That week, sun and clouds took turns arriving.
On clear days, my father and I climbed onto the roof of the Miyashita house together. We peeled away broken roof tiles, replaced rotted sheathing boards, and laid down fresh waterproofing sheets. The June sunlight was still soft, but the reflection off the roof tiles was unforgiving, and by early afternoon the back of my neck stung with sunburn.
Looking down from atop the roof, the garden was clearly visible.
Akari was usually inside the house. Occasionally she came out to the veranda, carrying cardboard boxes or wringing out a rag. Whenever our eyes met, she offered a light bow. I bowed back in return. That was all.
The dahlias on that ridge grew taller every time I saw them.
On the afternoon of the third day, a voice came from below the ladder.
“Excuse me, here’s lunch, if you’d like.”
Looking down, Akari stood holding a tray with both hands. A kettle of barley tea, and two teacups. Along with those, rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed were arranged unevenly on a plate.
“Can’t be making the client worry about things like that.”
My father said from atop the roof. Akari shook her head.
“Grandmother always said that you’re supposed to serve lunch to the craftsmen. …The shape is a bit odd, though.”
Sitting down on the veranda, I stuffed my mouth with a rice ball. It was a little heavy on the salt, and the pit hadn’t been removed from the pickled plum inside. My father ate two in silence, said only “Good,” and went back up to the roof.
Watching my father’s retreating back, Akari asked me in a quiet voice.
“…Isn’t it salty?”
“It’s salty.”
“Thought so.”
Akari made a crestfallen face. She added as if making an excuse that she was not very good at cooking. When living alone, it ended up being convenience store stuff all the time, she claimed.
Her expression was so perfectly suited to her age that I almost let out a laugh. Twenty-three years old. Someone who would become someone’s wife in autumn was feeling down over a rice ball where she forgot to pit the pickled plum.
“Still, it was tasty.”
When I said that, Akari’s face brightened instantly, and then she averted her eyes as if embarrassed.
＊
On Friday, it started raining.
A fine rain had been falling without pause since morning, making roof work impossible. Normally, it would be a day off. Yet before noon, I pulled out the light truck and drove up the old road.
There are things you can only figure out on rainy days. The most certain way to find where a roof leak comes in is climbing into the attic while it is actually raining. When I told my father that, he only replied, “Do as you like.”
It wasn’t a lie. However, that might not have been the only reason.
Passing through the gate, the scent of soil and green leaves was mixed into the smell of the rain.
The dahlias were leaning to the ground.
To be precise, they were on the verge of falling. On the tips of the stems that had grown knee-high in a week, several tightly closed buds had formed. Unable to bear that weight along with the heavy rain collected on the leaves, several stalks leaned at an angle. One was leaning heavily right from the root, its bud nearly touching the mud.
“Ryo-kun?”
Opening the veranda’s sliding glass door, Akari popped her head out. Her hair was gathered in a single tie behind her today, giving her a slightly younger appearance than the other day.
“Today, even though it’s raining.”
“I came to check on the rain leaks. May I take a look inside the attic?”
“Ah, yes. Go ahead.”
As she answered, she followed the direction of my gaze. Then, she let out a small gasp.
“Ah…”
Seeing her try to step off the veranda barefoot, I instinctively said, “You’ll get wet.” She paused for a moment, but in the end, she slipped into the available sandals and stepped out into the garden.
Crouching before the leaning stalk, she attempted to gently prop it up using both hands. Yet as soon as she removed her hands, the stalk drifted slowly back to its original tilted angle.
“What should I do. I wonder what grandma used to do every year.”
“They need support stakes.”
“Stakes?”
“Stakes to support them. You tie the stem to a stick so it stays upright.”
As I spoke, I was picturing the bed of my truck. There should be a few leftover rafters rolling around back there.
“Please wait a moment.”
＊
I split the rafters thinly with a saw and sharpened the tips with a hatchet. One by one, I drove them in at a position slightly away from the stems. The rain had softened the earth, so the stakes went in smoothly.
Beneath the umbrella I handed over to her, Akari watched the process intently.
“Ryo-kun, you are really skilled with your hands.”
“It’s my job, after all.”
“Is putting up dahlia stakes part of your job too?”
“…Anything around the house, pretty much.”
Even I thought it was a flimsy excuse. Akari said nothing and smiled just a little.
Using hemp twine, I tied the stems and stakes in a figure-eight. Tying it too tightly would damage the stem. If it was too loose, it was pointless. Holding down the string slick with rain with my fingertips, I searched for the right tension.
Keeping my hands busy kept me from thinking unnecessary thoughts. It was a kind of quiet concentration I had never once felt back when I was drawing blueprints.
“There are so many buds coming in.”
Akari said, leaning forward from the edge of the umbrella. Unbothered by the rain falling on her shoulder, she peered closely at the largest bud. Through the gap in the firm green sepals, a subtle flash of dark red peeked out.
“It’s red.”
She spoke with a voice like someone who had just discovered a hidden treasure.
“They really are red. Grandma planted all sorts of colors every year, but in her final year, she chose red.”
“Did she like red?”
“I wonder. …Maybe it’s because I said I liked it.”
Having tied off the final stem, I rose to my feet. My legs below the knees were caked in mud. Around ten stalks faced the rain directly, leaning against their respective stakes.
“Thank you very much.”
Akari gave a deep bow.
“Now they can bloom properly.”
I can offer support. That’s at most all I can do. Back then, I wasn’t thinking in such terms yet. Looking at the straightened stems, I merely thought it was not a bad piece of work.
