After that rainy-day incident, what was the right way to act? There was no rule of etiquette to follow. It was as if a large stone had dropped into their pond, and no one dared move until the ripples died down.

Mrs. Nishimura and Mrs. Kobayashi occasionally crossed paths at the open-air market. They paused for a brief chat, as usual. But they never lingered, and they never walked home together.

Mrs. Nishimura went about the busy life of a housewife. Each morning she woke at sunrise to prepare breakfast before her husband’s long train commute. Her breakfasts were less elaborate than those at the Kobayashi house, but as long as Mr. Nishimura had his miso soup and his bowl of rice, he was happy. His underlings, he told her, ate hurriedly prepared, overly sweet breakfasts like toast and jam. “How could something like that possibly hit the spot?” he said, shaking his head and taking a deep, long swallow of broth. Mrs. Nishimura was touched by his awkward gratitude.

Afterward she saw him off, standing by the outer gate just as her own mother had done decades ago. But Mrs. Nishimura, being of a different generation, gave a cheerful wave instead of a formal bow.

Then it was time to head indoors for the second breakfast shift. Mrs. Asaki and the girls were not picky eaters, so she served modern fare like butter and toast or healthy—if nontraditional—fresh vegetables such as tomatoes and lettuce. There was plenty of hot rice left in the cooker. And if the leftover miso soup was slightly bitter after a second heating, no one minded. In fact, her mother ate most of it. Although Mrs. Asaki gamely ate the same dishes as her grandchildren, she supplemented them with old-fashioned condiments like miso soup or pickled vegetables.

One morning, a week after the incident with Mrs. Kobayashi, the household was finishing breakfast. Mrs. Nishimura was already in the kitchen, packing the girls’ lunches for school. After this many years, she had it down to a science. Half of each oblong container was packed with rice, still warm from the cooker and topped with an umeboshi in the center (this combination was called the Japanese flag). The remaining space was filled with an assortment of okazu, or side dishes. Today they consisted of sweetened egg loaf left over from breakfast, miniature sausages, sliced green peppers, sweet kabocha pumpkin stewed in soy sauce (from yesterday’s dinner), a dollop of expensive mattake mushroom preserves purchased by Mrs. Asaki, and sliced oranges. Each item was separated by strips of jagged green plastic that resembled grass. A perfectly fine lunch, though nothing like the lunches the Kobayashi children used to bring to school. Mrs. Nishimura still remembered those: shredded meat glistening with mouthwatering glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds; cabbage leaves shaved as fine as baby hairs; homemade Chinese steamed buns, each with a different filling.

Once, many years ago, Mrs. Nishimura had vowed that her daughters, too, would have lunches like that. But she had no knack for the complex alchemy of flavors. She had to content herself with presentation, arranging the okazu with an eye for color and texture that rivaled her skill with cut flowers. The way she rationalized it, Mrs. Asaki’s expensive condiments made up for any shortfalls in flavor. As the widow of a government official, the old woman received a generous lifetime pension, most of which she spent on shopping sprees for the family. Their modest meals, budgeted on Mr. Nishimura’s salary, were mixed with disproportionately decadent treats such as liqueur-filled European chocolates or rustic tofu made from scratch by artisans.

More than once, in a moment of pettiness, Mrs. Nishimura had thought how much more helpful it would be if her mother just pitched in that extra money toward the household budget. Then she was ashamed of herself. They were already living in this house rent-free, and she knew how important it was for her mother to surprise and delight in her role as benefactor. Now that Mrs. Asaki was too tired for shopping sprees, she increasingly relied on money envelopes. Every so often she slipped one into someone’s hand, stuffed with bills earmarked for a specific indulgence: new bicycles for the girls or an afternoon of golf for the man of the house. But this was no longer done from a position of strength, and Mrs. Nishimura felt sad for her mother.

In the adjoining room, the girls had risen from the low table. She could hear them bustling about, shoving books into their schoolbags and throwing remarks back and forth. “Where’s my science report?” wailed Momoko. The girls’ voices grew loud and excited as they prepared to enter the real world.

Mrs. Asaki, still seated at the low table, was reprimanding someone about something. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t make out the words, but she knew that tone of disapproval. Her heart sank. Why did her mother have to choose such inconvenient times? As it was, the girls had a short fuse when it came to her constant meddling. It wasn’t such a problem with Yashiko, but there had been several skirmishes with Momoko. “Let it go,” Mrs. Nishimura once told her daughter in private. “She just wants to feel like she’s still relevant in your life. I know she’s controlling, but that’s just her way. She’s not the type to beg.”

“Why are you so protective of her feelings?” Momoko had asked. It was a peculiar question, so peculiar that Mrs. Nishimura knew her daughter was referring to the adoption. She had almost forgotten that her daughter knew. The girl had shown so little interest at the time—as Mrs. Rexford had said, a grandmother wasn’t the same thing as a mother. And when Yashiko was told, several years after that, she had been more concerned about her upcoming field trip.

