them over his glasses. Takayuki asked if this meant they couldn’t save him. The doctor calmly replied that it might be easiest to see things that way. Any kind of treatment would be futile.
It went without saying that Yuji wasn’t party to this conversation. He was still under from the anesthesia.
They came to an agreement that the doctor wouldn’t mention the actual name of the disease. He’d come up with a believable substitute.
As they listened to the news, Yoriko’s face was streaked with tears. “I should have brought him to the hospital sooner,” she said. She blamed herself for all of it. Takayuki was devastated. He’d thought his father had seemed less energetic than usual, but to hear he was battling cancer… This was beyond his wildest dreams.
With that began Yuji’s arduous battle with the disease. Thankfully—if that was the right word—he wasn’t in great pain. It was difficult to see him thinner with each successive visit, but up on the hospital bed, he was more or less his usual self.
After about a month, Takayuki stopped by on his way home from work and discovered Yuji sitting up and gazing out the window. It was a two-patient room, but the other bed was empty on this day.
“You seem like you’re doin’ well.”
Yuji looked over to his son and laughed in spite of himself. “Most days, I’m at rock-bottom. But some days are better than others.”
“Better is good. Hey, look what I brought.” Takayuki set down a paper bag of red-bean pastries on the banquette.
Yuji cast his eyes on the paper bag and looked at his son. His face had changed.
“I have a favor to ask you.”
“What kind?”
“Well,” Yuji said, averting his glance. He was having a hard time saying it. When he finally did, it was not what Takayuki had been expecting.
“I want to go back to the shop,” he said.
“What for? You can’t expect to open up again, given the state you’re in.”
Yuji shook his head. “I don’t even have the shelves stocked. What good would it do to open up? No, I’m fine with that. But I want to go back to that house.”
“Why?”
Yuji shut his mouth, as if he wasn’t sure whether to continue.
“Be reasonable, Dad. You’re too weak to live alone. Someone’s gotta be there to take care of you. I hope you can understand why that’s not really possible.”
Yuji scrunched his brows together and shook his head. “I don’t need anyone to be there. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“No way. You can’t expect me to leave my sick father on his own. Work with me here.”
Yuji stared back at him with pleading eyes. “Just for one night.”
“One night?”
“Just one night. I want one more night in that house. Alone.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s no use saying any more. It’d be lost on you. Not just you—on anyone. You’d say I was crazy and refuse to help.”
“How can you be so sure if you don’t tell me?”
He tilted his head. “It’s no use. You’ll never believe me.”
“Believe you? About what?”
But Yuji chose not to respond to his question.
“Come on, Takayuki,” he urged, taking a different tone. “I know what the doctor has been saying. ‘You’re free to take him home. The treatment isn’t working, so he might as well be comfortable.’ He said that, right?”
It was Takayuki’s turn to be quiet. Everything Yuji said was true. They’d been told he was beyond all hope. That he could die any day now.
“Help me out, Takayuki. This is what I want.” He clasped his hands in front of him in prayer, begging his son.
Takayuki tightened up his face. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I don’t have much time left. Don’t say anything; don’t ask me anything. Let me do as I please.”
These words from his elderly father tugged at his heart. He didn’t know where thi
s was going, but he had a duty to fulfill his father’s wishes.
Takayuki sighed. “When’s good?”
“Sooner the better. How about tonight?”
“Tonight?” His eyes opened wide. “What’s the rush?”
“I told you. Time is running out.”
“But I need to let everybody know.”
“There’s no need. Don’t tell Yoriko or anyone else in the family. You can tell the hospital we’re running home for a bit. We’ll go straight to the shop from here.”
“What’s this all about, Dad? Tell me why we’re doing this.”
He looked away. “If I say any more, you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t. I promise. Look, I’ll bring you to the shop. Just tell me.”
“You mean it? You swear you’ll believe me?”
“I swear. Man-to-man.”
