The Weight of a Body
stories by Michael Shay
$15.95

Biographical and Professional Information Michael Shay’s fiction and essays have been published in Northern Lights, High Plains Literary Review, Colorado Review, Owen Wister Review, Visions, High Plains Register, and In Short, a Norton anthology of brief creative nonfiction. His book of short fiction, The Weight of a Body, was published by Ghost Road Press in April 2006. He is a past board member of the Wyoming Center for the Book, and was co-editor of the Center’s 2003 anthology, Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming. He works for the Wyoming Arts Council as the Arts Specialist for Literature, Visual Arts and Performing Arts.

The Good Doctor
Reprinted from the short fiction collection The Weight of a Body
Michael Shay, published 2006

Dr. Clarence Miyama stepped around the drunk sprawled in front of his office door. He inserted the key into the lock at the same time his nostrils picked up the potent mix of cheap wine and body odor. Then a hint of vomit—quite a bouquet to begin a Monday, he had to admit.

This wino was black. Miyama could tell by the hand, palm-down on the concrete, jutting from the crude newsprint quilt fashioned from yesterday’s Sunday paper. Negro, White, Mexican, the occasional Japanese or Chinese—they all seemed to find their way to his door, either as patients or as drunks sleeping off the night before. But in 1951, Denver’s Five Points was that kind of neighborhood—home to a variety of castoffs. And I’m one of them, Miyama thought with just a trace of irony as he passed through the door and climbed the stairs.

The names stenciled in black on the door were Clarence Miyama, M.D., Thomas, Fukawa, M.D., and Hiroshi Ota, M.D. The three comprised the only all-Nisei practice in the city, maybe the entire state. While Miyama was justifiably proud of this fact, he knew it also carried a stigma. White landlords in other parts of Denver had refused to lease to them. It was one excuse or another; Sorry, but this office is already leased; sorry, we’re taking it off the market for renovations; sorry, but this just wouldn’t fit your needs. Well, he hadn’t had to get hit over the head with a brick to realize that he and Thomas—Hiroshi had not joined yet—would have to look elsewhere. So they heard about a Negro physician who was retiring and vacating offices over a pharmacy. The price was right, so they snatched it up. They spent a long weekend moving furniture, fixing up, and painting. The official opening was on January 15, 1949—more than two years ago now. A few ads in the Rocky Mountain Shimbum and the Five Points Gazette brought patients. Their friendly downstairs pharmacist, Dr. Riley Pratt, kicked patients upstairs for a small fee.

As was his morning habit, Miyama propped the door open, turned on all the lights, and then perked some coffee. The other two doctors drank tea, but Miyama had picked up the coffee habit in the Army. He shared it with their secretary-receptionist, Peggy Slattery, whom they had hired away from Mercy Hospital.
He checked the wall clock, noted it was seven-thirty, and was relieved to have an hour to himself. No quiet at home these days, neither day nor night, with a two-month-old and a two-year-old, both girls. He waged a constant battle to get even a few hours sleep, what with a wailing infant and the occasional two a.m. house call. Many mornings it took more than a pot of coffee to revive him. Sometimes, to gain perspective, he had to harken back to those nonstop shifts in field hospitals in Italy and France, standing with his gloved hands in one gaping wound or another, sometimes drifting off and being awakened by a nurse, not realizing until then that humans could sleep so well without reclining.

Miyama drank his coffee black and checked his schedule. He was booked from nine straight through three, when he would leave the office for hospital rounds. He noted three house calls scheduled between five and seven at the apartment building at 32nd & Champa, which housed mostly elderly Isei. Then he’d wander home to his own apartment a few blocks away,­—an area that people had started to call “Sakura Square”—to confront some of the hybrid dishes his wife Molly had been experimenting with. It could be anything: tuna casserole with soy sauce; meat loaf with water chestnuts; macaroni and rice and cheese. When he’d request something simple, say a bowl of noodles with soy sauce, she’d proclaim in a voice that really was too loud for a tiny Nisei woman: “East meets West! Get used to it!”

