Free The Favorites by Mary Yukari Waters

sweethearts after afirst kiss. More than once Sarah had caught her mother watching her with an eager, open look.
    Today Mrs. Rexford was in a playful mood. “Mommy,” she called down to Mrs. Kobayashi, “can’t Sarah and I have a little snack before lunch? We’re hungry. Please, pleeeze?”
    Mrs. Kobayashi climbed up into the room with a shallow wooden vat of steaming rice. “ Kora, what a lazy, spoiled child I’ve got!” she lamented. She shook her head with mock despair at the sight of her grown daughter lolling at the low table, sneaking a bite from one of the condiment bowls. “There’s a plate of sticky-bean cakes in the cabinet,” she said, relenting, “but you’ll just have to wait!”
    Mrs. Rexford then turned to her daughter, who was watching the adults’ silliness with a look of wary uncertainty. “Let’s you and I raid the cabinet,” she whispered loudly, “when your grandma’s not looking.” Sarah’s eyes took on the look of a dazzled schoolgirl. Unable to come up with a response, she merely giggled at her mother.
    “You two are hopeless,” Mrs. Kobayashi declared, descending the wooden step into the kitchen.
    After lunch, Sarah carried the finished yuzu arrangement into the family room. The household altar stood atop a dresser. It was a black lacquered box, with two doors that opened out like a dollhouse. Inside, on shelves, were tablets that looked like miniature headstones, each bearing the name of a deceased member of the Kobayashi line. Some of these tablets were so old, no one knew anything about them. On the bottom shelf were a small white candle, a sand-filled ceramic bowl studded with green incense sticks, a set of prayer beads, and a miniature inverted gong resting on a silk cushion. There was a doll-sized cup for water and a doll-sized cup for rice. Each morning, when Mrs. Kobayashi cooked a fresh batch of rice, she saved the firstscoop for the altar—or more precisely for her first husband. Sarah was often awakened by the chinnn of the gong—surprisingly resonant for such a small piece of cast iron—and the muttered sounds of her grandmother praying.
    She placed the vase beside the miniature gong, then returned to the kitchen. Her mother was squeezing out a dishcloth and hanging it over a bamboo rod sticking out from the wall.
    “Would you mind taking these flowers over to your auntie?” Mrs. Rexford nodded toward a plastic bucket in the kitchen vestibule. It was filled with yellow lilies, picked earlier that day from the garden.
    “Wait,” said her grandmother, who was bending over the icebox. “Let me wrap them up first.”
    “No, I’ll do that. Stay there.” Mrs. Rexford bounded up the wooden step into the dining room. “I’ll go find some newspaper.”
    Carrying the armful of lilies—its scent redolent of wet newsprint, freshly cut stems, and spicy blooms—Sarah headed toward the Asaki house.
    The Asaki property was large enough to have several gardens. There was a formal one in the back and another one in the front, and two narrow utilitarian gardens on either side. Sarah took the left-hand path, which led to the kitchen entrance. The air was heavy with the scent of hot flagstones and the mingled smells of foliage opening their pores to the sun. She brushed past a wall of hydrangea bushes that exuded palpable moisture, making the surrounding air almost too thick to breathe.
    Her aunt stood framed in the kitchen window, washing dishes. The kitchen entrance was flanked by neatly tended rows of mitsuba, shingiku, and komatsuna. Mrs. Nishimura plucked these tender greens each morning for her family’s miso soup, and often she sent her girls to the Kobayashi house with extras.
    “Good afternoon!” Sarah called out.
    Her aunt looked up with a welcoming smile, then came to meet her at the door. The kitchen was laced with the sweet, meaty smell of shiitake mushrooms cooked in soy sauce, and the tang of vinegared rice. They must have had chirashizushi for lunch,