Chapter 8 Summary - Grievances (May 1973)

Having arrived back from her doctor's appointment, Hanae, Yuki's stepmother, sets about cleaning the house, something she did every day. Shizuko, she decided, had been the type of woman who would leave it for two, three weeks before cleaning and when Hanae had married Hideki, three years previously, she discovered that Yuki did not know the proper ways to clean a house, wash dishes or write up a shopping list. She had asked Yuki once what it was exactly that her mother had taught her, to which Yuki replied that she had been taught to paint and draw and the names of flowers and stories to tell; things no-one else knew.

She cleans the bathroom - thinking that it was a good thing that Yuki had started to cut her hair short, because the sight of her curled...