How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [76]
“We had goldfish in there. Koi were too expensive.” I sat back on the grass. “We had one for seven years; he was about eight inches long. Then something, probably a raccoon, got him. There was nothing left but a pile of scales.” I fed the koi a few more pellets. “Mom said she’d never have fish again. We filled in the pond.”
The woman listened with interest. “How very sad.”
“Guess raccoons have to eat, too.” Helena fed the fish more, too. “You should have put something around it to keep the critters out.”
“That would ruin the nature of the pond.” The woman gestured around her. “No fence here. Sometimes we lose a fish. You cannot control.”
I smiled at the woman. She seemed in no hurry to return to work. She knelt near me and wiped at her brow with a handkerchief.
“Do you come for services?” Her accent was much thicker than Yasuo’s. “There are none today.”
I plucked a blade of soft grass. A clump of dirt clung to the end. “I am looking for the priest.”
“Which one?”
“Taro.”
“Yes, yes.” She nodded. “Not here, down road. Not far.”
“I’m his niece,” I said in Japanese.
The woman’s inky eyebrows shot up. “Sō desu ka?” she exclaimed. “Watakushi wa magomusume!”
“What?” Helena asked.
I stared at the woman’s face. She grinned at mine. “She’s his granddaughter,” I repeated in English, disbelieving. Another blood relative discovered.
“Hai.” She bowed, then spoke in rapid Japanese. I had a hard time following her. She had heard a little of us. A very little—she knew that we existed. Through Aunt Suki, until Taro had his falling-out with Yasuo and, consequently, Aunt Suki.
“Come,” the woman said in English. “I am Sumiko. Come meet him.”
American households do not have the tatami mat as Japanese households do. Nor do Americans remove their shoes before entering a home, the result being that their floors become filthy as all manner of mud, grass, and unmentionables are tracked inside. It is a common problem for American Housewives to be ashamed at the state of their floors; do not let yourself become one of them! Floors absolutely must be dry swept on a daily basis, to prevent the overwhelming accumulation of despicable dirt. At least weekly, your floors should be thoroughly cleansed, not by mop, but by hand, the Japanese way, as proper husbands should expect.
—from the chapter “American Housekeeping,”
How to Be an American Housewife
Eight
We followed our newly discovered cousin to a tiny maroon Honda. wedged myself in the back, next to a car seat. Helena got in the front. “Do you have a child?” I asked.
“Three-year-old boy.”
“How cute!” Helena clapped her hands. “Japanese children are adorable. They look like little squishy apples!”
“And you say I’m weird.” I folded my knees up to my chest. I wondered why I didn’t take the front seat. I was the parent. Maybe it was a holdover from my self-sacrificing mother’s example, who would give herself the chipped plate at dinner and the piece of meat with the gristle. If my daughter could be comfortable, I would make it so.
Sumiko bumped the car down the country road. I gripped Helena’s seat. Sumiko could have been a New York cabbie.
A mile or two later, she ground to a halt in front of a wood-framed house. Behind it stretched a square acre of land planted with a large vegetable garden and fruit trees.
“Ojı̄chan!” Sumiko called as we entered the home. I took off my shoes. “Ojı̄chan! Visitors!” She spoke the word in English. “Welcome, welcome, have a seat.” Sumiko pushed indoor slippers toward us to use on the hardwood floors.
The inside of the house consisted of one very large room, separated into smaller rooms by sliding shoji-screen panels—rice paper and wooden lattice in a honey color. The main room had a low dining table set on a mat, with red cushions set around it. Light came through a screen printed with the silhouette