When we clattered past the shrine, I saw a group of players rehearsing a piece called Nonomiya, about the ghost of a woman who cannot forgive her enemy, and who therefore cannot pass out of this life and be reborn. I saw the actor-ghost at the spirit gate lift a white-socked foot to leave and set it down, unable. In my heart I paused at the nearby Kannon altar. This time I did not ask for anything to happen. I bowed my head twice—forcing myself not to look back and see if Yukako was among the others on Migawa Street—and I made the simplest prayer I had ever heard: to be happy.
