Arrietty breathed a little easier once the car was on the road. She hadn't even known how to get into the car; all she had to go on was the farmer working his door handles this morning, and it had been dark. But Sho had seen her hesitate. "Let me," he'd said, and opened the back door for her.
"Such a gentleman," Sadako had commented, pleased.
Sho had motioned her into the middle of the seat - "So I can still see you," he said, and watched to make sure she could find her seatbelt. Then he slid into the front seat and silently demonstrated how to latch the two ends. The bones on his hands were visible while he did so, too visible. His hands trembled.
"Sho, you don't look so good." The genuine concern in her voice earned her immediate credit with Sadako. Arrietty didn't know that. She was simply worried about him.
"He hasn't been able to keep his food down," Sadako fretted. Then she tried to brighten up. "So where do you live, Arrietty?"
Sadako's question made Arrietty really want to hide. Sho spoke up sweetly. "Weren't you moving last time we talked?" He twisted around in his chair to hang over the back as well as he could without being choked by the seat belt. "That's when I told you about my operation, remember?"
"Stop that, Sho, I'm going to get a ticket."
"That's true - we were -" Arrietty's eyes fell on his shirt pocket, the one covering his heart. "The operation - did it work?"
Sadako slowed down to navigate a turn, and Arrietty stared. They were among houses - clusters of houses, streets of houses, stack upon stack and row upon row. And there were people - Human Beans - everywhere. She wanted to run and hide, but there was no point; she was as big as they were, now, and they didn't give her a second glance. Vehicles, bicycles, people on foot, buses, children - Arrietty had never seen small children before, not anybody younger than Sho -
"It worked. My heart is fine now. It's the rest of me that's in shambles." Sho glanced back at her, and she saw from the smug expression on his face that he was enjoying her shock. She stopped shrinking back into her seat and shot him a dirty look, but his smile only grew wider.
"Did he tell you about the infection?" Sadako was completely unaware of the double conversation going on behind her back. "It's been awful, poor child! I thought we were going to lose him..."
Sadako launched into an energetic retelling of the whole ordeal, with the relief of someone reliving painful details. Sho's mother had found time to visit once - once - and his father hadn't come at all. Arrietty twisted her overall pant leg between her fingers, embarrassed for Sho while Sadako criticized his parents so openly, but from the bland look on what Arrietty could see of his face, Sho was used to this.
On it went. Sho had been in and out of the hospital three times since his official release due to relapses and complications with the side effects of the antiobiotics. He had gone for a checkup just yesterday and the doctor had been concerned enough to have him held overnight for observation. "I'm - sorry to hear that," Arrietty said haltingly at timely intervals, though she wasn't sure what antibiotics were.
"Don't be," Sho said lightly. "It got me out of school for the rest of the year." He reached back and patted her knee. His hands were thin, but his smile was luminous. "So I got to see you today."
"Yes; thankfully, his mother found time to sign that." Sadako braked hard for three teenagers who had skateboarded into the street without looking for cars first. Arrietty was thrown forward - whoever had used the seat belt last had been a lot bigger than she was - but she caught herself against the front seats. Sho chuckled, and she fought the urge to smack him on the back of the head. After all, he was sick.
"Really, kids these days!" Sadako tapped the horn. "I hope the milk is all right."
"You really think it will help?" Sho asked skeptically. "I mean, 'raw' milk. It doesn't sound appetizing."
"It's worth trying. Why, my friend Jennifer..."
Sho's real purpose was to keep Sadako from asking too many questions about Arrietty's family, where she lived, what her parents did. It worked. Sadako kept talking until the car had passed the suburbs, a gate, and a long driveway. Arrietty felt better without so many Human Beans around, but...
"Not again!" Great-Aunt Sadako stopped the car; a red vehicle, smaller than hers, was blocking the driveway. "Hang on a moment, you two - I'll get Haru to move her car."
She shifted into park, turned the engine off and got out. Arrietty's breath was coming faster and harsher, and drowned out the sound of Sadako's shoes scuffing away down the driveway.
"Arrietty." Sho took off his seat belt and came around to help her out of the car. He held the door open and waited patiently while she fumbled with her seat belt. "It's all right. Haru can't hurt you now. You're not a helpless Borrower anymore."
"I'm still a Borrower," she shot back, and stepped on his foot as she got out of the car. "And I was never helpless!"
It would have been most satisfying to stomp off, but she had to stop after three steps because she didn't know where to go. Her hair whipped this way and that as she looked around, disoriented. She might have lived somewhere here all her life, but... nothing was familiar; she had never been out as far as the driveway, not once.
Sho, limping and laughing, came up beside her and opened the garden gate.
"Thank you," she huffed, and stomped up the path. Sho, still laughing, followed.
