“I know you don’t, but he’s still a young guy. If he spends all his time taking care of an old man and woman, he’s never going to get married,” Norio said, deliberately playful.

Fusae’s stern look softened. “I know, but if Yuichi wasn’t here I wouldn’t even be able to give Uncle a bath.”

“That’s why you should hire a caregiver.”

“Do you have any idea how much they cost?”

“That expensive?”

“Well, look at what the Okazakis are paying for-”

“Be quiet!” shouted an angry voice from the futon, followed by a painful cough.

“Sorry, sorry.” Norio lightly patted the futon, stood up, and guided Fusae out of the room.

A fresh-looking yellowtail lay on the cutting board in the kitchen, darkish blood spreading out on the board. The eyes looking at the ceiling and the half-opened mouth seemed to be complaining about something.

“By the way, was Yuichi out late last night?” Norio said casually, standing behind Fusae, who was back at the cutting board, cleaver in hand. He was remembering how that morning Yuichi had looked so pale and had jumped out of the van and vomited.

“I don’t know. He must have gone out.”

“I was surprised he had a hangover.”

“A hangover? Yuichi?”

“He was white as a sheet.”

“He went drinking? But he was driving.”

Fusae was slicing up the yellowtail with a practiced hand, the bones of the fish snapping as she cut through them.

“How about you take one of these yellowtail back to Michiyo? Mr. Morishita from the fishing co-op gave them to me this morning, and Yuichi’s the only other one here who’ll eat them.” Fusae turned around and pointed to beneath the table. A single drop of water dripped down from the tip of the cleaver onto the dark, shiny floor.

Norio looked under the table and found a single yellowtail in a Styrofoam container. He carried the yellowtail, case and all, over to the front hall, then went upstairs. The door to Yuichi’s room was right at the top of the stairs.

Norio felt a bit hesitant about knocking, and instead called out “Hey!” and opened the door.

Yuichi was in his underwear, probably about to take a bath, and he nearly collided with the door as Norio opened it.

“You going to take a bath?” Norio said, gazing at Yuichi’s upper body, the muscles visible under a thin layer of skin.

“A bath, then eat, and then the hospital.” Yuichi nodded and started out of the room. Norio twisted to one side to let him pass.

Norio was going to follow him downstairs, but he saw a pamphlet entitled Getting Your Crane License that had fallen on the floor.

“Ah, so you are thinking of getting your license.”

There was no reply, just the sound of Yuichi stomping down the stairs.

Norio drifted into the room and picked up the pamphlet. Yuichi’s footsteps faded off down the hallway downstairs.

Norio sat down on a flattened cushion and let his eyes wander about the room. On the tan walls there were several car posters, fixed to the wall with yellowed Scotch tape, and a pile of car magazines on the floor. But other than that the room was empty. No pinups, not even a TV or a radio/cassette player.

Fusae had once said, “Yuichi’s real room isn’t here, but his car,” and Norio could see that this was no exaggeration.

Norio tossed aside the pamphlet and picked up the pay envelope on the low table. He’d given the envelope to Yuichi last week, but the moment he felt it he knew it was empty. Next to the envelope was a receipt from a gasoline station. Norio hadn’t planned to look at it, but found it in his hand anyway. It was from a station in Saga Yamato, for ¥5,990.

“Yesterday,” Norio said, looking at the date.

Yuichi had insisted that he hadn’t driven anywhere far yesterday. Norio tilted his head, puzzled.

Fusae slipped the head of the yellowtail off the cutting board. It hit the sink with a loud thunk and slid toward the drain, its half-open mouth facing her.

She turned at the sound of footsteps in the corridor and saw Yuichi, in only his underwear, chewing on a piece of kamaboko he’d grabbed from the table as he headed toward the bath.

“Did Norio go home already?” she asked his retreating figure.

Still chewing on the kamaboko, Yuichi turned and silently pointed upstairs to his room.

“What’s he doing in your room?”

“No idea,” Yuichi said, sliding open the door to the bath. The door, glass set in a wooden frame, creaked loudly like a thin sheet of corrugated iron as it bowed inward.

There was no changing room attached to the bath, so Yuichi just dropped his underwear where he was and, shivering, rushed into the bath, his white rear end like a blurred afterimage. There was another loud bang as he slammed the door to the bath shut.

Fusae shifted the cleaver in her hand and began slicing up the flesh of the yellowtail.

Footsteps rang out coming down the stairs, and when Norio called out “Auntie, I’ll be going,” Fusae was dissolving miso into a pot and couldn’t see him off.

“Thanks for stopping by,” she called out.

The old front door creaked and then slammed shut, shaking the whole house. After the sound of Norio’s footsteps faded, the only sound was the pot, bubbling away.

It’s so quiet, Fusae thought. Only Katsuji, nearly bedridden, and me, an old woman in the house. And young Yuichi, of course, there in the bath. But the house was so still it was scary.

As she leaned over to sniff the miso, Fusae called out to Yuichi. “I hear you had a hangover this morning?” Instead of a reply there was a loud splash of water.

“Where did you go drinking?”

No reply, just the sound of Yuichi pouring water over himself.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive, you know.”

By this point Fusae no longer expected any response.

She turned off the nearly boiling pot of soup and put the cutting board, bloody from slicing up the fish, into the sink to soak.

So Yuichi could eat as soon as he came out of the bath, she sliced up a healthy portion of sashimi and put it out with the fried ground fish meat she’d cooked the night before. She opened the rice cooker and the fluffy hot rice sent a cloud of steam into the chilly kitchen.

Before Katsuji became bedridden she’d always cooked three cups of rice in the morning and five in the evening. Sometimes she felt like all she’d done for the last fifteen years was rinse rice to make sure these two men had enough to fill their stomachs. Yuichi had loved rice, ever since he was a child. Give him a couple of daikon pickles and he could easily down a large bowl.

And everything he ate made him grow. From the time he entered junior high Fusae could swear she actually saw him growing taller by the day. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it, found it incredible how the food she provided him helped him blossom into a grown man. She’d had only daughters herself, and could sense how raising a boy, her grandson, struck a chord deep within her, some female instinct she’d never felt with her daughters.

In the beginning she deferred to Yuichi’s mother, Yoriko. After Yoriko ran off with a man, leaving behind Yuichi, who was in elementary school, and Fusae knew it was up to her to raise the child, she naturally enough was upset by her daughter’s unfaithfulness. But more than that, she felt a new energy rising up within her. Fusae was just about to turn fifty at the time.

When Yuichi had first come to live in this house, after his mother had been abandoned by her husband, he’d already lost all trust in her. He’d call out “Mom!” to her and act spoiled, but he really wasn’t focused on her at all.

Once Fusae had taken out an old photo album to show Yuichi, taking care that Yoriko didn’t see them. “Don’t you think Grandma was prettier than your mother?” she asked. She’d meant it as a joke, but as she pulled the dusty old album out of the closet she felt a certain tension within her. Yuichi gazed at the photo she pointed out and was silent. Looking down on his small head from behind, Fusae suddenly realized what a terrible thing she had done. She quickly snapped shut the album. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was never, ever beautiful.” Despite her age, she found herself blushing.