Mary Waters - The Favorites

Now Momoko’s question opened up a strange new dimension between mother and daughter.

Mrs. Nishimura did not say what she felt. Her daughter, at seventeen, might be old enough to know the facts, even shrewd enough, in some misguided way, to draw conclusions that made her feel protective of her mother. But she lacked the life experience to understand gray areas. She couldn’t put herself in her grandmother’s place and know what a mother might feel, year after year, when her only child didn’t cleave to her-truly cleave, like Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford. It was something Mrs. Nishimura could never make up to her adoptive mother, no matter how much she tried. This remorse, perhaps more than she realized, had shaped her own choices in life. She had persuaded her husband to keep living in this house. She had kept a slight emotional distance from her girls so they wouldn’t be burdened with a sense of obligation. The less she expected of them, the less chance she would suffer her mother’s fate. But none of this was Momoko’s business. Not yet.

“Because,” she had replied, “she’s my mother, and I honor her. What a question.”

Now Mrs. Nishimura slid the flat steel lunchboxes into their embroidered bags. Hoping to forestall any bickering, she hurried out to the informal dining area.

“Here you are,” she said a little breathlessly, holding out the boxes to the girls. “Go now, go. You’re going to be late.”

“Masako, take a look at this.” Mrs. Asaki’s face was grave with disapproval. She gestured to the girls’ buckled canvas bookbags, the wide straps of which were slung across their navy jacket uniforms. “The material is starting to fray. Girls, why can’t you be more careful with your possessions?”

“Everyone’s bags are like that, Grandma,” said Yashiko cheerfully.

“When I was a young woman,” Mrs. Asaki said, “we never left the house unless our furoshiki cloths were in perfect condition. No loose threads. No tiny rips. It was a point of honor.”

“It’s not so bad, Mother, really,” said Mrs. Nishimura gently. “People nowadays don’t hold schoolbags to the same high standard as furoshiki. Besides, it’s just not economical to keep replacing them.”

“If you’d come to me,” said Mrs. Asaki, glancing at Momoko, “I would have bought you as many bags as you needed.”

Momoko held her tongue.

In less than a year, the girl would be leaving home. How quickly the time had gone! Mrs. Nishimura wished her child’s last year could have been more carefree. It occurred to her that in all these years of keeping the peace, of avoiding conflict and assuaging her private guilt, she had never stood up for her daughters and her husband.

“Girls!” she cried. “You’ll be late for school! Now go!” The girls fled down the hallway, calling out a formal “Itte kimasu!” in farewell. Stepping out into the hallway, she sent them off with a wave and the formal response: “Itte rasshai!” A few minutes later the heavy outer door rattled open, then shut. And the large house was silent.

Mrs. Nishimura returned to the dining area, where her mother sat at the low table swallowing the last of her miso soup. Drained, she sank down onto a floor cushion. Drawing out a clean pair of chopsticks from the container on the table, she reached over in a gesture of companionship and picked an eggplant pickle from her mother’s condiment dish.

“They have a nice clean taste, don’t they,” said Mrs. Asaki. Mrs. Nishimura nodded in agreement. She munched silently.

Later today she would catch the bus for choir practice. Her heart lifted at the thought. She wished she could feel this same kind of lift at home. She thought of the afternoon with Mrs. Kobayashi, when deep, powerful emotions had risen to the surface. She wanted to feel that again…

But first there was something she had to do. “The girls are at such an awkward age,” she began.

“Maa maa, they’re fine children!” said her mother brightly.

“A really awkward age,” Mrs. Nishimura repeated gently. “They’re so combustible. They don’t mean to be, but…Sometimes they just need a few minutes to themselves. You know, to let the steam out.” Something in her voice must have alerted Mrs. Asaki, for she looked up with a wary expression.

Mrs. Nishimura charged on, her mouth dry. “It might be best,” she said, “if you stayed upstairs during certain periods, just when they’re most easily provoked…” She forced herself to hold her gaze. In her mother’s eyes was an odd expression: not sadness, not hurt, but the weary relief of someone who has fought hard and lost. That look, Mrs. Nishimura thought, would haunt her to her dying day.

“Like maybe…the half hour right after breakfast,” she continued, choking a little. “And the half hour…right when the girls come home from school. It might be easier on everybody.”

Mrs. Asaki did not argue. “Soh, perhaps that’s best,” she agreed crisply. She rose to her feet and headed down the hall to do the laundry. No one expected her to do housework, but the old woman liked to be useful. On sunny days she often worked outdoors in one of the utility gardens, crouching over a plastic basin and scrubbing at the girls’ canvas sneakers with a toothbrush.

Alone in her kitchen, Mrs. Nishimura began washing the breakfast dishes. It took several minutes for her mind to fully grasp what she had done. Tiny tremors began running along her spine. How had she found the courage? She had to turn off the tap and take several deep breaths before she could go on.

The rainy season drew to a close, and each day the sun shone with ever-increasing strength. The intimate, sodden hush of the Ueno lanes gave way to a bright, bustling energy, a quickening. Sound traveled swiftly and clearly. Children whizzed past on bicycles; alley cats darted through the long, lush weeds.

One sunny morning, Mrs. Nishimura ran into Mrs. Kobayashi at the open-air market. Mrs. Nishimura was coming out of Shinsendo Bakery, a new establishment with Parisian awnings of red, white, and blue. Mrs. Kobayashi was approaching from the direction of the pickle store. She noticed her daughter and her face brightened in recognition. Mrs. Nishimura waited, admiring the older woman’s firm, pleasing stride as well as the peach gauze scarf tucked into the neckline of her blouse.

Stepping away from the bicycles and pedestrians, they exchanged small domestic updates. Momoko was still studying hard for her entrance exams. Sarah was interning at a financial consulting firm over the summer.

“In a week or so,” Mrs. Kobayashi said, “it’ll be hot enough to carry a parasol.” She tilted back her head to look at the sun. Mrs. Nishimura, too, lifted her face to the sky: a strong blue, with the classic cumulus clouds of early summer. They lingered, savoring the bright warmth and the communal lightheartedness of fellow shoppers stepping past in summer clothes.

Mrs. Kobayashi looked over at Mrs. Nishimura’s woven straw basket. “So,” she said in a playful tone, “what did you buy?” She had never asked such an intimate question before.

“Saa, let’s see…” Shyly, Mrs. Nishimura parted the handles of her basket. The action felt oddly familiar; she had watched her big sister do it many times. She peered into her own basket, just as her sister used to do.

With friendly curiosity, Mrs. Kobayashi leaned in to look. Among the usual items-garlic shoots, ginger, dried whitebait, fried tofu skin-were two loaves of Shinsendo bread and a kimono fashion magazine. Kimonos were Mrs. Nishimura’s weakness. In her free time she pored over the fat quarterly glossies, in which elegant women modeled seasonal kimonos with expressions of gentle tranquility.