The Favorites

Sarah smiled and settled the quilt around her great-aunt’s bony hips. Mrs. Asaki watched her, nodding imperceptibly.

“You’re a good girl, ne,” she said. “Your mama in heaven is happy with the way you turned out.”

Mrs. Kobayashi entered the room with a tray of covered ceramic bowls. “You’ve picked a good day to come!” she told her sister-in-law. Placing the heavy tray on the table, she walked over to the frosted glass panels and slid them all the way open; they rattled in their wooden frames. Sunshine poured in, catching glints of gold in the straw of the tatami mats. With sunlight came the smell of burning leaves and the vague sadness of a season nearing its end.

Mrs. Kobayashi stood there for a moment, gazing out at the laundry courtyard. Above the fence the sky was deep blue, with that high dome of autumn described in classic Japanese poetry. “How long has it been,” she said, “since we had such beautiful weather?”

This, Mrs. Asaki heard perfectly. “Soh, it’s been forever!” she replied. “Ahh, how good the sun feels! Like warm hands on my body.”

This mystery of selective hearing had been explained to Sarah by her grandmother. “It’s only certain pitches she can’t hear,” Mrs. Kobayashi had said. “You and your cousins, you all have high-pitched voices because you’re young women, so she can’t hear what you’re saying. But my voice has low tones, so we never have a problem. Now, your auntie has high tones, which makes things difficult. You wouldn’t think it, would you, with her being an alto and all. But there you are.”

Settled into the kotatsu with her elders, Sarah did nothing more than smile and nod. She wanted Gra

“Would you care for some ten-don, Gra

Mrs. Asaki’s aged eyes gleamed, and she hunched over her bowl with a little sigh of pleasure. With hands that slightly trembled, she lifted a chopstickful to her mouth. “Gra

Mrs. Asaki’s reprieve was not just auditory; she rarely received such warmth and attention at home.

“That’s why she fritters everything away on money envelopes,” Mrs. Kobayashi had once told Sarah. “You watch, there won’t be anything left for them to inherit. She always thinks of herself first.”

“She thinks smart,” Sarah had said. For in a traditional world where women had little power, Mrs. Asaki had used her wits. She had married well, strategically leveraging her physical beauty. And in adopting a child in her forties, she was surely motivated by more than the simple desire to love a child. There must have been an awareness that, in a society without nursing homes, a childless woman was doomed. A son would have been preferable to a daughter, but once again Mrs. Asaki had shown foresight by moving her son-in-law into her own home, ensuring her place within their family unit. And through shrewd use of her monthly pension, she still maintained a degree of control. All in all, she had played her cards well. She had achieved the security she sought, if not the full loving spirit that might have accompanied it. Sarah thought her great-aunt would have been an interesting woman to talk to, if she had known her as a fellow adult instead of a one-dimensional gra

“Has Sarah-chan been telling you lots of stories about America?” Mrs. Asaki asked.

“Yes indeed. The child’s a hard worker,” said Mrs. Kobayashi proudly. “She tells me she works long hours. Large companies are very demanding, you know.”

What Sarah had not mentioned was how disillusioned she was by her career, how little it had lived up to her expectations. She remembered her view of life as a child: a maze in which a perfectly good path sometimes veered off in an unexpected direction. She wondered now if that was the norm rather than the exception.

“Maa, you have a good appetite,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “That’s very healthy. Old people like us, we have to keep up our appetites or else we’re done for.”

Mrs. Asaki, who had been greedily focused on her bowl, came to with a little start of embarrassment. If her wrinkled skin could have blushed, it would have.

“It’s good to eat,” Mrs. Kobayashi reassured her. “Don’t worry about appearances, Gra

Mrs. Asaki nodded her head, like a child.

“Let’s enjoy our food to the fullest, Gra

Sarah watched them. Both women, in their different ways, had forged through life as best they could. Mrs. Asaki had used foresight and strategy. Mrs. Kobayashi had followed a linked chain of great loves. In the process, they had caused damage-to each other, to i

Something of that hardship and peril transmitted itself to Sarah. Life will be hard, she thought, harder than I know. She wondered how she herself would make her way through life.

Was she equal to it? She thought so. For she could feel the women’s reserves passing down to her, reserves she would draw on in years to come. She felt a dim premonition of her power, similar to what she had felt the summer she was fourteen. Her mind flashed back-instinctively, as if fingering a talisman-to the summer day when her mother had held her hand in hers.

“You’re right, Gra

And Sarah affirmed it with vigorous nods of her own.

About the Author

MARY YUKARI WATERS has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize. She is the recipient of an NEA grant, and her work has aired on BBC and NPR. Her debut collection was a Discover Award for New Writers selection, a Book Sense 76 selection, and a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book. She received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine. She currently teaches in Spalding University ’s Brief Residency MFA program.