At the desk he shared with Fukawa and Ota, Miyama looked over the month’s balance sheets and perused the bank books. It was a job that the other doctors gladly turned over to him, and one he didn’t mind since it was the growing bank balance that would someday net them all better offices and better living quarters. Whites couldn’t keep the Nisei out of the better neighborhoods forever. It was only a matter of time—and money—before all that changed.
Miyama was reading the charts of that day’s patients when he heard sounds of activity in the outer office. When he walked in with his coffee, Mrs. Slattery was already seated behind the desk. He felt lucky to have her. She was pretty and personable. Her auburn hair spilled down her neck and took a flip up just before reaching her shoulders, like an inverted ocean wave. She dressed professionally, today in a pale blue dress and a simple silver chain around her freckled neck.

“Doctor,” she said with a nod, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Something wrong, Mrs. Slattery?” he asked. Their dealings had always been formal. When they met three years before at Mercy Hospital, she had introduced herself as “Miss Peggy Kincannon—but soon Mrs. Ronald Slattery.” She then nervously flashed her engagement ring.

“No, Dr. Miyama,” she said curtly.
“Looks like something.” He walked up to the desk’s wooden counter.
She slowly raised her head. “I put on makeup but…”
He reached over and moved aside her hand. The purple and green of a bruise shone through double layers of makeup. “Someone hit you?”
“An accident.” Smiling sheepishly, she fished in her purse and brought out a pink compact. She flipped it open; looked at her eye. “Gosh, it does look bad, doesn’t it?” She checked it out from several angles. “The darnedest thing,” she said. “Ran smack into a kitchen cabinet. Bam! Put ice on it, but an hour later I had a shiner the size of a dinner plate.”
Miyama had suspected for some time that all was not well in the Slattery household. He had only met the husband once, at the hospital Christmas party in December. The tall, sandy-haired Slattery looked uncomfortable in his suit, the tie already loosened as Peggy introduced them. The husband eyed Miyama suspiciously as he wrapped the doctor’s hand in a punishing grip. “Nice to meet ya, doc,” he had said, his expression announcing that he did not mean it.
“Want me to take a look at that eye?” Miyama asked Mrs. Slattery.

She shook her head. “I‘m all right,” she said. “Did you see the schedule for today?”
“Might need an X-ray.” He stared at her face. “Bones could be broken. Saw a few of those in the war.”
“Dr. Miyama, please, it’s okay,” she said, trying to smile. “I’ll put on more makeup.”
Just as he was about to speak, he heard the downstairs door close and the telltale limp of Fukawa on the stairs. “You sure?” he asked her once more.
She turned to the filing cabinet. “We have a busy day,” she said, matter-of-factly.
He watched her for a second, then turned away from the counter at the same time that Fukawa entered the room. He was built wide and close to the ground, even shorter than Miyama’s five-foot-four. His close-cropped pointed head sat on broad shoulders, the look that had landed him the name “Bullethead” as a sergeant in the 442 Regimental Combat Team. Hard-headed enough to get a load of medals, including three purple hearts, the last one from a wound that nearly severed his leg and left him with a permanent limp.
“Morning, Thomas,” said Miyama.
“Clarence,” he grunted, “Mrs. Slattery.” He walked purposefully to the doctors’ shared office and closed the door.
Ota was standing beside him when he looked around. “Dr. Ota!” he said, startled.
“Dr. Miyama,” he said.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“We are a quiet race,” he said in his usual monotone.
Miyama was beginning to grasp Ota’s sense of humor. Very dry, he thought, like a fine martini, a cocktail he recently had taken a shine to. Ota looked like the many stereotyped Japanese from wartime “Know Your Enemy” newsreels: short, bespectacled, squinty-eyed, and somewhat inscrutable. He rarely saw Ota smile, or make any expression at all, for that matter. He was still fairly new to the practice, barely three months, and Miyama and Fukawa knew little of his background. All three doctors were Californians. All had been in the camps: Ota at Heart Mountain in northern Wyoming; Fukawa at Poston in Arizona; and Miyama, in southern Colorado’s Amache, named after some Indian chief’s daughter, or so the legend went. He knew one other thing: while he and Fukawa had volunteered to get into the war, Ota had not served at all.
“Time to get to work, my good doctors,” said Mrs. Slattery, slapping a chart down on the counter. “We got a flood of patients coming in that door in about three minutes.” She looked down at her schedule, and Miyama saw a glint of purple beneath her face powder. “First comes Mrs. Benton, a one-week check-up after gall bladder surgery. Then we have Mr. Gleed, the man who said he fell on his knife but probably got skewered in a Saturday night bar fight, and then old Mr. Kobayashi, the guy with the scraggly beard who swears he’s going blind but can see better than all of us.”
“That’s quite a line-up, Mrs. Slattery,” said Ota. “As always, I will take those patients which the good doctors Miyama and Fukawa do not have time to see.” He bowed crisply at Miyama. “I am at your service.”
“Knock it off, Ota,” said Miyama. It was Monday and he wasn’t in the mood.
“As you wish,” said Ota. He picked up a chart and disappeared into the maze of examining rooms.

