bachelor. More important, he was insignificant within the family. He was on the periphery of the women’s “outside” circle.
But none of this was outwardly evident. When he arrived, a heaping platter of his favorite food was awaiting him on the low dining table: fried pot stickers stuffed with pork, ginger, and garlic. This was accompanied by individual dipping bowls of soy sauce, vinegar, and hot chili oil. “Chili oil makes you sweat,” Mrs. Kobayashi had explained to Sarah as they set the table. “Sweating is very healthy in the summer.”
Teinosuke Kobayashi was noticeably shorter than his stepmother and stepsister. Either the babyhood fever had stunted his growth, or else he had inherited his natural mother’s petite frame. Young Teinosuke had been afflicted, all throughout grade school, with thin, flyaway hair (“sort of brownish, like a Caucasian baby, very strange,” Mrs. Rexford said), which was surely a lingering effect of the fever. Perhaps the illness had also affected his ability to learn. His grades were poor, and he was the only child in their entire extended family who had not gone to college.
But now, in adulthood, he exuded good health. Peering up at the others from under a glossy shock of black hair, he tucked into the gyoza heartily, his Adam’s apple working up and down. He talked unendingly about business—he worked with insurance of some kind—in a loud, knowing voice.
“Aaa,” replied his father, nodding and chuckling affably. “Aaa…Aaa… is that right.” But eventually the elder Mr. Kobayashi excused himself from the table and returned to his workshop. Over the years, his son’s academic and professional disappointments had cooled his interest. For Mr. Kobayashi, who had always lived in the shadow of his more accomplished brother, success was extremely important.
After Mr. Kobayashi’s departure, there was an awkward silence.
“Tei-kun,” said Mrs. Rexford. “Are you still playing pachinko as much as you used to?”
Her stepbrother replied, rather stiffly, that he was.
“Take me sometime,” she teased. “Come on!”
“No!” he said, scandalized. “You know nice women don’t go to pachinko parlors!”
“You could be my chaperone. It would be fun.”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head grimly. “It wouldn’t be proper.” But exercising this masculine authority had revived his confidence; before long he was bragging again about business.
Long ago, Teinosuke Kobayashi had wielded great power within the family. As a child he had been instinctively clever about leveraging his position as a sick, motherless boy. When his stepmother disciplined him he sought out his father and complained, knowing he would get full sympathy. For Mr. Kobayashi had finally realized that although his wife performed all her duties with conscientious effort, she was never going to love him. And he found little ways to punish her for it.
Teinosuke also had a champion in Mrs. Asaki. If he ran down the lane to tell on his stepmother, the older woman marched right over to the Kobayashi house to demand an explanation for the boy’s tears. In those days, despite the boundaries protecting her own adopted daughter, Mrs. Asaki had no qualms about meddling and keeping her sister-in-law in her place.
Yoko, several years older than her stepbrother, had watched all this and seethed. Knowing better than to confront Mrs. Asaki or her stepfather, she did all she could to make life easier for her mother. Her grades were impeccable, as was her conduct at home. She kept a sharp eye on Teinosuke. She itched to punish him in private, but that would have created even more trouble for her mother.
Sarah had little sense of how hard those years had been for her grandmother. But she did understand that time had brought about a gradual power shift. She felt great sympathy for her uncle. Apparently her mother did too; her stepbrother’s reduced position brought out a noblesse oblige that was so warm and natural, so heartfelt, that even Sarah fell under its spell. Of course Mrs. Rexford was capable of putting on an act. And yet—the girl was sure of it—there was genuine kindness there, a kindness that belied or at least balanced out her earlier disparaging remarks.
“Remember that time, Tei-kun,” Mrs. Rexford was saying, “when you ate three bowls of noodle soup at one sitting? Aaa, those were the days, weren’t they?”
“They were, Big Sister,” he said. Sarah was moved by his childish honorific.
After a leisurely lunch, Teinosuke took his leave. He ruffled Sarah’s hair before stepping down into the vestibule. He had always been a kind uncle.
Afterward, washing dishes in the kitchen, Mrs. Rexford gave a snort of