She set their barley tea on the table as he eyed a wall-hanging in the tokonoma.
“Normally the altar’s closed,” she said, looking at Sedge across the room. “I light incense there every morning, but I’m not as diligent as I should be about changing the offerings. Riku used to help me, even though he’s not direct family. But he doesn’t anymore.”
“It’s beautiful. Your entire house is a work of art.”
She laughed. “If it’s art, it wouldn’t fetch a high price. In the mountains and countryside, houses like this are a dime a dozen.”
The naturalness of being here with her, the unpretentiousness of the atmosphere inside her home, made him think he could spend the next hour just chatting with her. But he remembered why he was here and said, “Shall we get started?”
He began organizing the lesson. He had expected to be struck by her husband’s presence—and by association, with Nozomi’s—but there were no obvious signs of it: no photos of him, no certificates of achievement framed on the walls, none of his Kutani-ware on display.
He spoke to her in English using simple grammatical structures and vocabulary. He changed the speed with which he spoke, too, but it quickly became evident that her English abilities ranked among the worst in his ryokan classes. Yet she was more attentive than those students, more intent on learning.
Half an hour into the lesson the front door slammed open and shut, rattling the glass in its pane. Sedge’s back was to the genkan, and though Mariko ignored the interruption, he turned to see the boy he’d heard much about. He stood atop the genkan step, his chin tilted down as his eyes shifted between Sedge and his stepmother. He was around Sedge’s height, with a wrestler’s strong wiry build, and his dusky skin indicated time spent in the sun. His face was round, his jawbone thick, and his hair was short against his scalp, which was marked with a few pink scars. When he wiped the rain from his face, Sedge noticed his hands were cut and bruised. So strongly did he resemble the photo Mariko had shown him of her husband, for a moment Sedge apprehended that they were finally in each other’s presence again.
“Hello,” Sedge said.
“Hello,” the boy murmured back.
Mariko waved him into the room. He came over, not stomping but walking with a forcefulness that shook the floor.
“This is my teacher, Sedge-sensei,” she said.
The boy’s face relaxed and he smiled. “Suga,” he said.
Mariko asked Sedge if he minded the boy using the Japanese word for his name.
“Not at all,” he answered. To the boy he said: “I was told your name’s Riku. What does it mean?”
When Riku didn’t answer, Mariko explained: “The first kanji means ‘overcome.’ The second means ‘sky.’ Together they don’t necessarily mean anything. His parents just liked the sound of it.”
She told Riku to dry himself off. “You’re dripping on the tatami.”
Riku left the room to find a towel. Again, the floor shook under his footsteps.
Sedge continued his lesson. With ten minutes remaining, Riku returned, dressed in pajamas old Japanese men often wear, and poured himself a glass of water in the kitchen. After gulping it down, he marched into the room beneath the stairs and flipped on the TV there. Sedge noticed with annoyance its volume rise. A minute later Riku called out to ask when Mariko would help him with his math. When she ignored him, Sedge saw in this an effective way to deal with her stepson.
They continued their practice conversation. Riku returned to their room and placed himself behind Mariko, leaning into her and groaning like he was bored. Sedge again noticed the facial resemblance between Riku and his father and stopped teaching. Rather than make eye contact with Riku, and inadvertently encourage his disruptive behavior, Sedge instead studied Mariko, waiting for her to admonish the boy.
“English is difficult for me,” she said, still leaning forward under Riku’s weight. She attempted to ignore him again; a moment later Riku laughed, then abruptly turned serious and lifted himself off her thin shoulders.
“It’s good if it’s difficult,” Sedge said. “It should feel like a challenge, but not hopeless.”
“You’re too old to learn anything,” Riku said, stifling a laugh.
“Don’t say that,” Sedge retorted. “It’s not true, anyway. How do you think I learned Japanese?”
Mariko smiled hesitantly. “He’s only a boy, you know.”
“He shouldn’t interrupt us while we’re studying.”
Mariko sighed and looked at Riku without saying anything. “You didn’t mean anything by it, did you?”
Riku was staring at Sedge the way he did when he first entered the house. The boy smacked the end of their table with the palm of his hand and walked quickly to the genkan.
“Rik-kun!” Mariko called out as he kicked his feet into his shoes and stalked outside, slamming the door again. Through the veranda window, Sedge watched him cross the stone path toward the kura. He wasn’t sorry to see him go.
He rose to turn off the TV. When he returned, it was time to end their lesson. Rather than sit down again, he pushed his chair under the table.
“I thought the lesson went well. Unfortunately, there were too many interruptions.”
“I’m sorry about Riku. He’s not a bad kid. It’s because you’re new to him, and we rarely have anyone come inside our home. I could see he was eager to impress you.”
“Is that what he was doing?” Sedge let her keep the textbook he’d brought. “When you have time, maybe you can study this on your own.”
When he looked at her he saw that his manner had hurt her.
“Next time,” she promised, “Riku won’t bother us.”
Sedge couldn’t bring himself to apologize. He had no experience admonishing a boy Riku’s age and wished Mariko had done it herself. Even so, he knew he shouldn’t have grown angry at something that was ultimately inconsequential.
The boy had elicited in Sedge a reaction he couldn’t comprehend.
On the way out he passed the room beside the genkan. Glancing through a narrow opening between the sliding door and a wall, the hallway light illuminated a pair of shelves inside, a display case, and a table filled with Kutani-ware and their tomobako storage boxes. There was no question but that the ceramics were her husband’s.
“Why do you have all this?” he said, confused.
“What do you mean?”
