“What do you like about my brother?”

“Yo-shi-hi-ro is like this giant ball of energy, you know—I just couldn't keep my eyes off him. I'm not just talking about some sort of physical energy. The thing I felt was something that came bubbling up from inside him, you know, something that will never ran out, something extremely intellectual. I feel like just being with him makes it possible for me to keep changing, turning into something new, like I'll be able to make my way to someplace really far away, but in a way that's totally natural.”

“What are you studying? Will you go back to school in Boston?”

“I'm studying Japanese culture. And I'll be going back a year from now. . . . It'll be hard for me to leave Yo-shi-hi-ro, but my parents are completely in love with Japan, they come over all the time, and then Yoshihiro has been saying that he'd like to come to the U.S. sometime, so I'm sure we'll meet again. Right now I'm putting every ounce of energy I have into studying Japanese. Except that for me, studying is basically just something I like to do—a kind of hobby. I'm sure I'll go on studying for the rest of my life, you know, but at the same time I really want to become a good mother, just like my mother. And for that reason I find Japanese women very interesting. I feel the same way about a lot of things as this Japanese Girl you hear so much about, I can sympathize with her more than I do with American girls. Because I think that certain parts of me aren't very American, you know? I guess eventually I'll end up marrying some businessman, maybe someone like my father, an international businessman. And then I want to put together a pleasant, bright, stable household.”

“Do you think . . . I mean, it's possible my brother will become something international, but do you think he's got what it takes to be a businessman?”

“You're right, he doesn't. You get the feeling he'd be fired pretty quickly. They wouldn't like it that he's always thinking of himself.”

“Of course he's still in high school, right? Maybe he'll change. I think it'd be great if he got interested in that kind of work. Maybe you could kind of steer him in that direction . . . ?”

This was a totally childlike thing to say, a thought even more distant than a dream. But Sarah was still enough of a child that she could have such dreams, and she had enough leeway to do so. The courage of a person who has no fear of the future. She laughed and then started to speak, with a look on her face like she was dreaming. Her eyes were those of someone who's just fallen in love, someone who sees nothing but her lover, someone who has no tear of anything. The eyes of someone who believes that every dream will come true, that reality will move if you just give it a push.