Three Days of Happiness

102
meaning.
Miyagi didn’t just “understand” the feeling. She knew it. Long
before I did.
“I’m thinking of going to Himeno’s house, tomorrow, even. You
know if she’s at her parents’?”
“Indeed. It seems she’s been depending on them ever since her
husband left.”
After saying that, Miyagi turned her eyes up as observing my face.
She was hesitant to talk about Himeno in front of me. Worrying I’d
get irrationally irritated.
I uncharacteristically told her “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Miyagi said with relief.
---
To explain how I knew where Himeno lived after changing schools,
first I’d have to talk about the single letter I received from Himeno
in the summer, when I was 17.
I felt an indescribable feeling of wrongness after reading it. This
doesn’t seem like something she’d write, I thought.
It was filled with frivolous things. About how she was too busy with
studies to even have time to read, about how she’d had to find
numerous gaps between homework to even write this letter, about
the college she hoped to go to, about how she might come visit on
winter break.
It really seemed like the kind of things a 10-year-old girl would
write, but in the handwriting of a 17-year-old girl.