Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [71]
“What did he say to you, Mom?”
Kuniko lifted her head at the question and shook her head. Tears trickled from her eyes. “I don’t think you need to know that.”
“I want to know,” Wataru said, his heart rising in his throat. Kuniko looked at him through teary eyes and smiled a smile so bitter she seemed to be in pain. “Such a good kid.”
“Mom…”
“No. No, you don’t need to worry about a thing anymore. I’m fine!” Kuniko nodded exaggeratedly. “I’ll do it. I’ll speak with your father; reason with him. Then, he’ll come home. Look, Wataru, why don’t you just think of this as an extended business trip? That’s really what it is. He had some difficult work to do, and he has to devote his time to it for now. A business trip. Right?”
And what was he supposed to say to this? Nothing—just like it had been with his father. Maybe that was the way it had to be.
“That’s right,” Kuniko declared. “You’re such a good kid, how could you lose your father? You can’t, of course, and I’ll make sure of it.”
After that day, his mother didn’t bring up the subject again. She met with Grandma in Chiba and Uncle Lou, talked in a hushed voice for long hours on the phone, and called her own parents in Odawara. Oddly, Wataru never knew what was happening, or what she was talking about.
Dad’s on a business trip. That’s all. A lie, he knew, but he tried to believe it all the same.
When it grew inside him until the pain was too much to bear in silence, he went to Uncle Lou. His uncle changed the minute he brought the topic up.
“What has your mother told you? You listen to what she says, and just, er, live life. Normally.”
Huh? Normally?
“Hey,” Uncle Lou beamed. “Less than two weeks until summer vacation. You’re coming out here in August, right? You’d better, cause I’ll be waiting. And finish your summer homework too!”
Wataru’s mother had told Uncle Lou not to say anything; that much was clear. He pressed harder.
“What about Grandma? Did she talk to Dad like she said she would?”
“She’s getting busier at the store, what with summer coming and all. Don’t you worry about that, okay?”
“What do you mean, don’t worry?! It’s my life!” he shouted.
His uncle’s voice got suddenly quieter. “Look, don’t give me a hard time about it, Wataru.”
“I don’t mean to give you a hard time, it’s just…”
“You’re still a kid! You can’t walk around with these adult problems on your shoulders. You haven’t done anything wrong, so you don’t have to do anything now. Your mother asked me to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about. So please, don’t worry. For me?”
Something’s wrong. Uncle Lou’s not usually like this. Why is he siding with Mom and not me?
There was only one thing left to do, and that was to talk to his father directly.
I can’t. Not without telling Mom. I shouldn’t.
But what was his mother telling him? What was she doing that wasn’t hidden from his eyes—in words he couldn’t hear? She was trying to clean things up all by herself. It wasn’t fair.
I’ll do what I think is right. I’ll make my own rational decision.
June slid into July, the depressingly overcast days of the rainy season became scarcer, and the sun shone hotter. The bespectacled weather reporter on TV pointed at his weather map and warned about heavy sudden thunderstorms and rapidly fluctuating temperatures. Careful you don’t catch cold!
Before Wataru realized it, summer vacation was upon him. It was everywhere in the air. Even at cram school, the excitement was palpable. It was like he could hear a whispered countdown in the air:
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Vacation!
In reality, the cram school held classes even during summer vacation—actually, they held them because it was vacation—and if you were to attend them all, you wouldn’t have much of a vacation left. Still, having some schoolwork to do and having to actually go to school were two separate things entirely. The former always seemed much brighter and full of hope than the latter.
He sat in his usual chair, but his mind was far, far away. From the