Several days had passed since the day I received the book.
In the morning, I made tea. The low breath at the bottom of the kettle echoed faintly off the kitchen wall. The book lay on the living room table, and the morning light settled thinly on the edge of its cover. One day passed, then another.
On weekday evenings I went to the hospital room as before. The autumn leaves had fallen from the street trees, all the way out to the tips of their branches. The wind at the threshold of winter had begun to make a dry sound over the asphalt of the parking lot. He didn't open his eyes. The position of his hand on the sheet, the overlap at the collar of the blanket, were the same as yesterday. I sat on the round stool for an hour, watching the shadow of his eyelashes lie still on his cheekbones. The hardness of the stool lingered faintly on the backs of my thighs, and toward that hardness, the outline of my thoughts loosened and drifted away.
I turned the key at the front door, took off my shoes, and switched on the hallway light. At the corner of my vision, the edge of the book's cover sat on the table in its usual place.
One night, my mother called. I set down my bag, hung my coat on a hanger, and picked up the receiver of the landline in the corner of the kitchen. The plastic of the receiver was slightly colder than the room.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Shiori? Is this a good time?"
"Yeah. I just got home."
"Sorry, right before dinner. I'll be quick."
"It's fine."
We talked about my father's prescriptions, about the date of the neighborhood association meeting, and then, after a short pause,
"Are you coming home at the end of the year?" my mother asked.
"Yeah. I'll be home for New Year's."
"Okay. I'll be waiting."
I started to put down the receiver, and stopped. There was no reason for it. Only, something thin had slipped into the pause at the end of her voice.
"Mom."
"Hm?"
"You know... I told you before, didn't I. The person I was seeing."
On the other end of the line, I sensed my mother give a small nod.
"He collapsed, around the rainy season. Outside. They don't know why. ...He still hasn't woken up."
My own voice fell into the darkness of the kitchen drier than I'd expected. Whether I should say he was someone I had broken up with once, or that I went to see him anyway—each of them felt a little off, and I added nothing.
My mother didn't answer right away. Her breathing on the other end sounded just a little longer than usual.
"I see."
That was all my mother said. Then, once more,
"I see."
she said. She asked nothing back. When, at which hospital, how he was—she didn't ask a single one of those things. Instead, there was a pause for a while, and then
"Shiori," she said, calling my name in a voice just a little lower than usual.
"...It's your decision, so I won't interfere, but."
"Okay."
"Finding someone else... that's a possibility too, you know."
The joints of the hand holding the receiver stiffened slightly. It wasn't a voice that blamed me, or one that pushed me away. It sounded as if my mother had been keeping that one remark warm in her chest for a long time. For a moment, it also sounded like the voice of someone who had once been told the same words by someone else.
"Okay."
That was all I could say.
"Sorry for saying something like that."
"No, it's okay."
"I'll be waiting for New Year's."
"Okay. I'll come home."
I put down the receiver. The quiet in the house grew one layer thicker than usual.
The outline of the paulownia box beside the Buddhist altar brushed the corner of my mind. I didn't know why it had come to mind just then. Only the temperature of my mother's voice overlapped with the edge of the box's thin wood grain. I did not know what was under the lid. I turned the light down one notch.
One night in early winter, I sat down at the table as usual. The book was on the table. For a while I looked at the faded edge of its cloth cover. The book that had sat all that time on the desk in his room. The worn cloth at its upper corners was fraying under the lamp. I started to reach out, and stopped my fingertip just short of the cover. Between the white rim of my nail and the cloth, a thin width of shadow remained.
I almost thought, maybe I'll open it tomorrow. But I still couldn't write that "tomorrow" onto any page of my planner. I didn't decide.
I stood up. My footing wavered a little, and I steadied a hand on the edge of the table before heading to the kitchen. I filled the kettle with water and set it on the flame. The blue flame licked low at the copper of its bottom. Until the water began to sing, I looked at the white of the kitchen wall. Everything I should have been thinking about was lined up in order on the far side of a thin membrane. On this side of it, I simply listened to the sound of the water.
The sound of boiling rose. I turned off the flame, put tea leaves in the teapot, poured in the water, and swirled it gently. Steam rose in a thin line toward the light.
I carried the cup in both hands and set it on the table beside the book.
Steam was rising.
Beyond the steam was the book.
—Someday, I'll open it.
When that "someday" would be, I still hadn't decided.