"Uncle, I hear you're going back in the hospital? Bet you'd rather stay at home, huh?"

As soon as he pulled back the sliding door, Norio caught a faint whiff of urine. The streetlight outside shone into the room, mixing with the blinking fluorescent light hanging over the faded tatami.

"As soon as he goes to the hospital, he says he wants to come home. But once we're home, he says he prefers the hospital. I don't know what I'm going to do with him."

Fusae switched the fluorescent light off, and back on again. In the futon Katsuji gave a muffled cough.

Norio sat down next to the old man's bed and roughly pulled back the futon. Katsuji's wrinkled face was revealed, resting on the hard pillow.

"Uncle," Norio said, and rested his hand on the old man's forehead. Maybe his own hand was hot, he thought with a start, for the old man's skin was chilly.

"Where's Yuichi?" Katsuji asked in a phlegmy voice, brushing Norio's hand off his forehead.

Just then Yuichi could be heard clomping around upstairs, making the whole house shake.

"You can't rely on Yuichi to do everything," Norio said, his words aimed not just at Katsuji, but at Fusae standing behind him.

"We don't," Fusae pouted.

"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 Getting Your Crane License that had fallen on the floor. that had fallen on the floor.

"Ah, so you are are thinking of getting your license." 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 kamaboko he'd grabbed from the table as he headed toward the bath. 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 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 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.

At Katsuji's bedside, Fusae packed some underwear and toiletries in his leather bag. She'd bought the bag the first time he'd gone into the hospital. Figuring they'd use it only one time she'd chosen a cheap one, but with him in and out of the hospital all the time the bag, even the stitching, had started to fall apart.

"Tomorrow I'll bring you some tea and furikake," furikake," Fusae said. Katsuji's mouth must have been dry, for he swallowed audibly. Fusae said. Katsuji's mouth must have been dry, for he swallowed audibly.

"Has Yuichi eaten already?" Katsuji slowly rolled over and half crawled out of bed toward the dinner Fusae had brought on a tray.

"He had yellowtail sashimi. If you'd like, I'll bring you some," Fusae hurriedly added. Katsuji had let out a sigh when he saw the bland boiled vegetables and rice porridge.

"I don't need any sashimi. But I want you to make sure to give something to the nurses at the hospital." Katsuji picked up his chopsticks, his hands trembling slightly.

"What do you mean, give something?" give something?"

"Money, of course."

"Money? Again with the money. Nurses these days don't accept money from patients." As she always did, Fusae turned this notion down flat. She hated this aspect of Katsuji's personality, something she saw in all men and disliked intensely. It was fine to think about giving tips to the nurses, but where did he imagine the money was going to come from?

"Even if you give them something extra, they're not going to do anything special for you. They're respected professionals nowadays, and if you give them money they'll think you're looking down on them," Fusae said, and slowly rose to her feet with a grunt. These days if she got up too quickly, her knees hurt.

Fusae watched as Katsuji, hunched over, slurped down his porridge. As she watched him, she remembered what her neighbor, old Mrs. Okazaki, had told her: "Every other month when I get a pension check I think, 'Ah, he's really dead, isn't he.'"

The first time she heard this, Fusae thought about how this elderly woman had loved her husband. But as Katsuji's condition deteriorated and he grew steadily weaker, the words took on a completely different meaning: when either a husband or wife died, your daily expenses were cut in half.

After his bath Yuichi sat cross-legged on a chair, wolfing down his meal. He must have been starving, for he followed each slice of sashimi with two or three huge mouthfuls of rice.

"I made some daikon miso soup," Fusae called out to him, and ladled some into the soup bowl she'd turned over. Yuichi didn't wait for it to cool but slurped it down as soon as she passed it to him.

"I should go along with you, don't you think?" Fusae said, and sat down. She noticed a grain of rice stuck to Yuichi's chin.

"No, you don't need to come. All I have to do is take him to the nurse station on the fifth floor, right?" Yuichi mixed some wasabi in a plate of soy sauce, the sweeter variety found in Kyushu.

"We have a meeting again at seven in the community center. They're talking about health foods. Don't worry, I'm not planning to buy any. But hearing about it doesn't cost anything," Fusae said, pouring hot water out of the thermos into a teapot. The thermos made a gurgling sound as she pushed the button a couple of times to get out the last drops of water.

She stood up to add more water to the teapot, and that's when it happened. Yuichi had been enjoying the sashimi and deep-fried fish paste, but he suddenly groaned and put a hand to his mouth.

"What's wrong?" Fusae hurried around behind him and pounded him sharply on the back. She was sure that something was stuck in his throat, but he stood up, pushed her aside, and with his hand to his mouth he rushed to the toilet. Fusae stood there, flabbergasted.

She heard him retching. Flustered, Fusae sniffed the sashimi and the fish paste but neither one smelled off.

After throwing up for a while, Yuichi finally emerged, his face deathly pale.

"What's wrong?" Fusae asked, gazing intently at him. Yuichi shoved past her, saying, "Nothing ... Just got something stuck in my throat." It was clear to both of them that this wasn't the real problem.

"You sure? ..." Fusae bent over and retrieved his chopsticks from the floor. Yuichi's legs were right in front of her. She noticed that he was trembling-even though he'd just taken a bath and shouldn't be cold.

Grumbling the entire time, Katsuji managed to get out of bed and get dressed, and Yuichi drove him to the hospital. It was only fifty meters to the parking lot where Yuichi had his car, and Katsuji should have been able to walk there, but he ordered Yuichi to bring the car around to the front door, which he did, reluctantly.

Yuichi tossed the bag into the backseat, raised the passenger seat up, and Katsuji, looking unhappy, struggled to sit down. Yuichi walked around to the driver's side and Fusae said, "If the head nurse isn't there, then Ms. Imamura will be in charge."

Yuichi's white car looked out of place in the dark alley alongside the row of old houses. Inside, the subdued glow of the car stereo and radio lights looked like out-of-season fireflies.

As soon as Fusae shut the passenger-side door the car roared off. For a brief moment the far-off sound of waves was drowned out by the engine.

After seeing them off, Fusae hustled back into the kitchen to straighten up after dinner. Once she was finished, she went around switching off the lights, then slipped on some sandals and headed to the community center.

The wind was cold, but the sea was calm. Moonlight bathed the boats anchored in the harbor, and an occasional burst of wind teased the electric lines overhead and made them hum.

When Fusae spotted Mrs. Okazaki on the wharf, with its sprinkling of streetlights, heading to the community center, she picked up her pace. In the moonlight of the tiny wharf, the older woman shuffling along looked eerie yet somehow comical.

"So, Grannie, you're headed there, too?" As Fusae caught up with her, Mrs. Okazaki, who was using a shopping cart as a walker, halted and looked up.

"Oh, Fusae, it's you."

"Did you try the Chinese herbal medicine from last time?" Fusae asked.

The old woman started walking again, slowly, and replied, "Yes, and I feel a bit better."

"Me, too. I had my doubts it would work at first, but the morning after I drank some, I did feel better."