I passed through the entrance of the apartment building. December twenty-fourth. The late-afternoon light touched my left cheek and was quickly thinned by the cold. I didn't run to the station. In my head I set things down one item at a time. Four hours from now. The intersection. The shadow of the hedge on the west-side sidewalk. The second green light. The small back in a navy jacket, running out from the corner of the sidewalk. Scoop up the torso with both arms and pull it to my side.
The omamori was in my right inside pocket. As I walked, I pressed once from the outside on the corner of the paper pouch.
I stood in the shadow of the west-side hedge. The sun sank lower. Strings of lights came on in the storefronts, and somewhere in the distance someone's singing flowed low. I left the words unheard. On the far side, just before the crosswalk, a single pale beige stood still. The light turned green. She set her first step on the white line.
At the same instant, at the corner of the sidewalk on my side, the small back in a navy jacket broke into a run. A moment later, a woman's voice, probably the mother's, called a name, short. The child was heading straight for the curb. I came out of the hedge's shadow in half a step. I scooped up the torso that was about to run through with both arms and pulled it hard to my side. The child's feet spun in the air. Behind my back the air shook hard, and a gray mass passed long and sideways beside my cheek from behind.
—A truck.
The wind pressure pushed up the hem of my jacket. The corner of the truck bed vanished toward the traffic signal on the other side. In my arms the child stiffened for just a moment, then made the sound of drawing breath again. The mother ran over and took the child, bowing her head over and over.
On the white lines of the crosswalk, she had stopped partway. Her hands were pressed together in front of her mouth, and she was looking at me.
—I saved her.
The feeling didn't take on as deep a color as I'd expected.
"Toru," she said. Her voice was slightly unsteady.
"Just now..."
"Yeah," I said.
"I'm glad I made it in time."
She looked at my face for one breath and tilted her head.
"You scared me."
"Sorry."
"I'm coming over."
She walked the remaining two steps of the crosswalk slowly. Her left hand rested lightly on the guardrail. The weight of the child's torso was still there on the insides of both my arms.
—She's alive. I saved her.
Everything was in place. That it was in place left only a faint sense of something off. Between the fact of her being there and the speed at which my body took that fact in, there had always been a bridge that lowered on its own. Today the bridge didn't come down.
—Maybe I'm tired.
I didn't follow the reason for the lightness very far. If I followed it, I felt an outline might rise up. I didn't want it to rise.
"Do you think we'll make our reservation?"
She glanced down at her watch.
"Yeah, let's go."
We sat facing each other at a table in the back of the restaurant where we'd booked. From the plates brought to us, two thin columns of steam rose over the table.
She talked. How her senior thesis was going. How someone senior in her seminar had gone over her handout. The pause at the end of each thing she said was left a little longer than usual. I gave my replies. "Mm." "Is that right." "That's great." My body remembered the order to put them in. The angle of her left eyebrow, the faint shadow on her right cheek, the way the corners of her lips lifted. I knew every one of them. The line that should always have come down between point and point didn't come down today.
Without thinking, I put my hand into my inside pocket. The corner of the paper pouch met the pad of my finger.
"Oh, this."
The voice that came out was lighter than I'd meant. I took out the paper pouch and set it on the table.
"This—um, I was thinking I'd give it to you this evening."
The "was thinking" stayed in the past tense, set down on the chair where I sat now. There was no way to fix it.
She took it with both hands and opened it. Out came an omamori, white with a navy cord. Her fingers stopped.
"This is from Grandma's—from the shrine."
"Yeah. After that night at the summer festival, I went back once more, by myself."
She held the omamori against her chest. Her voice went just a half step lower than usual.
"Thank you."
"I'll treasure it."
I took in the gesture of her holding it with my eyes. The feeling of taking it in with my palms didn't come down. The paper pouch made a short sound on the table, and that was all.
"Toru," she called once.
"Hm?"
"Toru, are you—right now—really, here?"
It wasn't a reproachful voice, or a frightened one. She was only trying to make sure.
"...I'm here."
My answer came a little late. Neither the "I'm" nor the "here" reached the center of my own voice.
"I see."
She didn't ask anything more. Deep in her eyes, a color that was trying to make sure of something began to rise, and quickly receded.
The conversation broke off around there. The hour when we would usually keep failing to get up, today we cut short early, without either of us being the one to start.
When we left the restaurant, the sun had long since gone down. It was a clear winter night, the air dry and transparent. We stopped in front of the ticket gates.
"Well, see you."
"Yeah. See you."
She bowed her head lightly. "Be careful" and "I'll message you" should have been within closest reach, the way they always were. Today there was nothing on that shelf. She put the omamori she had been holding in both hands into her coat pocket. Paper pouch and all, slowly. The corner of the pouch brushed the edge of the pocket once.
She was alive. I confirmed it to myself again and again. And yet the outlines that should have been in place didn't quite come together.