I thought I might receive some explanation then but when it became clear I was not immediately ready to flee the house for the sunlight of the front yard, my aunt fell once more into silence. I might have pressed her with a question or two had Mrs. Takahashi not reappeared, bearing a plastic tray upon which rested two delicate teacups and a third that was more solid in nature, ceramic and of the style one might have found at a roadside diner. Next to the cups rested a tiny ornate bowl stacked with sugar cubes and a matching pitcher of cream. We set about putting our tea together. It was a task I really did not know how to do, truth be told, and so I followed Mrs. Wilson’s lead. Mrs. Takahashi had taken the heavier cup the moment she set the tray down, reserving the two more delicate vessels for Mrs. Wilson and me, as a result of which I spent the rest of my time in Mrs. Takahashi’s home worrying about breaking the cup and saucer, both of which seemed so thin that even grasping the tiny handle felt a step toward disaster.

After a time, we settled again into our seats and the awkward chitchat resumed, the whole of it setting my teeth on edge as the two of them, without moving from their seats and sometimes without even speaking, circled each other like lions on the plains of the Serengeti. Why this was the case I did not know and could not even guess, nor could I even begin to understand why Mrs. Wilson had asked me to drive her all the way to San Jose to meet with a person that, at least from my point of view, she seemed to have little interest in actually speaking with.

“Is your husband well?” Mrs. Wilson said soon after we had resumed our positions in the room.

“Yes, he’s fine.”

“Has he retired?”

“He won’t retire,” Mrs. Takahashi said. “Too restless . . .”

“What’s he doing, then?”

“He works in a grocery,” she said.

“Grocery? Is that so?”

Mrs. Takahashi nodded resolutely but said nothing more and did not ask the same questions of Mrs. Wilson, letting the whole conversation pause yet again. If she wondered at all why my aunt had driven—or had me drive—the two hours and forty minutes it had taken us to get from Newcastle to San Jose, she gave no indication of it. She sat clutching her teacup and offering no quarter at all, not even asking what Mrs. Wilson might have wanted or why she might have come, putting even the announcement of that desire on the shoulders of the woman who had arrived in her living room, apparently unannounced.