“All right.” Yuji nodded. “Here it goes.”
3
Buckled in the passenger seat, Yuji barely spoke while they were driving, though he didn’t seem to be asleep, either.
Three hours from the hospital, they entered familiar territory. Yuji began gazing nostalgically out the window into the night.
Fumiko was the only person Takayuki told about this escapade with Yuji. He couldn’t drag his sick father onto the train; they had to use their car. And there was a strong possibility he wouldn’t be coming home that night.
Up ahead, the Namiya General Store came into view. Takayuki rolled up to the shop in the Civic, which he’d bought last year, and parked. He yanked on the emergency brake and checked his watch. A little past eleven.
“All right, we’re here.”
Takayuki removed the key and made to get out of his seat, but Yuji reached over and barred his arm across his thighs.
“No, you go home.”
“Wait, but—”
“How many times do I need to tell you? I’ll be fine alone. I don’t want anybody with me.”
Takayuki turned away. He knew where his father was coming from. It made sense, as long as he believed what he’d said. But still.
“I’m sorry,” said Yuji. “It’s selfish of me when you’ve driven me all the way out here.”
“Hey, that’s fine; I don’t care.” Takayuki rubbed under his nose. “So I guess I’ll come back in the morning, then. I’ll kill time somewhere nearby.”
“You’re not planning on sleeping in the car, are you? You’ll catch a cold or worse.”
Takayuki clucked.
“I don’t wanna hear that from you. You’re the sick one. Put yourself in my shoes. You think I can drop my dying father off at some abandoned house and go back home and sleep? Never mind the drive. I gotta come and get you in the morning. It’ll be easier for me to wait in the car.”
Yuji made a wretched face that exaggerated his wrinkles. “Sorry to put you out.”
“You sure you’re fine alone? If I come back to a dark house and trip over your dead body, I’m not going to be happy.”
“I’ll be all right. We haven’t shut off the utilities. The lights should work.” Yuji opened his door and lowered his feet to the pavement. It was a pitiful sight.
“Ah, that’s right,” he said and leaned back in. “I almost forgot the most important thing. I meant to give this to you.” He was holding out an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Originally, I was going to leave it as my will, but I’ve already given you the lay of the land. You can read this now. It’s actually better that way. Read it once I’m inside. Just give me your word that you’ll do what we agreed, no matter what it says in there. If you can’t do that, what I’m about to do is pointless.”
Takayuki took the envelope. It was blank on the front and back, but it held some paper inside.
“Thanks for your help.” Yuji got out of the car and walked off with the help of the cane the hospital had given him.
Takayuki couldn’t cry out after him. He had the impulse but lacked the words. Without looking back even once, Yuji disappeared into the alley alongside the house.
For a while, Takayuki sat there in a daze. When he came to his senses, he checked inside the envelope sitting on his lap. Sure enough, there was a letter inside, but it contained the strangest message.
Dear Takayuki,
By the time you read this, I suppose I’ll no longer be among the living. It’s sad, but that’s the way life is. And now that I’m gone, I suppose I no longer have a heart to feel that sadness.
I’m writing to ask a favor. That’s the only reason why I’ve left you this letter. Something I need you to make sure you do for me, no matter what happens.
Simply put, I need you to make an announcement. Just before my thirty-third memorial service, I want you to circulate the following message. You use whatever way you see fit to tell the people of the world.
“On [write the date I died], from exactly midnight until daybreak, the advice box of the Namiya General Store will be reopening for one night only. We kindly ask that anyone who has ever asked for and received advice to give us your unfiltered opinion. How did it affect your life? Did you find it useful, or was it useless? Please leave your letters in the mail slot in the shutter, just like old times. We look forward to hearing from you.”
I’m sure this sounds completely bonkers to you, but it matters a great deal to me. It may seem stupid, but please do this for me.
—Dad
Takayuki read through the letter twice and laughed dryly.
