When her own daughters were small, Mrs. Nishimura, too, had waited outside their school gate (umbrellas with pictures of Ultraman and Lion Man were popular with the boys; for the girls, manga heroines such as ballerinas or stewardesses). As they walked home she had sung the rainy-day song to them, just as her own mother had sung it to her. They paused often to inspect the hydrangea bushes: as small children all knew, their broad leaves attracted snails when it rained.

Ara ara, the song went, see that poor child soaking wet, crying under the willow tree. I’ll give her my umbrella, Mother, and you can shield me under yours…

Ever since learning of her own adoption, she had identified strongly with that abandoned child under the willow tree. But oddly, it hadn’t taken away from her memories of early childhood. That feeling of being safe and cared for was still clear in her mind-of walking beside her mother and looking out at a wet, dreary world from beneath the tinted shade of a red umbrella. She still had a child’s distorted image of the rainy lanes, surreally barren of anything but the pink and blue hydrangea blooms that had pierced her young mind with the beauty of their colors.

She approached the snack shop. Mrs. Yagi, clad in her work apron, was standing under the awning and counting out change to a tall man pocketing a pack of cigarettes. The shopkeeper gave a quarter-bow in her direction, and Mrs. Nishimura returned it with a smile without breaking stride.

Before turning into the lane, she passed the Kobayashis’ long wooden wall with the hinged vendor door that opened out onto the street. Nowadays no one used these doors, with their uncomfortably low lintels, except to put out trash on collection days.

Behind this wall was the Kobayashis’ kitchen. Every so often, if Mrs. Nishimura walked very close along the narrow cement ditch, she could hear the faint thuds of a cleaver against the cutting board. As a child, playing here on the street, she and her playmates had sniffed appreciatively as unfamiliar smells wafted out into the lane: Chinese aromas of garlic or ground peanuts, a whiff of Western tomato sauce. Back then, before the modernization of Kyoto, such dishes had been redolent of the exotic. Mrs. Kobayashi’s ingredients were common enough-she shopped at the open-air market just like everyone else-but she combined them in unusual ways. “She grew up in a port city,” the neighbor women said. “She has high-level tastes, that one.”

Mrs. Nishimura turned the corner into the narrow lane, feeling instinctive relief at the familiar crunch of gravel under her feet. For as long as she could remember, this k’sha k’sha sound had signaled home.

She paused before the Kobayashis’ kitchen door. She had been planning to ask Mrs. Kobayashi a question. The Asaki household was replacing their hallway lights; would Mrs. Kobayashi like to add her order to theirs and save herself the hassle of carrying those long, unwieldy tubes? Mr. Nishimura could install them at the same time, and then old Mr. Kobayashi wouldn’t have to use a stepladder.

But on this overcast day there was no glow of electricity behind the frosted glass panels. This meant Mrs. Kobayashi wasn’t in the kitchen or even the dining room. She must be in one of the formal rooms beyond.

Mrs. Nishimura hesitated. There was an unwritten rule among Ueno housewives: it was permissible to drop in briefly, unannounced, if the lady of the house was in the kitchen. Domestic chores did not count as private time. But if the housewife had climbed up into the house proper, it would be inconsiderate to barge in.

She would go home, then, and telephone instead.

Almost three years had passed since Mrs. Rexford’s death, and life on this lane was back to normal. Mrs. Kobayashi’s health was greatly improved. It had taken time, but those skittering lights in her eyes had disappeared and she no longer sat down at odd times to rest. “Sometimes,” she told people, “it feels like she’s still alive in America somewhere.”

Mrs. Nishimura, too, was back to normal. She occasionally recalled, with a cringe of embarrassment, her botched overture in the vestibule. But mostly it was as if it had never happened. After all, the older woman didn’t seem to remember; there had been no hint of awkwardness, not even a slight distance. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. So, while Mrs. Nishimura hadn’t exactly forgotten, the hurt and resentment had faded from her day-to-day thoughts.

After all, such feelings were nothing new. For much of her life they had slid in and out of her mind like slow, dark fish, often disappearing for months at a time. But they never broke the surface; they were nothing like those hungry koi one saw in traditional restaurant gardens, the kind that erupted from the water with mouths gaping and hard bodies sticking straight up into the air. No, her fish were a quieter sort. They were bottom dwellers; they made no sudden moves. In rare moments, when things were slow, she let them rise up and circle about. But most of the time, there were better things to do and she went on about her business.

“Do you ever get angry?” her best friend in college had asked. She was the only person outside her family with whom she had discussed her adoption.

“Yes…,” young Masako had replied thoughtfully, “but not in the way you think. Not in a way that’s really personal.”

“Not personal? Against the mother who gave you up?”

“It’s like I have two versions of her,” she had said. “There’s the one in my head and there’s the actual woman who lives down the lane. The one in my head is who I get mad at or sentimental about. I talk to her in my head sometimes. But it doesn’t really count, because it’s almost like she’s imaginary.”

The truth was that Mrs. Nishimura felt physically incapable of the kind of anger she had seen in her big sister. She had seen Yoko stand up to bullies and back them down. Where did that intensity come from, that overpowering rage that blotted out everything else? It simply wasn’t in her. Besides, her own situation didn’t warrant it. Or did it? She was too close to have perspective. She sometimes wondered if her reactions were normal; this was another dark secret that she kept to herself.

But today, such thoughts were the last thing on her mind. Still humming-pichi pichi chapu chapu-she reached her own house and rolled open the slatted gate.

The mind is mysterious. Sometimes, when people feel buoyant and their insecurities are farthest from their minds, their guard goes down and they are even more susceptible.

In Mrs. Nishimura’s case, singing had a lot to do with it. She had joined this municipal choir only a few months ago. She had a rich, strong alto-all the Kobayashi daughters were blessed with good voices-but she had never done much with it. For a year or two, when her girls were small, she had sung in a short-lived choir consisting of fellow mothers on the PTA committee. Lately, with Momoko about to leave for college and Yashiko not far behind, she had felt a nameless yearning to sing again. On a whim she auditioned for Akimichi, a female choir known for its high standards. She told no one; she was embarrassed by her own audacity. But luckily there was an opening for a second alto and she was accepted-on the condition that she work hard to catch up.

The practices were rigorous, nothing like the PTA chorus in which the housewives had pleasantly passed the time. This choir director made them repeat, and repeat, and repeat a note until they got it right. Such intensity of effort did not allow for holding back, for being self-conscious. Soon Mrs. Nishimura forgot herself in the process of becoming a conduit for something larger than herself, something pure and exhilarating and rich and joyful that surged through her and dislodged tiny fragments that stayed swirling in suspension for hours afterward. With this constant outpouring of emotion, something within her began to shift. There was an imperceptible loosening of that airtight seal that had surrounded her feelings.