＊
The roof leak in the attic came from the valley gutter on the north side. Shining a flashlight, I could see rainwater running down the rafters and dripping at regular intervals. I marked the location, took a photo, and wrote it down in my notebook. With that, the nominal job I came to do today was already finished.
As I climbed down the ladder, a sound of something heavy being dragged came from the direction of the tatami room.
Peering inside, Akari was crouching down and straining her muscles in front of a paulownia chest. The chest had shifted only a few centimeters on top of the tatami before coming to a stop.
“What are you up to?”
“Ah. No, well, um, it looks like something dropped behind it.”
“That isn’t something one person should be moving alone.”
“But, Ryo-kun was busy working.”
“All finished.”
Right after saying it, I thought ‘crap’. If work was over, I should just go home. However, Akari didn’t fault me for it and instead her face lit up brightly.
“In that case, would you mind helping me out for a quick moment?”
I took hold of the opposite side of the chest. Matching our timing, the two of us pulled it away from the wall little by little. In the gap behind it, a single old, dust-covered college notebook had fallen.
Akari scooped it up, wiping the dust away from its cover.
On the cover, “Garden Record” was written in distinctive pencil handwriting.
Flipping through the pages, dates, weather, and brief notes lined up. “March 20th, Fine. Dahlia bulbs planted.” “May 2nd, Rain. Sprouts coming up.” Decades worth of seasons seemed to be bound within that notebook.
Hugging the notebook against her chest, Akari remained silent for a while.
“…I’ll make some tea.”
Eventually saying that, she stood and walked toward the kitchen.
The two of us sat down near the veranda of the tatami room.
The green tea Akari brewed was a little strong and astringent. Both the teacups and the saucers seemed to be items her grandmother had used. Beyond the glass door, the rain quietly dampened the garden. On the lower frosted half of the glass, the silhouette of the dahlias we had just staked appeared softly blurred into a green haze.
Our conversation did not last very long.
Akari flipped through her grandmother’s notebook little by little, occasionally chuckling softly or tracing the characters with her finger. Holding the teacup in both hands, I just listened to the sound of the rain.
Strangely enough, I didn’t feel out of place.
When I was in Tokyo, silence had always been a time when I felt accused of something. The dozens of seconds during meetings while the director stared at my blueprints without a word. That was more painful than anything else.
But the silence in this tatami room was different. Rain filled the room in place of words.
“Ryo-kun.”
Suddenly, Akari raised her head.
“Have you stayed in this town the entire time?”
“…No. For a few years, I was in Tokyo.”
“Oh. What were you doing there?”
“Not much. Nothing impressive.”
Akari did not press any further. I think she picked up on the stiffness in my voice. Instead, she opened to a certain page in the notebook and turned it toward me.
“Please look. This.”
There, with a date from a long time ago, it was written like this.
――July 10th Rain Dahlias in bloom. Akari is happy.
It was just that, a single short line.
“I was probably around six years old, I guess. I don’t remember it, though.”
Akari said that and laughed. However, her eyes were slightly red.
I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of a single clever thing to say. I just stared at the green tea in my cup, which had grown lukewarm.
For a while, the sound of the rain was all that filled the air.
Before long, Akari closed the notebook, stood up, and crouched down in front of a pillar at the boundary between the room and the hallway.
“Take a look at this as well.”
On the dark, polished cedar pillar, right around the height from knee to chest, several fine scratches were carved. Horizontal lines drawn one by one with a blade. Beside them were small notes written in the same distinctive pencil scrawl.
――Akari, age 6. Akari, age 7. Akari, age 8.
They were marks measuring her height.
“Every year when I came in the summer, Grandma measured me. On the day I arrived, she’d make me stand right here.”
Akari placed her finger against the lowest mark. Then, one by one, she traced them upward. Six, seven, eight, nine.
Then, age ten.
Above the ten-year-old mark, nothing was carved anymore.
“…Did she stop measuring after you turned ten?”
“Yeah.”
Keeping her hand against the pillar, Akari fell quiet for a short moment.
“After the summer of my tenth year, I didn’t really visit much anymore.”
She didn’t state the reason. Nor did I ask.
Akari stood up, placing her back against the pillar so that the crown of her head aligned just above the ten-year-old mark.
“I wonder where I reach now?”
I started to reach for my carpenter’s square, then stopped. Instead, I held my palm horizontally over the top of Akari’s head. The position where my fingertips touched the pillar was about a palm and a half higher than the ten-year-old line.
“Right about here.”
“I see. …I really grew, didn’t I?”
Akari pulled her back away from the pillar and laughed. However, she made no attempt to carve a new mark into the pillar. The thirteen-year blank space was left right there, remaining a blank space.
＊
On my way out, as I was putting on my shoes at the entryway, a voice called out to my back.
“Ryo-kun.”
Turning around, Akari was standing at the entrance step, cradling her grandmother’s notebook.
“Will you come over on days when it rains, too?”
For a moment, I was at a loss for a reply.
“Until the roof repairs are done, I need to check on the leaks anyway.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
Akari nodded. Then, lowering her gaze slightly, she added.
“Besides, I want you to check on the stakes too.”
“…Understood.”
As I passed through the gate, the rain had eased into a light drizzle.
Looking back, ten dahlia stems stood lined up, leaning against their stakes. Even struck by the rain, they no longer leaned over. The hemp twine I tied bound the stems softly, yet securely in place.
Getting into the truck, I switched on the wipers.
On the drive home, I thought about the weather forecast. Tomorrow would be sunny. The day after, probably sunny too.
Clear weather meant progress on the roof construction. Progress on construction meant a shorter schedule. That was supposed to be a good thing.
Even so, all I could think about was when it would rain next.
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