Chapter 1 Summary – House Bound (March 1969)

Lying on the couch in her home in Kobe, Shizuko dreams that she is in the village where she was born, among the village children, catching the pink and white rice cakes thrown down by the village carpenter from the bare rafters of a house; it is how the building of a new house was celebrated in her village. The children were all Yuki's friends, but her daughter Yuki was not there. Then suddenly she was in a park, watching Yuki chase after and catch white cherry blossom petals as they fell from the trees.

Shizuko is woken by the ringing of the telephone. It is Yuki. She had telephoned to tell her mother that Miss Uozumi was late and so her piano lesson would finish an hour later than usual. Yuki tells her about her...