Letters to the Distant SkyCh. 3 · 3 Gull Lane
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It was addressed to my house.
So I opened it.
"To whoever lives at 3 Gull Lane. I lived in your house until I was nineteen."
"My room was the one with the round window."
"Under the loose board below that window is a letter I never had the courage to give."
"It is for Fumiko Hayashi. — Mori Tetsuo, São Paulo, 1988."
Hayashi.
That's Grandma's name. Before.
Sealed. Sixty-five years.
Grandma. Did you ever know a Mori Tetsuo?
No.
Eat. You'll be late.
The Mori boy.
Left for Brazil on a cargo ship. Spring of '61.
You remember?
I was nine. A girl cried on the pier the whole afternoon.
It was a small pier. Everyone saw.
1961.
In '88 that house stood empty.
Nobody to deliver to. So, the tin.
Your grandmother bought it in 1990.
Out of the whole town.
What if it just makes her sad?
Your grandfather's been gone six years.
Whether she's sad isn't yours to decide.
...I know. I've done this before.
It was under my floor.
He asked whoever lived there to give it to you.
That idiot.
He said he'd come back for my answer.
I waited two springs on that pier.
Aren't you going to read it?
I'm eighty-one, Haru.
I already know what I'd have answered.
Mori Tetsuo, 86. Liberdade, São Paulo.
He's alive.
His bakery was called Tomo.