Chapter 28The girl remained across from her, an unusual house guest, her legs not long enough to reach the floor as she sat at the table between kitchen and living room, looking down at the newspaper before her, content to while away her time without explanation.
Ishikawa Marie had thought of phoning her eldest daughter, asking her advice, thinking that she, more recently engaged with the idea of motherhood, might be able to offer some kind of wisdom, yet such felt like a defeat. Hadn’t she raised two daughters herself? Wasn’t she a more than capable mother? Sitting at the kitchen table, Marie did not feel so.
She took a deep breath, tried to maintain a smile upon her lips.
“Have you lived here long?” she asked.
What would the child’s parents think, she asked herself; where were the ch
