The Graveyard Apartment Read Free Page A

up your room and put all your clothes and books and toys where they belong. All right?”
    â€œHow are we going to make a funeral for Pyoko?”
    â€œWell, first we’ll dig a grave outside and put a cross next to it, with ‘Here Lies Pyoko’ written on it. Then we’ll all say a prayer: ‘Please let Pyoko be happy in heaven,’ or something like that.”
    â€œThat’s all?”
    â€œIs there something else you’d like to do?”
    â€œNo, it’s just—don’t we need to make one of those long, skinny sticks, like the one I’ve seen you and Papa praying over sometimes?”
    Oh dear. Not this , Misao thought, averting her eyes. “You’re talking about a memorial tablet,” she said. “No, Pyoko doesn’t need to have one of those.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause those are only for people. Pyoko was a bird, so we don’t need to make one for him.”
    â€œHuh,” Tamao said doubtfully, watching as Cookie plunged her snout into the dog food dish and began wolfing down the dry kibble.
    Misao hadn’t yet talked to Teppei about where to set up their small, portable Buddhist family altar. Last night she had stuck it in the closet of the master bedroom, as a temporary measure, but they couldn’t very well leave it there forever. After all, the altar needed to be somewhere out in the open, where the spirit of a certain deceased person could bask in the refreshing breeze that wafted through the new apartment.
    Teppei was continually teasing Misao about her old-fashioned insistence on observing traditional rituals regarding people who were no longer among the living. In this case, the person in question was Teppei’s first wife, but that didn’t stop him from giving Misao a hard time. It wasn’t because he was heartless or unfeeling; he just happened to be the kind of tough-minded, strong-willed positive thinker who always found a rational explanation for everything, and refused to be haunted by painful memories or might-have-beens.
    The event that changed everything had taken place seven years ago, during the summer when Misao and Teppei were twenty-five and twenty-eight, respectively. They had taken a secret weekend trip to a resort on the Izu Peninsula, where they had spent two blissful days (and nights) swimming in the hotel pool, enjoying poolside barbecues, and later, in bed, making love again and again. Teppei returned to his house in Tokyo late Sunday evening and found his wife, Reiko, standing silently in the unlit entry hall, waiting to welcome him home—or so he thought.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” he asked casually as he slipped out of his shoes. “Why are you just waiting here in the dark?” When Reiko didn’t reply, Teppei groped around for the wall switch and turned on the overhead light.
    His wife, he saw then, wasn’t standing on the landing, at all. She had hung herself from a crossbeam by a silk kimono cord, and the architectural element holding her upright was the ceiling, not the floor.
    Reiko had left behind a suicide note, addressed to Teppei. In it, she wrote that she harbored no ill feelings whatsoever toward him or the woman he was having an affair with. She was just tired. Life no longer offered her anything to enjoy, and all she wanted was to go to sleep, forever. Good-bye , she concluded. Please be happy.
    Even now, Misao still knew every line of that brief letter by heart, and she could have recited it word for word. Life no longer offers me anything to enjoy …
    Before Reiko’s suicide, Misao was just a carefree young woman who had never given any serious thought to the nuances—or the ultimate stakes—of romantic relationships. She hadn’t had the slightest intention of engaging Reiko in a territorial tug-of-war, or of trying to coerce Teppei into getting a divorce. She would have been lying if she’d said she wasn’t bothered