Chapter 139
[The thought first arose in September.]
[Your wife was nearing the end of her life. Desperately, you tried to think of what you could still offer her, how you could bring her some joy and comfort during this final stretch of her journey.]
[The only things left in her heart were thoughts of a child and the snow in Yoshida Town. Traveling posed too much risk, so you considered visiting a welfare home to bring back a girl for her to choose as a daughter. At the end of September, she initially refused your tentative suggestion, only to face her first close brush with death soon after.]
[At the start of October, she seemed in good spirits the day before, but that night she developed a fever, pain, and moments when her heartbeat and breathing stopped. After a night of emergency rescue efforts, she lay weakly on the hospital bed.]
[Her body had suffered a great blow. She spent most of her days in deep sleep, occasionally opening her eyes slightly, her gaze fixed on some void. No matter what you said beside her, there was no response. The doctor told you her consciousness had yet to return.]
[She began to murmur in her sleep on the second night after the rescue.]
[She had been transferred to a special intensive care unit, with equipment and nurses constantly monitoring her condition. When you arrived in the morning, a nurse told you that she had spoken during the night.]
[The communication device used to monitor sudden changes had faithfully recorded her murmurs. The voice was faint, indistinct, and dry. As soon as she made a sound, the nurse beside her, delighted, called out to her. The nurse’s well-intentioned actions caused you some trouble—their voice had drowned out your wife’s murmurs.]
[You couldn’t determine exactly what she said, but you sensed that her tone was calm. It was neither a painful groan nor the ramblings of resentment or anger.]