Now Momoko’s question opened up a strange new dimension between mother and daughter.

Mrs. Nishimura did not say what she felt. Her daughter, at seventeen, might be old enough to know the facts, even shrewd enough, in some misguided way, to draw conclusions that made her feel protective of her mother. But she lacked the life experience to understand gray areas. She couldn’t put herself in her grandmother’s place and know what a mother might feel, year after year, when her only child didn’t cleave to her—truly cleave, like Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford. It was something Mrs. Nishimura could never make up to her adoptive mother, no matter how much she tried. This remorse, perhaps more than she realized, had shaped her own choices in life. She had persuaded her husband to keep living in this house. She had kept a slight emotional distance from her girls so they wouldn’t be burdened with a sense of obligation. The less she expected of them, the less chance she would suffer her mother’s fate. But none of this was Momoko’s business. Not yet.

“Because,” she had replied, “she’s my mother, and I honor her. What a question.”

Now Mrs. Nishimura slid the flat steel lunchboxes into their embroidered bags. Hoping to forestall any bickering, she hurried out to the informal dining area.

“Here you are,” she said a little breathlessly, holding out the boxes to the girls. “Go now, go. You’re going to be late.”

“Masako, take a look at this.” Mrs. Asaki’s face was grave with disapproval. She gestured to the girls’ buckled canvas bookbags, the wide straps of which were slung across their navy jacket uniforms. “The material is starting to fray. Girls, why can’t you be more careful with your possessions?”

“Everyone’s bags are like that, Grandma,” said Yashiko cheerfully.

“When I was a young woman,” Mrs. Asaki said, “we never left the house unless our furoshiki cloths were in perfect condition. No loose threads. No tiny rips. It was a point of honor.”

“It’s not so bad, Mother, really,” said Mrs. Nishimura gently. “People nowadays don’t hold schoolbags to the same high standard as furoshiki. Besides, it’s just not economical to keep replacing them.”

“If you’d come to me,” said Mrs. Asaki, glancing at Momoko, “I would have bought you as many bags as you needed.”

Momoko held her tongue.

In less than a year, the girl would be leaving home. How quickly the time had gone! Mrs. Nishimura wished her child’s last year could have been more carefree. It occurred to her that in all these years of keeping the peace, of avoiding conflict and assuaging her private guilt, she had never stood up for her daughters and her husband.

“Girls!” she cried. “You’ll be late for school! Now go!” The girls fled down the hallway, calling out a formal “Itte kimasu!” in farewell. Stepping out into the hallway, she sent them off with a wave and the formal response: “Itte rasshai!” A few minutes later the heavy outer door rattled open, then shut. And the large house was silent.

Mrs. Nishimura returned to the dining area, where her mother sat at the low table swallowing the last of her miso soup. Drained, she sank down onto a floor cushion. Drawing out a clean pair of chopsticks from the container on the table, she reached over in a gesture of companionship and picked an eggplant pickle from her mother’s condiment dish.

“They have a nice clean taste, don’t they,” said Mrs. Asaki. Mrs. Nishimura nodded in agreement. She munched silently.

Later today she would catch the bus for choir practice. Her heart lifted at the thought. She wished she could feel this same kind of lift at home. She thought of the afternoon with Mrs. Kobayashi, when deep, powerful emotions had risen to the surface. She wanted to feel that again…

But first there was something she had to do. “The girls are at such an awkward age,” she began.

“Maa maa, they’re fine children!” said her mother brightly.

“A really awkward age,” Mrs. Nishimura repeated gently. “They’re so combustible. They don’t mean to be, but…Sometimes they just need a few minutes to themselves. You know, to let the steam out.” Something in her voice must have alerted Mrs. Asaki, for she looked up with a wary expression.

Mrs. Nishimura charged on, her mouth dry. “It might be best,” she said, “if you stayed upstairs during certain periods, just when they’re most easily provoked…” She forced herself to hold her gaze. In her mother’s eyes was an odd expression: not sadness, not hurt, but the weary relief of someone who has fought hard and lost. That look, Mrs. Nishimura thought, would haunt her to her dying day.

“Like maybe…the half hour right after breakfast,” she continued, choking a little. “And the half hour…right when the girls come home from school. It might be easier on everybody.”

Mrs. Asaki did not argue. “Soh, perhaps that’s best,” she agreed crisply. She rose to her feet and headed down the hall to do the laundry. No one expected her to do housework, but the old woman liked to be useful. On sunny days she often worked outdoors in one of the utility gardens, crouching over a plastic basin and scrubbing at the girls’ canvas sneakers with a toothbrush.

Alone in her kitchen, Mrs. Nishimura began washing the breakfast dishes. It took several minutes for her mind to fully grasp what she had done. Tiny tremors began running along her spine. How had she found the courage? She had to turn off the tap and take several deep breaths before she could go on.