“So you'd been planning to stop by our house?” I asked.

“Yeah. But since the windows were dark, I decided to just go home.”

I ordered a gin and tonic, and told her what my mother had said.

“My mother says to come visit during the day. She says it's like she's dreaming you when you come at night, so it isn't any fun.”

Mari burst out laughing. “I knew it! She was still half asleep then, right? The stuff she was saying was kind of crazy, you know, so I just played along with her.”

“That's what she said,” I said.

For some time we sat and drank in silence. Mari was gazing out at the river of cars flowing past outside the window, her eyes open incredibly wide. Her expression didn't seem especially unhappy, and yet I recalled that when she was a girl she'd had a real aversion to the nighttime, and that she couldn't stand to stay up late: even when we stayed over at one or the other of our houses she'd always go to sleep once it passed ten o'clock. And as soon as I started thinking about these things—even though she was my cousin, a cousin I'd known for ages—she started to seem like someone new, like someone who'd changed in ways I knew absolutely nothing about.

“Did you know that Sarah was pregnant?” Mari said suddenly.

“Huh?” For a moment this was the only reply I could make. I was trying to pluck the words “Sarah” and “pregnant” out from among all the other words in my head, trying to put them together. Finally I understood.

“No, I had no idea!” I said.

“Yeah, I guess I just remembered it myself, you know, all of a sudden. You know how in places like this where it's dark and there's music playing real loud, suddenly you find yourself sort of vaguely remembering all kinds of things that you'd forgotten? You know what I mean? And then there's that blue-eyed girl at the table over there, right? She's been there for quite a while. So I started wondering what Sarah's doing these days. . . .”

“Was it my brother's?”