Kōji

Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself. For a few years after I turned eighteen, I lived with them in an apartment back in Osaka, when Midoriko was just a baby. Makiko and her husband had split up while she was pregnant, and a

If anyone else had talked about her “good heart” and “brave spirit” with a look of such glowing approval, Morrigan might have made gagging noises. But there was something about Miss Cheery that made her want to simply sit quietly and listen closely to every word she said.