Chapter 13: Narimoto's Visit to the Tsurumi House

The social worker's name was Matsumoto Chieko, and she had been with the prefecture welfare office for eleven years, and she had learned in eleven years to read a house before she knocked.

This one told her: someone young is managing. The genkan was swept. The shoes were paired. There was a recycling bundle tied with the right color twine for Thursday's collection, which was two days away, which meant whoever tied it had checked the municipal schedule. These were not the signs of a household in crisis. They were the signs of a household performing adequacy with considerable effort, which Matsumoto knew from experience was a more fragile thing.

She knocked. Waited. Knocked again.