Miyama and Fukawa had first met Ota in January over lunch at Ray’s Homestyle, a little restaurant in The Points. They introduced themselves and ordered lunch. Fukawa jumped right into the ensuing, uncomfortable silence. “You are not a veteran,” said Bullethead.
“No,” said Ota.
“Too young, maybe,” said Fukawa.
“No,” said Ota, overhead lights glinting off his glasses. “My birth year was 1924.”
Miyama could almost hear Fukawa tick off the years in his head. He and Thomas were born in 1920. “You would have been eighteen in ’42,” Fukawa said.
“When the Army recruiter came to Heart Mountain, I politely declined his offer,” Ota said.
“You a pacifist?” old Bullethead asked.
“I’m a Buddhist,” he said.
“Both our parents were Buddhists,” barked Fukawa, who seemed to profess no religion other than doctoring.
“I hurt no living things,” said Ota.
Miyama could see Fukawa’s temper rising. Thankfully, their food arrived and Fukawa dove into his sloppy barbeque pork sandwich on white bread. Miyama and Fukawa peppered Ota with questions about medical school and his experience since then. Ota graduated high school at fifteen, was almost through University of California when the relocation orders were issued.
“Child prodigy,” said Fukawa, digging into his baked beans.
Ota shrugged, poked his fork at a salad. “One of my professors helped me finish, by mail,” he said. “I graduated in abstentia. Hung the diploma on the wall of the barracks. We had a local doctor from Cody who came to the camp. Most of our trained physicians had gone to the Army. Doctor Simpson heard that I was interested in medicine. He took me on as an assistant, taught me a lot, helped get me into University of Colorado med school when the war was winding down.” He paused, chewed some lettuce. “I owe him a lot.”
When they had finished their meals, Miyama thanked Ota for coming and said he and his colleague would contact him tomorrow with their decision.
“He’s not one of us,” fumed Fukawa after Ota departed.
“He’s Nisei,” said Miyama, wondering about the wisdom of recommending Ota as the third member of their team.
“You know what I mean.” Fukawa slammed a big fist against his chest. If he had been in a dress uniform, a blow like that would have rattled his many medals.
Miyama did know what he meant. He and Fukawa, both combat veterans of the 442 Regimental Combat Team, both wounded in the Vosges Mountains in France, both returning home in the fall of 1945 with the realization that they had no homes, their families scattered after being released from stateside concentration camps.
They met during post-war residencies at Denver’s Mercy Hospital, a place run by tough little Catholic nuns and staffed by a weird assortment of young doctors, mostly vets, and a gang of aging sawbones who had seen better days. Mrs. Slattery was one of the few who treated them with civility. She was fresh out of secretarial school and boldly told Miyama she was interested in medicine and “wanted to do some good in the world.” When the two doctors decided to open their own practice, they asked Mrs. Slattery to be their secretary/receptionist. She immediately quit the hospital, saying she was ready to move up in the world. “Doctors are so fresh,” she said. “It will be a pleasure to work for gentlemen.” Miyama heard what she said, knew what she meant. You Jap doctors are no threat: you’re polite and harmless. She was a sweet girl, that was true, and she was good at what she did. But she did have a naïve streak and probably knew very little about what he and Fukawa and the rest of their “quiet race” had gone through since Pearl Harbor.
Still, it pleased Miyama to have a pretty red-headed receptionist at their practice in the heart of Denver’s “Black Main Street.” He patronized the local businesses when he could, but he also knew that he was as much of an outsider as any white man when he walked into Bay’s Barber Shop or snagged one of those hot dogs from that little stand across from the Rossonian Ballroom, the wieners called “listeners” because they were made of pigs’ ears, or so said the proprietor, Elijah Simmons, who was one of their patients.
Still, the residential section of the neighborhood was a mix of black and white and brown with a tint of Asian thrown in. Some of the whites had begun to flee to new neighborhoods on the north and west fringes of the city, but thus far it seemed only a trickle.

