Free The Favorites by Mary Yukari Waters Page B

eager expression that they all burst into laughter. “And he got boinked yet again!”
    Sarah, who had just come back from seeing her aunt, was annoyed to see them all having such a good time. They had wronged Aunt Masako. They had no right to be laughing and having so much fun.
    Still laughing, the women turned back to their plates. Today was so hot they were eating chilled tofu. “This sauce is divine!” said Mrs. Asaki. “What is it? I can taste the citron zest…and…”
    “Miso, and rice wine, and ground-up sesame seeds,” supplied Mrs. Rexford. “By the way, we picked some extra citrons for you to take home.”
    A reflective mood fell over them.
    “That Kenji…” Mrs. Asaki shook her head indulgently. “All he ever did was play around and dabble in things, right up till he got drafted to Manchuria. We thought he’d never settle down.”
    “And then he turned out to be so good at art! Who would have thought?” said Mrs. Kobayashi.
    “Now, his little brother,” said Mrs. Asaki, “he was successful from the start. Shoehei was the one people noticed.” Her voice was hushed; Shohei had been her favorite brother.
    Mrs. Rexford looked pleased. Mrs. Kobayashi lowered her gaze modestly. It was not her place to say such things, but she was perfectly willing to hear it from her sister-in-law’s lips.
    “Shohei was so smart,” Mrs. Asaki told Sarah, “so witty. Always at the head of his class. They picked him for the executive training program when he was only—what? Twenty-five?”
    Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford, both smiling, nodded.
    Mrs. Asaki grew expansive in her generosity. “It was entirely fitting,” she said, “that the first hieroglyph in his name— sho —stood for rectitude and integrity.”
    Sarah recalled old photographs she had seen. Shohei was tall and handsome. Her step-grandfather, Kenji, was handsome too, but much shorter.
    A girlish sparkle appeared in Mrs. Asaki’s eyes. “Your grandpa,” she told Sarah, gesturing vaguely toward the other end of the house where Mr. Kobayashi was tap-tapping away in his workshop, “had a secret crush on your grandma for years. But she only had eyes for Shohei.”
    Sarah happened to know—she had overheard her parents—that marrying the second Mr. Kobayashi had not been her grandmother’s wish. She had been pressured into it, quite forcefully, by Mrs. Asaki herself.
    Sarah had never seen the tough side of Granny; her great-aunt was unfailingly cheerful and charming. But she did remember that when Momoko and Yashiko were small, Mrs. Asaki used to punish them by touching a lit stick of prayer incense to the offending part of their bodies: the hand, if hitting had been the offense; the tongue, if one of them had talked back. It was the old-fashioned method from the country. Momoko had claimed airilythat it didn’t hurt at all. “You can’t even see the mark,” she said. But the very idea had made Sarah dizzy with terror.
    That night at bedtime, she broached this confusion to her mother.
    “You know about uchi versus soto, right?” Mrs. Rexford said.
    Uchi versus soto: inner circle versus outer circle. Daytime television was full of family dramas based on this concept. Uchi meant the few allies in whom a woman could place absolute trust. Soto was everyone else—social acquaintances, in-laws, sometimes one’s own children—around whom it was best to remain vigilant.
    “Smart women know who’s inside and who’s outside,” Mrs. Rexford said. “Wishy-washy women get confused and make poor decisions.”
    “Granny’s outside, right?”
    “Of course. And your grandma and I never forget it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy her company. Or feel compassion and affection, like civilized human beings. Just as long as those feelings don’t interfere with our true loyalties.”
    “But that’s hard,” said Sarah.
    “Well, you learn.”
    “It would be easier if people were enemies or friends, with nothing in between.”
    “That’s