She waited until I had filled the car and washed the windows and retrieved her change from the office before asking me what she had plainly come there to ask, the Pontiac requiring little more than a top-off. Of course I said yes. Even without the pay I was strangely intrigued by the shades of narrative I had been witness to during the previous visit. And there was another reason as well. On my days off I had taken to sitting in front of my typewriter and drinking—beer at first and eventually sipping from a bottle of vodka I kept hidden under my bed. In my writerly naïveté, I thought, at the time, that the drinking was but a shadow of my inability to get my writing done, my attempt to lubricate my imagination quickened by each hour in which the page was yet empty. It did not occur me, and would not for many years, that much of that impediment was held within the greasy confines of the bottle itself. Simply put, I needed something with which to occupy my thoughts and my imagination. Something besides Vietnam. And so it was that midweek, on my day off from the station, my aunt once again met me at my grandmother’s home and we set off once more for San Jose.

MRS. TAKAHASHI ALMOST SEEMED to be expecting us this time. Again she stood on the little porch of her bungalow when we pulled to a stop, watching as we exited the car and, also like the first time, Mrs. Wilson was pulled up short by that unwavering gaze. Both of them remained silent until we had reached the base of the little run of steps that led up to the porch and entrance, at which point Mrs. Takahashi said a single word: “Tea?” And when Mrs. Wilson did not answer, I did: “Please,” and Mrs. Takahashi turned and entered the house, leaving the door open behind her.

She was in the kitchen for some time, during which Mrs. ­Wilson and I sat in utter and total silence. When Mrs. ­Takahashi appeared at last it was with the same tray she had brought during our previous visit: the three cups—two ornate and delicate and one heavy and thick—the creamer, the little bowl of sugar cubes. “How are you, John?” she said quietly.

“Me?” I said. “I’m all right. I’m fine.”

“It’s kind of you to do the driving,” she said.

“It’s not a problem,” I mumbled.