During the next few weeks, Miyama noticed the imprint of Mrs. Slattery’s bruise fade daily. One of his elderly home-visit patients, Mrs. Nakamura, died in her sleep one night, her ninety-five years finally bringing her down. A blizzard came and went, driving the winos off the streets and into the missions; bringing into the office cases of back sprains from shoveling, broken legs from ice pratfalls, and more than a few bodies banged up in car wrecks.
Mrs. Slattery missed work the third week in March. Miyama worried about her, wondering if he should find some excuse to go to her house. She called on Wednesday morning, saying she had the flu and not to worry. “Anything I can do?” Miyama asked. “Nothing,” she said quietly, and then hung up. Miyama imagined that her pig of a husband had beaten her, was holding her prisoner. Still, what could he do? It was best not to get involved. Fukawa’s wife Cynthia volunteered to fill in at the front desk while her two boys were in school. Cynthia was quiet and efficient, not at all like the outgoing Mrs. Slattery. He missed her when she was gone.
When Mrs. Slattery returned to work the next Monday, Miyama was relieved to see no bruises on her face and no slings on her arms. She was a bit pale, befitting someone who had just bucked the flu. Miyama brought her a cup of coffee. “Thanks, Dr. Miyama.” She sipped slowly. “I missed your coffee. Couldn’t keep anything down for five days.”
“We missed you,” said Miyama.
“How sweet.” She smiled. “I missed being here.” She paused. “I have to tell you something.”
Miyama braced for the worst. She was leaving, moving on to a better job. Maybe she had killed her husband over the weekend. Miyama brightened at the thought. But that would mean a long jail term which would force her to quit. Not so good.
“I lied,” she said into her coffee. A blush lit up the freckles on her face.
“Lied?” said Miyama.
“About having the flu,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “What was it then?”
She toyed with her cup. “It was a different kind of sickness, one that’s hard to talk about.”
“I see.” Miyama guessed it was a female problem, one she didn’t feel comfortable discussing.
“I went to the doctor’s.” she said, smiling hopefully. “You remember Dr. Hannigan from the hospital?”
Miyama recalled a portly gray-haired man who had been halfway decent to him. “He’s obstetrics, right?” Then it dawned on him. “You’re….”
“Morning sickness,” she said.“I’m going to have a baby.”
“Why, that’s great. I should say congratulations.”
“You could.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. She let out a sob, then nestled her head in her arms. Her back jerked with her sobbing.
Miyama stood there, feeling helpless. This was his reaction on those rare times that his wife cried. He had seen enough crying from patients and the families of patients when he broke bad news. But on those occasions, he usually had time to steel himself for the breakdowns.
She raised her head. “I must look awful.”
“Use this.” Miyama handed her the clean handkerchief from his back pocket.
“You’re such a gentleman.” She wiped her tears.
“You’re upset,” he said, pointing out the obvious.
“I haven’t told you the worst part,” she said, still dabbing at tears. “The worst part is….” She stopped, her upper lip quivering. “I don’t want this baby.” Tears again leaked from her eyes. “Ron and I have been trying for years and I thought there was something wrong with me, something wasn’t working right. And now here I am pregnant and I don’t want to be.” She cried again, soaking the handkerchief. Then, suddenly, she stopped and looked at Miyama. He noted the black make-up smudges around her eyes.
“He hits me,” she said.
“Yes,” was all Miyama could muster.
“But you already know that, the black eye and everything.”
“I suspected.”
“He usually is careful to hit me in places on my body that people can’t see.”
He fumed—and imagined those unseen parts of her.
“When he found out I was pregnant, boy, he was all lovey-dovey, bringing me flowers, saying nice things.” She put her hand on his. “Please don’t tell anyone, especially the other doctors.”
“I won’t tell them about the beatings.” His flesh warmed with her touch. “They have suspicions, as I did.”
“About the pregnancy….you don’t have to tell them about that, do you?”
“I’m afraid I do,” he said. “There are other considerations.”
“I know. Most women quit work when they get pregnant. But I want to stay so I can save money and leave Ron. My sister-in-law Mary—she’s married to my brother Matt—she said I could live with them.”
“I will talk to the other doctors.”
“You’re a dear.” She patted his hand, and then put the coffee cup on the counter. “Can you mind the store while I fix my makeup?”
“Yes.” He backed up, flushed from his contact with Mrs. Slattery. As she grabbed her purse and hurried to the restroom, Miyama heard the downstairs door shut and the thump ka-thump of Fukawa on the stairs.
“Morning, Clarence,” said Fukawa when he reached the waiting room. “Our Mrs. Slattery still out?”
“She’s back…for now,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
He gave Fukawa the news.
“When she starts to show a lot, she will have to be replaced,” said Fukawa.
“Why?” said Miyama, surprising himself.
“Are you thinking clearly this morning? You know how things are.”
“I suppose it’s not proper,” said Miyama.
“Pregnant women should be at home.” It was his stern Bullethead voice.
“It will give us time to find a replacement,” said Miyama.
“My niece might be good.”
“Ota might have some ideas.”
“Ota,” snorted Fukawa. “The man with new ideas! He would have Mrs. Slattery answering our phones while nursing a baby at each breast.”
Miyama laughed. Fukawa slapped his old friend on the back. “We’ll find a replacement.” Fukawa limped toward the back office, passing Mrs. Slattery, returning fresh-faced from the restroom.
“Good morning, Dr. Fukawa,” she said brightly.
He grunted a reply.

