The Last Leaves Falling (20 page)

Mwong!

“Very well, thank you. Now, how about some breakfast?”

Cat Twenty-three hops up to Ojiisan’s lap with a
Mrrrp
and sits, his head peeking up over the table as my grandmother slides a plate of rice balls in front of them.

My mother wanders in, her hair dripping down her back. She helps herself to coffee, then sits at the table.

“How did you sleep, Azami?”

“Well, thank you.”

“No more bakeneko bothering your dreams, you see,” he nods, stroking the creature on his lap.

Mama smiles. “I’m glad. Maybe he’ll get rid of the mice now too.”

“There was one dead by the hearth this morning,” Bah-Ba says, finally sitting down to join us.

Mama shudders. “Mother!”

“What, dear?”

“Talk of dead things, at the table?”

“Oh hush, it is no different from the chicken on your plate at dinner.”

“Yes it is! Those things have diseases. And they’re still, y’know . . .”

“Still what?”

“Furry. And you can see their eyes.”

“This one had its head off. I expect the young man ate it.”

“Eurgh!”

I slide a glance at Ojiisan. His mouth is clamped tight, and I can see from his shoulders that he’s trying not to laugh at the pair of them.

“Maybe we should skin the rest of it? Put it in a stew?”

“Mother!”

I imagine tiny paws reaching up from the middle of a soup dish, tails hanging over the side like wayward noodles. And Mama’s face, green with disgust. And I cannot help it. I feel the laughter rising up my chest, tugging at my lips. At first it’s just a little giggle, but it sets Ojiisan off, snorting as he tries to hold it in, and I am done for.

Mama and Bah-Ba stare at us with daggers in their eyes, but then my grandmother chuckles, and finally, Mama’s waterfall laugh joins in.

Cat Twenty-three looks up at us, bemused.

37

Somehow, I can’t sleep through till dawn in this house. It’s as if the new day calls to me from its slumber, drags me up to meet it. It is still dark when I wake. I like it, though. The air is quiet and still, and friendly now the wind has passed, and I find myself wanting to get out of bed and out into the yard to watch the sun rise.

I pull on a sweatshirt, settle in my chair, and yank a blanket from the bed to drape across my knees.

This morning, Mama is already up, sitting in the kitchen in the dark, hunched over a glowing screen and muttering, “Oh, come
on
.”

I cough gently so as not to startle her.

“Oh! Sora!” She starts, freezes with an index finger millimeters from her touch screen. “Hi.”

“Working?” It is not lost on me that Mama brought us here to get away from everything, and yet . . .

“Ehh . . . Not really. Trying to. I can’t get reception up here though. Anything could be happening in the office and I’d never know. And what if the hospital tries to make appointments?”

“Mama!”

“Listen, I was thinking. When we get back, there’s a doctor. He’s American—”

“We’re on
vacation
.”

“I
know
, but life doesn’t stop just because—” She sighs, and pushes her tablet across the table, away. “You’re right. And your grandmother will be up soon. What d’you say we make some tea, surprise her.”

She lifts the heavy iron kettle to the stove and rifles through the pantry. She pulls down a bag of oily black tea leaves and scoops them out into the bottom of the pot, scattering a few leaves on the worktop as she goes.

“Ehhh, why doesn’t she just use bags?”

“Because they’re cheating.” Bah-Ba laughs, scolding as she wanders in, still in her nightgown. She takes the pot from Mama and inspects the contents. “Use a bag and you’re robbing yourself of the
experience
.”

Mama rolls her eyes.

“Besides. The leaves move around this way. It tastes better.”

“And takes twice as long to brew and longer still to clean up all the mess.”

“What’s your hurry, little hare?”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.”

Bah-Ba smiles. “Don’t rush, that’s all. Time isn’t going to pass you by.”

And then her eyes fall on me, and she goes quiet.

“Tea.” She nods, that same “new topic” gesture Mama has, then glances at the clock on the wall. I don’t know why. It has not worked for years. “Who’s hungry?”

•  •  •  •

Later that day, as the sky turns gray, I sit out on the porch alone. I love my grandparents, and their home, but after four days I long for my computer.

My grandparents have tried so hard, including me in trips to the store and the shelter, cracking jokes. Bestowing kisses that, were I not in this chair, I might have shied away from. But there are things unsaid. I see their furtive glances, and I hear the things they do not ask.
How much time does he
have? Will we see him again? What if we break
the crippled boy?

The secret silence is exhausting.

I want to go online and scream and scream until my lungs run dry. I want to talk to MonkEC and NoFace, tell them how my legs ache from the damp air, and how they itch to run up the already snow-capped hills. How the attic calls to me, and the bathroom here is awkward. And I want to share the good things too; to send them a picture of Cat Twenty-three, to tell them all about the bakeneko and delicious food, and ask them whether
they
believe in spirits.

