Free Tea With Milk by Allen Say Page B

running?"
    Joseph laughed. "I work for Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. I was transferred here six months ago and I haven't had a real conversation since. Then I heard you speaking English at the store the other day."
    "What a patient man you are," she said, laughing. "And I'm glad you came back. This is the first real conversation I've had in a whole year."

    "Are you planning to stay in Japan?" May asked.
    "That depends," he said. "If you have certain things, I think one place is as good as any other."
    "What sort of things?"
    "Oh, a home, work you enjoy, food you like, good conversation. How about you? Would you like to go back to America?"
    "I think so, someday," she said. "I wouldn't have to be such a proper young lady there. I could get a job or drive a car and nobody would think anything of it."

    And that was the beginning of their friendship. They often met after work and on weekends. One night in the late fall they had dinner at a restaurant they liked. After a while May noticed that she was doing all the talking and Joseph was not eating his food.
    "Are you all right?" she asked. Joseph nodded but said nothing.
    As they left the restaurant May said, "Tell me what's wrong."
    "They are transferring me," Joseph said.
    "What?"
    "They are sending me to another office."
    "Where?"
    "Yokohama."
    "No!"

    They walked in silence until they came to the Kobe harbor. Finally Joseph said, "Yokohama isn't that far away."
    "I'm glad it's not in China," May said. "Look, Joseph. I came here on a ship like that."
    "You're thinking about San Francisco, aren't you?"
    Now May looked away.
    "I went to an English school because my foster parents were English."
    "Foster parents? You were adopted?"
    Joseph nodded. "There were six of us, all adopted and all scattered now and all looking for a home. May, home isn't a place or a building that's ready-made and waiting for you, in America or anywhere else."
    "You are right," she said. "I'll have to make it for myself."
    "What about us?" Joseph said. "We can do it together."
    "Yes," May said, nodding.
    "We can start here. We can adopt this country," he said.
    "One country is as good as another?" May smiled. "Yes, Joseph, let's make a home."

    So they were married in Yokohama and made a home there. I was their first child.
    My father called my mother May, but to everyone else she was Masako. At home they spoke English to each other and Japanese to me. Sometimes my mother wore a kimono, but she never got used to sitting on the floor for very long.
    All this happened a long time ago, but even today I always drink my tea with milk and sugar.