She stood at the front door with a tote bag in each hand, looking as if she might cry.
"Amane. ...Would you mind if I stayed a little while?"
Sawako Yoshinaga. The only daughter of the late Tomi, who had left me this women-only share house, Nightlight. Carrying on Tomi's wishes, I lived here as the house manager and cooked meals for the household.
It was a September morning. The last cicadas of summer were still singing, though without much strength left. In the shade of the courtyard tree, Komugi lay stretched out belly-up.
Sawako never gave any warning before she came to Nightlight. She came when there was sorting to do at her family home—this house, in other words. Or when something had happened with her husband.
Today, I guessed, it was both.
"Sorry about the mess."
When I offered her the living room sofa, Sawako set down her bags and let out a deep breath.
"It's fine. I'm the one barging in."
Forty-five. A refined woman who carried just a trace of her mother Tomi's face. Ordinarily a capable homemaker, she rarely let anyone see her worn down.
Today, though, her shoulders were slumped.
"My husband and I had a bit of— No, I suppose it wasn't just a bit. We had a fight about clearing out the house."
I didn't ask anything more. My job wasn't to ask.
"I'll make some tea. Would you like something to eat?"
"...No. I don't have any appetite."
She gave a weak smile as she said it.
The people who say they have no appetite are often the ones who are truly empty inside. I knew that well.
I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nothing heavy on the stomach. Not today.
A handful of rice. I rinsed it and put it in the clay pot. Plenty of water. The flame on low.
Plain rice porridge, then.
I decided that half without thinking. What I served to someone worn down was always the same. Something gentle on the stomach, something that would go down easily and quietly bring warmth back to the core of the body.
The clay pot began to burble softly. The rice danced, its edges slowly wearing away as it came apart, white and silky.
I nudged the lid aside a little so it wouldn't boil over. The heat was the one thing I couldn't take my eyes off. Too high and it would scorch; too low and the grains would keep a hard center forever.
It couldn't be rushed. It couldn't be stirred too much, either. I just watched over the rice as it gave way under its own weight.
Porridge is a dish of waiting. You don't put work into it; you put time into it. That is what's kindest to a tired stomach.
At the rim of the pot, white bubbles rose and vanished, one, then another. The steam carried the gentle smell of rice and softly filled the kitchen.
Not sweet, not toasty. Just a white smell.
The smallest pinch of salt. That was all the seasoning. No garnish needed. No dashi, no condiments, not now.
Just one bowl, meant only to tide over the empty stomach of the person in front of me.
I ladled it into a bowl and set it down in front of Sawako with a soft clink. The steam rose straight up.
She stared at it for a while. Then, slowly, she picked up the spoon.
One spoonful.
"..."
The hand holding the spoon stopped.
"...This is..."
Her eyes were filling fast.
"This is Mom's porridge."
The words slipped out, trembling.
"When I was little. Whenever I had a fever, it was always this. Plain white rice porridge with nothing in it. When I ate it, somehow, I'd feel safe."
Still gripping the spoon, Sawako's shoulders shook.
"...Amane. Where did you learn this?"
"From Tomi," I said quietly.
"Not that she taught me, exactly. She gave me a bowl once. Back when I'd just come here. One rainy night, when I'd collapsed by the road, Tomi—"
Sawako looked up.
"It was plain white rice porridge, nothing on it at all. The smallest bit of salt. That was it. And yet that one bowl made me cry out loud. Pathetically."
I still remembered that night clearly.
"Somewhere along the way, cooking had turned into a tool for impressing people. For me, I mean. A way to make them say it was delicious, to make them say it was amazing. ...But Tomi's porridge wasn't like that. It was made only so I wouldn't die. Just that."
One bowl, meant only to keep the life in front of her going.
"It reminded me. That this was what cooking was really supposed to be. After that, I started cooking here."
Sawako looked at me in silence for a while. Then she scooped up the porridge again.
One spoonful, then two.
The woman who had said she had no appetite was soon moving her spoon as if she couldn't stop. The white porridge went down her throat and settled deep inside her. Even from where I sat, I could tell her chilled stomach was slowly warming from within.
The tension drained from her shoulders.
The hungrier people are, the sharper their hearts become. Put the other way, sometimes all it takes for them to loosen is something warm in the belly.
"...It's delicious."
Steam rose again from the bowl her tears had fallen into.
"Mom used to say, back when she was alive, 'I've found a good person to entrust this house to.' At the time, I only half understood. Why Mom, of all things, would leave this precious house to some stranger, a middle-aged man who'd turned up out of nowhere."
Sawako smiled. For the first time that day, it was a real smile.
"But now I think I understand. Why Mom chose you."
At our feet, Komugi gave a soft whine through his nose. The floppy-eared dog gently rested his chin on Sawako's knee.
Stroking his golden head, Sawako cried a little more, like a child.
A faint white smell still lingered in the empty bowl. The last wisp of steam rose quietly and was gone.
I still didn't know everything Tomi had left behind. I would only come to realize that a little later.