When Mrs. Nishimura gathered up her handbag from the telephone alcove, her hands were trembling. Her ears registered no sound, as if she were underwater.

What had she done? Who could have guessed that today, of all days, would mar the long tradition between the houses, so carefully and faithfully upheld over the years? And her gauche outburst was as distressing as the act itself. Over the phone! In between talk of light fixtures and fish! It was nothing like the secret fantasies of her childhood. She had pictured a formal, civilized exchange in a parlor, like the one with her adoptive mother. She had imagined herself speaking with dignity and (since this was fantasy) sharing her deepest feelings with eloquence. Instead she had struck and run, like an ill-mannered child.

Aaa, she was nothing like her sister Yoko.

But somewhere in the back of her mind—behind this feeling of shame, behind the dread of facing Mrs. Kobayashi again—there was a curious sense of…not anticipation exactly, but wonder. She had always believed there was nothing new to discover about herself.

How long she stood there she didn’t know. Her words seemed to echo in the empty hall as if she had screamed them. She hoped her mother, upstairs taking a nap, hadn’t heard.

From force of habit, she headed into the kitchen.

She was immediately aware of a dark outline behind the frosted glass panels of the kitchen door. Someone was outside on the doorstep, holding a dark umbrella. As Mrs. Nishimura paused, the figure tapped gently on the glass.

It was Mrs. Kobayashi.

Never, in Mrs. Nishimura’s lifetime, had she come to the back door.

In the split second before hurrying to open it, Mrs. Nishimura felt a relief so great that her knees almost gave way. Only then did she realize she had been waiting for this her whole life.

Her mother had come. This was what mattered, whatever might happen in the next few minutes. Her child had needed her and she had come, at the risk of meeting Mrs. Asaki and putting herself in an impossible position.

Mrs. Nishimura rolled open the door, and her mother’s eyes met hers with an expression so tender and regretful she had to look away. She noticed Mrs. Kobayashi wore socks on her feet and plastic gardening slippers; she must have been in a big hurry.

Reaching out her free hand, Mrs. Kobayashi drew her daughter outside onto the doorstep. Mrs. Nishimura stepped into a pair of plastic sandals lined up outside. She rolled the door shut behind them; even in this charged atmosphere, they were aware of Mrs. Asaki’s presence.

They stood beneath the hanging eaves, which extended far enough to shield them from the rain. Mrs. Kobayashi closed her umbrella and turned to face her.

“Ma-chan,” she said.

The rain was steady, not so much a force but a slow, languid dripping. The scent of loam rose up from the earth, mingling with the clean, sharp smells of ozone and greenery. It occurred to Mrs. Nishimura that smells were just as heady as music.

“I did a terrible thing to you.” Her mother’s voice had a quiet fervor, the same fervor with which she sometimes talked about Yoko. It surprised Mrs. Nishimura that she, too, could merit the same passion.

“I had a choice to make,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “I chose wrongly. I’ve regretted it all my life.”

Mrs. Nishimura said nothing. She could not.

Mrs. Kobayashi began to talk—about wartime, about the occupation. She spoke quietly and steadily, not requiring her daughter to answer.

She talked of watching her grow up over the years. “Sometimes, when you were a little girl,” she said, “I’d hear you running past the house and you’d be sobbing, you’d call out, ‘Mama,’ and it took everything I had to stay put while you ran home to somebody else…”

With one part of her brain Mrs. Nishimura was taking in every word, knowing she would sift and resift through this for years to come.

But now that the moment had come, she found she couldn’t respond. That’s right, she kept thinking, you chose wrongly. War or no war, no one made you do it. It was your own choice. For the second time today, she felt a rise of anger.

But it wasn’t the sudden, wildfire anger of before. A legitimate space had been cleared, permission had been given, and now it was widening out, claiming its rightful territory with a sureness that felt like luxury. Her mother’s gentle remorse incited it even more, like an old-fashioned housewife coaxing the hearth with a paper fan and a bamboo blowpipe.

“At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do,” Mrs. Kobayashi was saying. Mrs. Nishimura had occasionally wondered if there was a private story behind that official version. Did people really offer up their children because of altruism? But of course they did. The history of Japan was one long story of sacrifice for the common good. Mrs. Nishimura understood duty. But a tiny part of her, the selfish part left over from childhood, still clung to the irrational question: How could you give me up? There was simply no answer for a question like that.

“I’ve always wanted to talk to you about it,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “All these years, I’ve wanted to ask your forgiveness.”

It was unfair. Mrs. Nishimura wasn’t the one who had chosen wrongly. But now, at the peak of her resentment, she had to give absolution. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready.

And now the full extent of her loss washed over her, all the self-pity she had never allowed herself. Like a wave, it crested. Her windpipe squeezed shut. She felt her face contort in the moment before tears came.

“Ma-chan, Ma-chan.” Her mother sounded as if she, too, was crying. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t see; her eyeglasses had fogged up. She pulled them off with one hand and wiped at her eyes with the other. She could smell her own tears, a scent as primordial as the wet earth and rain.

She felt her mother stroking her back over and over, her hand warm through the thin cotton of her blouse. The comfort of it made her feel like crying forever. But eventually her sobs subsided. They stood side by side, gazing out at the rain falling on the hydrangea bushes and the sodden black planks of the fence.

“The whole time I was pregnant with Yoko, I was terrified.” Mrs. Kobayashi’s voice was faraway and musing. “But the second time, when I knew I was pregnant with you, I wasn’t afraid at all. I remember saying to your father when we left the doctor’s office, ‘I’m so happy. I’m really looking forward to having this one.’”

Mrs. Nishimura would treasure these words for years to come.