What would he have done if he had found this as his will with no further explanation? He knew exactly what: He probably would have just ignored it. He’d assume that his father’s time had come, but not before he lost his mind. End of story. Even if he felt a sense of duty, he’d probably soon forget all about it. And even if he didn’t forget it right away, there was no chance he would remember it thirty years later.
But after Yuji’s uncanny explanation, he couldn’t pretend to ignore it. His father had shared with him his innermost fears.
To start things off, Yuji had pulled out a newspaper clipping, pushing it toward his son and urging him to read it.
It was a news article from three months back. A story on the death of a woman from the next town over. It said that several people had witnessed a car drive off a coastal road into the harbor. The police and the fire department rushed to the scene, but the woman in the driver’s seat was already dead by the time they arrived.
However, her one-year-old infant was recovered floating near the wreck. The baby was thought to have been with her and presumably thrown from the car just after impact. Miraculously, the child was unscathed.
The driver had been Midori Kawabe, age twenty-nine, unmarried. The car was borrowed from a friend on the understanding that Ms. Kawabe would be using it to drive her child to a doctor’s appointment.
According to her neighbors, the deceased was unemployed and struggling to survive. She had outstanding payments on her rent and had been asked to vacate at the end of the month. Based on an absence of skid marks at the site, the police believed the likelihood of a murder-suicide was high and opened an investigation. The article ended there.
“What’s this about?” Takayuki asked.
Yuji looked troubled. Wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes.
“That’s the woman. Pregnant with a married man. She asked me for advice. Remember? I’m almost sure it’s her. The town’s nearby, and the kid would be about one year old by now. It all adds up.”
“No way,” said Takayuki. “Wasn’t it just a coincidence?”
“Hardly.” Yuji shook his head. “The people who write in like to use pen names. Her name was ‘Green River.’ This woman’s name was Midori Kawabe. Midori, the Japanese word for green. And her last name has the character for river in it. Does that sound like a coincidence? I sure as hell don’t think so.”
Takayuki didn’t know what to say. It sounded like too much for a coincidence.
But there was more.
> “It’s not such a big deal whether this woman was the one who asked me for advice back then. What matters is whether I gave the right advice—not just that time, but all the countless times. Did my advice do any good at all? I put my heart and soul into those letters. Not once did I simply patch something together. Every one of them received my full attention. But did I actually help anybody? I have no idea. For all I know, some people wound up with nothing but misfortune, thanks to me. When it hit me, I completely lost my focus. I couldn’t look at those letters without worrying about the consequences anymore. That’s why I closed the store.”
So that’s what happened. Takayuki felt as if he finally understood. He’d been puzzled by Yuji’s sudden change of heart after he’d been so steadfast about staying open.
“Moving in with you didn’t help to get it off my mind. If I started wondering whether my advice had botched up someone’s life, I couldn’t sleep at night. When I fell, I couldn’t help but think it was some kind of divine justice.”
“Don’t overthink things,” Takayuki had told him. “Whatever advice you might have given, they made the final call. Even if things ended bad for some, you shouldn’t feel responsible.”
But Yuji had never been able to accept this rationale. He spent day after day brooding in the hospital. Then one night, he had started to have a strange recurring dream. There was only one thing it could have been about: the Namiya General Store.
“It’s the middle of the night. Someone is slipping an envelope through the mail slot in the shutter. I’m watching this happen from somewhere, but I’m not sure where. It feels like I’m watching from overhead, or like I’m right in front of it. Anyway, I’m watching, but the thing is, I can tell it’s happening in the future…decades from now. Don’t ask me how I know that, but I’m positive.”
This dream had come back almost every night until, finally, Yuji realized: This wasn’t just a simple dream. It was a premonition.
“The people slipping these letters through the mail slot are the same people who sent me letters, who asked for and received advice from me. They’re coming to tell me how their lives were changed. I want to go pick up those letters,” Yuji had said.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store Page 12
