I was hesitant to let them go but I felt that Dearie needed to know what happened in her past. I packed all that I thought they'd need. I let them know that they could always come back. My heart hurt to see them off and time seemed to have stopped when they left. It was like the sun had gone and hurt more when I noticed Ryuuko's room, dim and without her in it. I suppose it helped that Mako and Ryuuko did call every once so briefly check in but that was about it. I wanted to go out and go bring them back but I found myself unable to do that.
"She finds a lot of things about being on the streets to be familiar." Mako told me, in one phone call. I told Mako that Ryuuko had to have been on the streets at one point, as we found her on our doorstep when they were little. Mako would tell me more things that Ryuuko didn't, like, how Ryuuko seemed to be so unphased with sleeping on straight concrete or some other things deeply buried in her memories that Ryuuko couldn't recall why she knew them.
At some point, Mako told me about how, the night before that call, Ryuuko cried herself to sleep, while clutching that sweater. "She was crying after that, Mamma, but then she got real quiet, after she fell asleep." She told me she didn't know why Ryuuko would cry herself to sleep or why she'd suddenly stop crying in her sleep.
A long time ago, Ryuuko used to cry herself to sleep. I don't remember how old she was.