Asaki padded down the long hall toward the kitchen. It was time to make advance preparations for dinner. She hadn’t cooked in years. She had given it up when her daughter became the lady of the house. It was good to be back in charge again while her daughter was away. But ara, what was this unwelcome intrusion? Mr. Nishimura was vacuuming the tatami floor of the informal dining area, wearing a thin undershirt and jogging pants. He did this every Sunday on his day off—Mrs. Asaki always heard the vacuum cleaner from the other side of the house—but she’d never realized how much he spread himself around in the process. The low table, pushed off to the side, was piled with his Sunday newspapers. Two empty bottles of beer stood among them. His jogging jacket lay flung into a corner of the room, and the radio had been switched to some unfamiliar station playing enka, those heartfelt torch songs heard in traditional drinking houses. At his mother-in-law’s entrance, Mr. Nishimura’s expansive air shrank.
