When I got back to the living room, Komugi had lifted his head from his favorite bed.
He gave a single yawn and heaved himself up. Then he came to my feet and pushed his big head firmly against my knee.
"You noticed too, huh?"
I stroked his golden head.
When the air in the house turns cold, this dog senses it sooner than anyone. On nights when someone is crying, he sometimes lies quietly in front of that person's door.
"She's coming tomorrow, apparently."
Komugi looked up at me and let out a small whine through his nose.
I stroked his nose for a while. This dog never gives an answer. But there are nights when not giving an answer is the kindest thing of all.
Suddenly, I thought of Tomi.
The woman who'd taken me in when I collapsed by the road and silently set a bowl of plain rice porridge in front of me. The woman who hadn't pried at all, who'd simply said "Welcome home." What would she have done, on a night like this?
Probably nothing.
She'd just make something warm, turn on the light, and wait. So the place where someone could come home wouldn't disappear. That is this house's role.
Tomorrow, Rei's mother would come here to Nightlight. To take her back home.
I left only the kitchen light on and turned off the rest. The pendulum of the wall clock went tock, tock.
There was nothing in particular I needed to do for tomorrow. Just get something warm ready, and wait.
Before going to bed, I checked upstairs one more time.
The tray in front of Rei's door was empty. At the bottom of the bowl, just one mouthful of porridge had been left. She probably hadn't been able to eat all of it. Even so, she'd eaten most of it.
I quietly took the bowl away.
One mouthful left over isn't something to blame anyone for. Even a little had gone down her throat. That was enough. Tomorrow, I could serve her something warm again.
Going down the stairs, a thought struck me.
How many times, I wonder, do people use the words "for your own good" to bind someone?
Those words were familiar to me. Long ago, they'd been thrown at me, again and again.
Some old place deep in my chest gave a small knock. But I put a lid on it and turned out the light.
Tomorrow could wait for tomorrow. For now, I just hoped Rei could get even a little sleep.
Wishing that, I closed my eyes.
"This is her home."
The voice wasn't loud. If anything, it was much lower than usual. But at those words, the feet of the woman standing in the entryway stopped dead.
Let me back up a little.
It had been raining since morning that day.
A cold rain, the start of winter. Rei had taken the day off work. She wasn't in any state to go in.
She didn't come to the breakfast table. She came down just before noon. She had her makeup on, her hair pulled back neatly, and she was wearing the pantsuit she wore to work.
She was at home, and she was wearing her armor.
"Mr. Manager. My mother is coming today. I'm sorry for all the trouble."
Her voice was calm. She was desperately trying to keep it calm.
"I'll talk to her properly. So I won't cause any trouble for everyone else."
"It's no trouble at all—"
"If... if my mother says anything rude..."
There, her voice wavered, just slightly.
"I'm sorry. I'm apologizing in advance."
I retied my apron strings.
"Rei. There's nothing you need to apologize for in advance."
With that, I went to stand in the kitchen. I'd already decided what I was going to make.
The doorbell rang at two in the afternoon.
When I opened the door, a refined-looking woman was standing there. Around sixty, perhaps. A well-cut coat and an expensive scarf. Her hair didn't have a single strand out of place, as if she'd just come from the salon. Her back was perfectly straight.
I could tell at a glance.
This woman wasn't a bad person. She was just someone who didn't have the slightest doubt that she was right. And sometimes that corners people more than any bad person could.
"I'm Rei Tono's mother. Thank you for looking after my daughter."
It was a polite greeting, but without the slightest opening.
Behind her, Rei seemed to shrink. A seasoned professional of thirty-one, hunching her shoulders in front of her mother like a teenage girl.
"Please, come in."
I showed the two of them to the living room.
From his favorite spot, Komugi was watching closely. A dog who'd usually wag his tail at any visitor didn't move that day. He just quietly nestled at Rei's feet.
At the living room table, the talk began at once.
"Rei. Have you packed your things? I have the car waiting."
"Mom, I..."
"Never mind that. You've already decided, haven't you? A share house with some strange man of unknown background living in it. It's no place for a girl in your position to live."
Her mother glanced at me. They were appraising eyes.
"If you come back home, there's a marriage meeting arranged. You're thirty-one. You're running out of time. All you do is work—do you intend to grow old alone like this? That's not for your own good."
"..."
"I'm only saying all this because I'm thinking of what's for your own good. Mom is worried. Worried that you'll wear yourself down to nothing in a place like this."
Rei hung her head and couldn't say a thing. In her lap, both hands were clenched tight. So tight her nails dug into the backs of her hands.
She wanted to argue back, and she couldn't. Thirty years of something soaked in deep doesn't come undone easily. In front of those words, "for your own good," she was always powerless.
I was boiling water in the kitchen. And every time that "for your own good" was repeated, something inside me went quietly, steadily still.