And I want to escape into their worlds as well. What have they been doing in my absence? Has Mai stood up to her mother yet, insisted that she is going to try to carve out a career as a superanimator? And Kaito, has he reached the final level of his game without blowing up the girl he’s supposed to rescue? Or has he thrown his console through the window?

I love it here, I do, but it is a sort of limbo house where nothing ever changes, and all the things I used to love are out of reach.

When I was small, my grandfather and I would spend hours in the yard, pitching baseballs. I caught my first ball out there, and I was so proud that I lapped the garden twice before I ran into his arms. I think we spent the whole summer outside. Bah-Ba would bring us iced green tea onto the porch, and we would gulp it down and then go back for more.

And when it got too dark to play, we’d lie on our backs and watch the moths try to hit the moon down from the sky.

I close my eyes, imagine spreading my arms out like an airplane and running, weaving back and forth, then leaping for a ball, hitting wood to leather and racing to the finish.

“What’re you doing, Champ?”

I open my eyes to see Ojiisan stamping up the porch steps. It must be too dark now to work.

“Just thinking.”

He sits beside me, resting one arm on the edge of my chair, and sighs.

“You do a lot of that, these days, I expect.”

I nod.

He stares out at the shadowed grass, and I wonder whether he’s remembering the baseball summer too.

We sit, listening to Mama and Bah-Ba clattering about inside, and the darkness deepens.

“It’s cold tonight,” he says.

“Yes.”

“About as cold as your grandmother’s electric refrigerator, I should think.”

“How can you tell?”

“My knees. They creak whenever it drops below six. And there aren’t any crickets tonight.”

It’s true, the yard is deadly silent, even though it is still early autumn.

I listen harder, until my grandfather breaks the silence, grunting as he gets to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“A man needs to walk with his grandson at least once every visit.”

“Now? But it’s dark!”

“So?” He grabs the handles of my chair and starts off down the ramp.

Out in the yard, the air is damp, and already smells like bonfires mixed with dewy grass, as though the seasons cannot quite decide whom the night belongs to.

Ojiisan pushes me out awkwardly across the grass. The wheels don’t like it, sinking into the uneven ground, making him push and pull and lift to get me moving, but he does not stop.

“Did I ever tell you that a cricket knows the temperature exactly?” His voice only gives away the slightest hint of breathlessness.

“Yes!” And I recite, “Count his chirps for twenty-five seconds, divide by three, add four. It works every time. Except when it’s too cold and they don’t sing at all.”

“Good boy.”

He concentrates on walking for a while, and then asks, “Does it hurt?”

“What?”

“All of it. The illness.”

“Not really.” And then, because I cannot lie to Ojiisan, “A little. Sometimes. Mostly I just wish that I could still do things.”

Ojiisan sighs. “It sounds a lot like getting old.”

Soon, we’ve reached the end of the yard, where the tall pines stand, and we turn back.

In the middle of the grass, Ojiisan stops.

“Look up.”

I lean back, crane my neck as far as it will go. The moon is nothing but a sliver, but the sky is clear and lit with stars. You do not see them in the city, not like this.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Count them?”

I cast my eyes across the pin-pricked sky. They’re everywhere, big and small and bright and dull, a whirling mist of light.

“Impossible.”

“Try.”

“I can’t. There are too many.”

Ojiisan is quiet for long enough that I tilt my head farther back to look at him. He looks different, upside down in the nearly black: papery, and old. Finally, almost a whisper, he says, “So many of them will be burnt and gone before we even notice them.” He snaps his gaze down from the sky to me. “Dinner. I bet they’re almost ready.” And, grabbing my chair, he starts toward the house.

I imagine tiny baby stars, miles from anyone or anything, desperate for attention, and I tilt my head back once again, but the walk is bumpy, and I cannot focus and their lights merge into one.

“Ojiisan?”

“Hm?”

“What happens to the stars, when they die.”

He does not answer.

“Ojiisan?”

“I don’t know.” His voice sounds stretched, and strange, and I don’t believe him; my grandfather knows
everything
. But I don’t know why he’d lie.

38

“Call us. Anytime. And come back soon.”

“You could always come to us, you know.”

Bah-Ba grimaces. “Old folks like us, we belong out here, Azami.” But then she looks from Mama to me and sighs. “. . . Perhaps.”

“Yes, well. You’re always welcome. Please.” And then, “We should be going, we don’t want to miss the train.”

“Good-bye, Ojiisan, bye, Bah-Ba. Thank you.”

Ojiisan nods curtly. “Look after your mother.”

“I will.”

“Write,” he adds.

“I will!”

And Mama starts us down the hill. Halfway down, I twist in my chair and look back. My grandparents are still there, standing by the gate, watching us go.

39

Twilight’s setting in by the time we turn on to our street. I’d forgotten how the streetlights make the sky look sickly, nothing like the deep blue of the unlit countryside.

The superintendent grins, bowing low.

“Abe Azami! And the young master! Fine trip, I hope?”