Allison Markin Powell

Even a cracked pot has a lid that fits.

Forcing myself to make conversation felt like standing on a cliff, peering over the edge, about to tumble down headfirst.

kiss wasn’t unpleasant. Maybe not unpleasant, but I wasn’t happy about it. Rather than happy, it made me feel a little lonely.

A grown woman would know how to get warm in a situation like this. But, for the moment, I was a child and helpless.

“Would you consider a relationship with me, based on a premise of love?”

Enveloped in Sensei’s warm and dry embrace, I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry. But I didn’t laugh and I didn’t cry anymore either. All I did was be still there in Sensei’s arms.

Finally, he said quietly, “A person can learn all manner of things, no matter where he finds himself, provided his spirit is determined.”

It was never just the two of us, Sensei and me. Even when we were at the bar, I tended to only take notice of Sensei. But Satoru was always there, along with the usual crowd of familiar faces. And I never really acknowledged that any of them were alive in any way. I never gave any thought to the fact that they were leading the same kind of complicated life as I was.

This is just ordinary hiking, I would say to her, You don’t need to be so formal about it. But she would reply, impervious to me, It’s important to dress the part. She wouldn’t break character, even on a trail where people were walking around in flip-flops. She was a very hardheaded person.

Even if I had, I doubt it would have bothered her, perhaps it would just have contributed to the subtle accumulation of anger—the way a succession of smaller waves accumulate into one big wave—that rippled throughout everyday life in unexpected places. That’s just the way married life is, I suppose.