The Favorites by Mary Yukari Waters

Author:Mary Yukari Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

In the Ueno neighborhood it was often said that Mrs. Asaki and her daughter made a picture-perfect pair. “Never a cross word between them, ne…,” they said with wistful sighs. “So respectful of each other—a pleasure to see.” One housewife had remarked, “They’re so polite. You’d almost think they were in-laws.” Only a careful observer would have noticed a certain thinness of flavor in their relationship, not unlike their cooking.

No one was more conscious of this than Mrs. Asaki herself.

How it started, she could not have said. She was better at acting than at reflecting. At any rate the process had been so gradual as to be invisible, like the growth of a child.

There was a time, decades ago, when Masako had been like any other child, with eyes only for her mother. Those early years still glowed in Mrs. Asaki’s memory for their simplicity, for their lack of the emotional ambivalence that would haunt her in later years. One of her favorite memories was the day she had taken little Masako to Umeya Shrine for her traditional Seven-Five-Three Blessing. She could still see it: a crowd of children aged seven, five, and three, dressed up in their best kimonos and tottering about in their shiny new slippers like bewildered little dolls. And among them was her precious Masako, the only girl to wear a tiny white fur wrapped around her neck over her pink silk kimono. Mrs. Asaki had sewn the entire outfit herself, sacrificing the last of her prewar finery.

And it had been worth it. “Look, Mama, I’m pretty,” little Masako had breathed, eyes shining as she reached up to pet the unaccustomed fur with the clumsy, reverent fingers of a five-year-old. And Mrs. Asaki had known a moment of keen joy.

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