The River Kami Asked Before Taking My Hand novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: Nobody's Wife
It began to rain at noon.
It was a gentle rain that fell only on the garden, and nowhere else in the valley.
The priest had gone, bowing three times at the gate and leaving his two books on the boards.
Akari sat on the veranda beside Nagi with her knees pulled up.
She did not say anything for a long time.
She had learned one thing from her aunt's notebooks, and it was how to sit with someone.
"She knew for twenty-seven years," Nagi said at last.
"Yes."
"She let me think it."
"Yes."
"I would have been sad, if she had told me. I would have been sad for a year." Nagi's voice was very quiet. "But I would have been sad with her. She would have sat here with me. I think I am angry that she did not give me the chance."
"You're allowed."
"Am I?"
"You're allowed to be angry with her and love her. People do both."
"People," Nagi said, and a very small, wet laugh came out of her. "Tomoe said that too."
The rain thickened.
It drummed the cedar boards and slid in lines off the roof.
Akari reached out slowly.
"Can I put my hand over yours?" she said.
Nagi turned her palm up in answer.
Akari laid her hand in it.
Nagi's fingers closed around her.
She did not speak again for a long while, but her shoulders began to shake.
The rain fell harder.
Akari scooted closer until their hips were together and put her free arm around Nagi's back, and Nagi turned her face into Akari's shoulder.
She cried quietly.
It did not sound like a person.
It sounded like a river over stones, running and running, for thirty-one years of kept friendship and sixty years of a wrong word.
Akari held her.
She did not say it was all right.
She said, "I've got you," and "It's okay to be sad," and once, because it was the truth, "I'm not going anywhere tonight."
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