“How about a blanket or something?” suggested Nagare, popping his head out of the kitchen.

But Kurata replied, with a quick wave of his hand, “I’m fine. I don’t feel cold at all. But could I have glass of cold water please?”

“Okay, one cold water coming up,” said Kazu Tokita behind the counter. As she spoke, she spun around, pulled a glass from the shelf, filled it with water and walked briskly over to Kurata.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the water from her, and drinking it down all in one go.

“I’ve finished!” exclaimed a gleeful Miki, gripping a pen. Sitting at the counter next to Kyoko, she had just finished writing a wish on a vertically folded piece of paper known as tanzaku.

As Miki held up the paper, Kyoko asked, “What did you wish for this time?” while trying to peek.

“I wish that Daddy’s feet would start smelling nice,” Miki read out energetically. Finding that terribly amusing, Kyoko blew a short raspberry. Giggling also, Miki dropped down from the seat, and walked over to hang her tanzaku wish with the other decorations on the Christmas tree. It was an unusual time to be writing tanzaku—something people would normally do on the seventh of July when the Tanabata Festival is held. The tree was already festooned with several such wishes she had written, and their contents varied. Nagare was by far the most common theme among them. Aside from “smelly feet,” she wished that he would “become shorter” and that he would “stop being so cranky.” Kyoko often had to suppress her laughter.

Writing wishes on tanzaku and hanging them on the Christmas tree was not a regular activity at the café. On seeing Miki practicing her writing, Kyoko had suggested, “Why not write wishes and decorate the tree with them?”

Kazu, who normally didn’t laugh that much, was chuckling too. The cheerful atmosphere even made Kurata, the man from the past, smile.

“Stop just writing silly things,” an exasperated Nagare grumbled as he came out from the kitchen holding a square twenty-centimeter box. The box held the Christmas cake, made by him, that Kyoko had ordered.

Miki looked at him and giggled, then turned to the tanzaku hanging from the tree, clapped her hands and prayed in the traditional Shinto way. Was it Christmas, or the Tanabata Festival, or was she pretending to visit a shrine? It was all very confused.

“Right, next one...” said Miki, far from finished, as she began to write once more.

“Oh, not again...” Nagare sighed.

After putting the cake box in a paper carrier bag, he said, “This is for Kinuyo...” and added a takeaway coffee in a smaller paper bag.

“Huh?” Kyoko started. Her mother Kinuyo, who died that year in the last days of summer, had always enjoyed drinking Nagare’s coffee—she had gone on drinking it every day while in the hospital too.