On a Wednesday in mid-April, Miyama arrived late to work. He had been up all night with a sick little girl—his own—and had fallen asleep just as dawn lightened the sky. He arrived at eleven a.m. Surveying the waiting room, he saw ahead another typical day at the office. A young black mother and her three coughing children took up one corner of the waiting room. The balding Mr. Taylor, a white middle-aged insurance exec and World War I vet (“I admire what you boys did over there”) sat reading a magazine. A black teen girl, hair in braids, slouched in a chair, staring at the belly’s bulge against her white blouse.
Miyama stood at the reception desk looking over the girl’s chart. Behind the desk, Mrs. Slattery cradled the phone against her shoulder while feverishly writing notes. She will be hard to replace, Miyama thought. He hadn’t yet seen Fukawa, who probably was in the back with patients. Ota was still on his hospital rounds.
When he first heard the yelling in the stairwell, Miyama thought it might be one of the local winos on a spree. They sometimes stumbled through the office door, babbling, hitting up the doctors and patients for change. Did no good to call the Denver cops; Five Points didn’t exist for them. So he or Mrs. Slattery would call down to Riley Pratt the pharmacist and, minutes later, two big Negroes would come up and remove the wino. As soon as Peggy was off the phone he would ask her to….
“Damn Japs.” The voice thundered up the stairs. “Take our women. Pay ‘em slave wages.” Miyama didn’t recognize the slurred voice, but then Ron Slattery burst into the office, waving an automatic pistol. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt; his chin was blackened with a few days’ stubble. “You!” He yelled at Miyama. “I want you!” He leveled the gun at the doctor.
“Mama!” yelled a little girl.
“Hey!” Taylor leapt from his chair.
“Siddown, old man,” said Slattery.
Taylor, surprisingly quick for his size, rushed Slattery, who shot him in the shoulder. The gun’s report was like a bomb going off in the small waiting room. Taylor fell back against the chairs and slid to the floor. A red blotch blossomed on his white shirt.
Slattery turned the gun back to Miyama. “I’m taking back my woman,” he said. Miyama could smell the booze six feet away. “She said she’s leaving me. But she’s having a baby and I’m taking her home.”
“I am not going anywhere with you.” Mrs. Slattery stood up. “I would rather die.”
Miyama did not approve of her choice of words. But it did seem to knock Ron Slattery off-stride momentarily. “You would, huh!” yelled Slattery. “I can arrange that.” He leveled the gun at her.
The little girls in the corner wailed, stopping only for coughs. Mr. Taylor moaned on the floor. Miyama wondered what Fukawa was doing in the back. Thomas would have a plan. And he kept a gun in his desk drawer.
“Pardon me.” Ota stood a foot inside the office door.
“What the hell?” Slattery stumbled, but quickly regained his stance.
“Pardon me,” repeated Ota. “What is going on?” Slattery was a foot taller than Ota and bested him by at least fifty pounds. Ota wore his usual black suit and “Jap-in-the-newsreel” spectacles.
“Came to get my wife.” Slattery waved his gun at the desk. “She said she was leaving me but I can’t let her do it.”
“This is a medical office, not a shooting gallery.”
“Who are you?”
“Dr. Hiroshi Ota,” he said. “And I am asking you to leave this office before I call the police.”
“Hah!” said Slattery. “Maybe I’ll shoot you too.” He pointed the gun at Ota. The doctor didn’t flinch. Instead, he slapped the gun from Slattery’s hand and knocked the big man to the ground. Ota sat on Slattery’s chest and looked down at him.
“You!” Slattery yelled, bucking his chest.
Ota jumped up. Slattery scrambled across the floor for his gun but Miyama got to it first. The weapon felt cool and familiar in his hand. He thought briefly about shooting Slattery. If any man deserved it, he did. But then Miyama looked at Slattery scrambling on the gray linoleum floor, saw the pathetic desperation in the man’s eyes.
“Damn Jap.” Spit flew from his mouth. “Go ahead—shoot me!”
“Go ahead.” Fukawa, gun in hand, limped into the room.
“Let me shoot him.” It was Mrs. Slattery, who had come out from behind the desk.
“Peggy!” yelled Slattery, still lying on the floor. His face wore the hangdog look of a drunk suddenly confronted with a sober thought. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would, but I can’t.” She looked at Miyama. “Doctor, I called the cops.”
“That was fast.”
She nodded. “Might take ‘em awhile to get here. You know how they are.”
“Tell ‘em that a white man was shot,” said Fukawa.
“I did.” Mrs. Slattery said.
Fukawa walked over to Mr. Taylor. He tore open the man’s shirt and yelled for his medical bag. Miyama and Ota stood over Slattery. “Screw all you Japs,” Slattery said.
Ota bowed. “We are a quiet race,” he said, “yet troublesome.”
“Thought you were a pacifist,” Fukawa yelled as he worked on Taylor. “Hurt no living things, you said.”
“I also am a third-degree black belt in jujitsu,” Ota said simply. “I had plenty of time to learn new things at Heart Mountain. I am a bit rusty,” he said, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand, “but still efficient.”

