She talked to me about her heart, how it closed up as she waited.

“Well, shall we head out?” Ken'ichi stood up.

“Yeah. But you know, I have to say that I'm delighted to get this money back. It's like a dream,” I said. Ken'ichi told me not to go overboard, and grinned. I tagged along after him, weaving between the couches, walking across the carpet, heading for the door. My eyes were still bouncing around, attempting to locate Sarah. And then I noticed a blond woman standing over by the front desk with her back toward me—I noticed that her back was a lot like Sarah's. As were her clothes, her hairstyle, her height.

I called out to Ken'ichi. “Listen, I just saw someone I know. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

He told me to let him know if I heard any new rumors and walked off.

I drew closer to the woman, my head whirling, trying to get a look at her face. The rug was so thick and soft that it made me feel strange, and my attention was so sharply focused on the woman that I didn't notice what I was doing until I felt something collide with my hip. I stumbled and regained my balance. Then, wondering what on earth had happened, I looked down and saw a small foreign boy who had fallen down and was lying on his back. I took his hands in mine and helped him up.

“Sorry,” I said.

As soon as I saw those eyes of his looking back at me, such a commotion broke loose in my chest that it frightened me. His hair was brown, his eyes dark brown. Slowly I readjusted my gaze and went on staring at him.

“This is Sarah's child, my brother's child, absolutely.”

Again and again I whispered these words to myself.

I hadn't seen eyes like these anywhere else. The powerful light in them, perfectly at ease—the lips slightly puckered, this expression—the shoulders that reminded you of someone wearing too large a suit . . . seeing him reawakened all the old memories I had, called them forth. I wanted to let Mari know. Before my father, even before my mother—Mari. Finally I managed to gather every bit of strength I had, to mold my lips—it was unlikely that we'd ever meet again, after all—into a smile softer and more gentle than any I'd ever given any lover of mine, and asked the child, “Are you okay?”

He gave me a tiny smile and nodded, and then strode off toward . . .

Sarah.

The woman at the front desk, the person I'd thought was Sarah—I realized now that I'd made a mistake, that I'd had the wrong person. Because the real Sarah, who was standing a little ways off, looked completely different now. But there was no mistake, it was definitely her standing there, the same Sarah I'd met on that day so long ago.

The same Sarah who'd patiently drilled me on the pronunciation of the word “refrigerator.” The same Sarah who'd still had a slightly girlish aura about her. The same Sarah who'd been a little weak, a little bit naive.