Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [99]
The doorbell rang.
Wataru gulped loudly, and reflexively looked at his watch. It was exactly seven o’clock.
His mother turned off the stove and looked at Wataru. “It’s your father. Get the door for him.” Her voice had an unnaturally high pitch.
She’s nervous. Almost as nervous as I am.
Wataru made his legs move mechanically, one in front of the other, to the front door. He grabbed the doorknob and his heart throbbed in his fingertips.
He opened the door to find a woman he’d never seen before standing there.
It’s not Dad.
Maybe she was a salesperson. He breathed a sigh of relief, and then she spoke.
“You’re Wataru, aren’t you? Is your mother home? Tell her it’s Rikako. Rikako Tanaka.”
Her voice was somehow familiar. The phone—I spoke to her on the phone. It was the woman who thought he was his mother, who had kept on talking when he didn’t say anything.
It was her: the other woman.
She stared unblinking at Wataru. She was tall—about three inches taller than Mom, he guessed. She was wearing a light blue suit, and the collar of her blouse shone pure white. She had on a silver necklace. She smelled like perfume. It was the same smell as the women going home from work that occasionally got in the same elevator with him at the department store.
She wasn’t as young as he had imagined. She looked very pretty in her makeup, and she was very well dressed, but he guessed her age wasn’t all that different from Mom.
Wataru stood, stunned. His mother came up behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
Her voice had risen to a higher, wilder pitch than before. Wataru was too scared to turn around.
It’s Mom. How can I be scared of Mom?
“I came in Akira’s place,” said the woman. She was looking over his head, directly at his mom. Even when she stopped talking, her mouth trembled, and while he couldn’t imagine why she would smile, he caught a glimpse of white between her lips.
Like Dracula, he thought, or maybe a saber-toothed tiger. He recalled an artist’s reproduction drawn from fossilized remains that he had seen once. A vicious, long-fanged tiger from the distant past, long since extinct, standing outside their apartment.
“I called my husband,” his mother was saying. “He said he would come. He was worried about his son, and he said he would come. Why isn’t he here?”
Rikako lowered her eyes and looked at Wataru. “I’m sorry,” she said. She still hadn’t blinked once. He saw her teeth. Saber-teeth. “I hear you’re not feeling well. Did you go see a doctor?”
His mom quickly stepped in front of him, putting Wataru behind her back. Wataru swayed, dizzy. He put a hand on the wall to hold himself up.
“Don’t talk to my son. And don’t act like you care. Just whose fault do you think it is that he’s not feeling well?”
Rikako didn’t blink. It was weird. How could someone keep their eyes open for so long?
“Of course I’m responsible—in part. But, Kuniko, I’m not the only one doing this to him. It’s all three of us. And right now, you’re the one pushing him into the middle of this. Not me.”
Wataru saw a shiver run down his mom’s back. The hem of her apron rippled as though blown by a gentle breeze.
“Me—I’m pushing him?”
Rikako Tanaka drew back her jaw, like a thug getting ready for a brawl, and stared his mother down. “Aren’t you? Using him to get to Akira. Don’t you see how cowardly that is?”
“I’m using Wataru?” His mother growled, her voice breaking. He had never heard her talk like this before.
“You use Wataru as a shield, because you know it’s your trump card. Oh, Akira can be as certain as he likes, but how can he win against that? That’s why he said he would come, you know. You used Wataru to force him to. Why, if I hadn’t stepped in…”
His mom reached behind her and, grabbing Wataru by the shoulder, thrust him out in front of her. “Look at him. Look at his face. See the scratches? His arms,