The next morning, Ota, Fukawa, and Miyama sat in their empty waiting room. Earlier, they had rescheduled all the day’s appointments. Miyama sipped black coffee; the others, tea. Miyama scanned the morning tabloid’s headlines. War still raged in Korea. Big snowstorm predicted for the mountains. And then this: “D.A. to investigate Five Points Shooting.”
“Figures,” said Fukawa. “White guy shot in Jap doctors’ office in Negro neighborhood; big investigation follows.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Miyama put down the paper. “Taylor’s one of us. He’s a good witness.”
“Unlike us foreigners.” Fukawa sipped tea from a delicate china cup. “Cops took my pistol.”
“Don’t need it with Ota around,” said Miyama, smiling.
“You are right about that.” Fukawa nodded at Ota.
Ota shifted uncomfortably. “Mrs. Slattery coming back?”
“Maybe,” said Miyama. “Let’s give her some time to think about it. She’s pregnant and her husband’s in jail.” He heard the street-level door slam followed by the shuffle of footsteps.
“Not another wino,” said Fukawa.
They sat and waited. A bearded papa-san shuffled into the room. He bowed, spoke to them in Japanese.
Miyama shot him a quick retort, also in Japanese. The man spoke again.
“Mrs. Miramitsu…again,” said Fukawa. “Gall bladder, I suspect.”
“One of mine,” said Ota, rising from the chair.
“I’ll go,” Miyama said. “Good day for a walk.”
Ota looked at him. “You sure?”
“Sure.” He plucked his black bag from the desk. He unclasped it, and conducted a quick inventory of the contents. Satisfied, he snapped shut the bag and joined the old man.
“Call if you need anything,” said Fukawa.
Miyama nodded. It was slow going as he followed the papa-san down the stairs and three blocks to Mrs. Miramitsu’s tiny apartment. A sunny day, on the cusp of spring, just right for an errand of mercy.