That night.
"Today I managed to answer the phone. Just once."
At dinner, Ms. Nanase reported it in a small voice.
I set down my teacup.
"Did you? You really hung in there."
"...But I stumbled over my words so badly. My voice cracked, too."
"So what? You answered it."
This morning, her fingertips had been ice-cold. And that afternoon, she'd picked up the phone herself. Stumbling, voice cracking, she'd picked it up. That was something. Far more than she realized.
For some reason, Ms. Nanase looked a little like she might cry. Then, as if working up her nerve, she spoke.
"Um... Amane, what did you really used to do? That story this morning, about the banquet..."
I took a sip of roasted green tea.
"That was a long time ago."
That was all I said before getting up and going back to the kitchen.
It wasn't worth talking about. These days I'm the one who minds the kitchen in this house. That was enough.
I thought I felt her eyes on my back, but whatever was on the other side of the steam, I couldn't really tell.
The rainy season ended, and July arrived.
That morning I cut a bamboo stalk from the garden and stood it in a corner of the living room. Slender green stretched up near the alcove, its leaf tips rustling in the breeze from the window.
"It's Tanabata, after all. Write down your wishes."
I set a tray on the table with wish strips in every color and some permanent markers. Red, blue, yellow, pink. I'd already threaded strings through the strips. With things like this, even threading the strings is part of the fun.
"This is nice. Very photogenic," Yume said, holding up her phone to take pictures of the bamboo.
"What are you writing, Yume?"
"Hmm... 'Ten thousand followers,' maybe?"
"How practical."
From the sofa, Rei murmured in a limp voice, "'May I get to use up all my paid vacation,'" and pressed her palms together to no one in particular. She was still in her work suit, her face buried in a cushion. She must have been exhausted. I'd bring her something warm later.
"Rei, you have no dreams."
"If you could live on dreams alone, life would be easy, Yume."
While that exchange went on, Ms. Nanase picked up a pink wish strip. Pen in hand, she sat thinking for a while. Trying to decide what to write, I supposed.
Then she wrote something—and once she had, her cheeks flushed. For some reason, she glanced toward the kitchen. When our eyes met, she hurriedly looked away.
Then she folded the strip in half and secretly tied it to the hardest-to-see branch, deep at the back of the bamboo.
Maybe it was an embarrassing wish. Young people probably don't want others seeing their wishes. I pretended I hadn't noticed.
"Sorry for the wait. Somen."
I brought out a big glass bowl of somen noodles with ice floating in it. The white noodles looked translucent in the ice-cold water. In the little dishes of condiments: chopped myoga ginger, grated ginger, and shiso leaves. And, set neatly to the side, okra sliced into star shapes.
"Oh, little stars!" Yume exclaimed.
"For Tanabata. Just a little touch."
Even I had to admit it was a childish idea. I felt a bit embarrassed.
At the bottom of the bowl, the ice clinked with a cool sound. The glistening, slippery noodles looked like a white Milky Way in the water.
Ms. Nanase dumped generous amounts of myoga and ginger into her small bowl of dipping sauce. She was a good eater. It seemed she'd calmed down somewhat about this morning's phone call.
"Mmm, I feel alive again," Rui said, eyes closed, slurping the sauce. Her hair was still a mess from just finishing a deadline.
"Rui, isn't this your first real meal in three days?"
"How rude. I had a jelly drink the day before yesterday."
"That's not a meal."
Everyone laughed at that.
We all slurped somen, gazed at the bamboo, and laughed over each other's wish strips. Everyone sympathized with Rei's In my next life, I want more sleep, and Komugi let out a sympathetic whine at Rui's May all deadlines cease to exist.
What a nice night, I thought. Nothing makes me happier than seeing nights like this pile up in this house.
Deep in the bamboo, the pink wish strip Ms. Nanase had secretly tied fluttered in the breeze. It was folded in half, so you couldn't see what was written inside.
A wish she'd folded up so shyly. That the very next day I'd accidentally end up reading it—at the time, I had no idea.