While in Tokyo, Eiji receives two letters. The first is from Akiko Kato, attempting to deter Eiji from seeking his father. The second is from his mother, Mariko Miyake, revealing details of his and Anju's birth and infancy. Their mother had a rich married lover. When she got pregnant, he abandoned her. Mariko was an alcoholic and was unsuited to raising children, at one point deciding to throw Eiji off the balcony of her apartment. Before she could do so, he fell down the stairs. After Eiji's injury, she decided to bring the children to her native island and give them to her own mother to raise. When present-day Eiji calls the hospital from which the letter was written, he is told she left that morning.