After being subjected to power harassment at work and feeling physically and mentally exhausted, I returned to my parents' house for the first time in a long while during the Obon holidays. As if she had sensed something, my mother treated me kindly. I was used to city life, so the summer in the countryside felt hotter than usual. I couldn't stop sweating from morning to night, and it seemed like my mother was the same. I was fascinated by the sweat running down her neck, overflowing from her forehead, and floating on her chest, and perhaps the heat had made me go crazy, but I started to think of my mother as a woman...