On Sunday morning, after church services, Solomon and Phoebe took the train to Yokohama for lunch with his family.
As usual, the front door of the house was closed but unlocked, so they let themselves in. A designer friend of Etsuko’s had recently renovated it, and the house was unrecognizable from the one of Solomon’s childhood filled with dark American furniture. The designer had removed most of the original interior walls and knocked out the small back windows, replacing them with thick sheets of glass. Now it was possible to see the rock garden from the front of the house. Pale-colored furniture, white oak floors, and sculptural paper lamps filled the vast quadrant near the woodburning stove, leaving the large, square-shaped living room light and uncluttered. In the opposite corner of the room, tall branches of forsythia bloomed in an enormous celadon-colored ceramic jar on the floor. The house looked like a glamorous Buddhist temple.
Mozasu came out from the den to greet them.
“You’re here!” he said to Phoebe in Korean. When she spent time with Solomon’s family, the group spoke three languages. Phoebe spoke Korean with the elders and English with Solomon, while Solomon spoke mostly in Japanese to the elders and English to Phoebe; with everyone translating in bits, they made it work somehow.
Mozasu opened the shoe closet by the door and offered them house slippers.
“My mother and aunt have been cooking all week. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Something smells wonderful,” she said. “Is everyone in the kitchen?”
Phoebe smoothed her navy pleated skirt.
“Yes. I mean, sorry, no. Etsuko couldn’t be here today. She’s very sad to miss you. She asked me to apologize.”
Phoebe nodded, glancing briefly at Solomon. It seemed impolite for her to ask where Etsuko was, but she couldn’t understand why Solomon didn’t ask his father where she was. Phoebe was curious about Etsuko. She was the only person Phoebe couldn’t speak to directly, because neither woman spoke the other’s language. Also, she wanted to meet Hana, who was never around.
Solomon grabbed Phoebe’s hand and led her to the kitchen. Around his family, he felt younger than usual, almost giddy. The scents of all his favorite dishes filled the wide hallway connecting the front of the house with the kitchen.
“Solomon is here!” he shouted, no different than when he’d come home from school as a boy.
Kyunghee and Sunja stopped their work immediately and looked up, beaming. Mozasu smiled, seeing their happiness.
“Phoebe is here, too, Solomon!” Kyunghee said. She wiped her hands on her apron, then came out from behind the thick marble counter to embrace him.
Sunja followed her and put her arm around Phoebe’s waist. Sunja was a head shorter than Phoebe.
“This is for both of you.” Phoebe gave her a box of candy from the Tokyo branch of an exclusive French chocolate shop.
Sunja smiled. “Thank you.”
Kyunghee untied the ribbon to take a peek. It was a large box of glazed fruits dipped in chocolate. Delighted, she said, “This looks expensive. You kids should be saving money at your age. But the candies look so delicious! Thank you.”
She inhaled the chocolate aroma dramatically.
“It’s so good to have you here,” Sunja said in Korean, folding Phoebe’s slender shoulders into her thick embrace.
Phoebe loved being with Solomon’s family. It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket. Phoebe’s parents had at least five or six siblings each, and she had grown up with well over a dozen cousins just in California. There were relatives in New York, New Jersey, DC, Washington State, and Toronto. She had dated a couple of Korean American guys and had met their families, but Solomon’s family was different. Solomon’s family was warm but far more muted and intensely watchful. None of them seemed to miss anything.
“Is that for pajeon?” Phoebe asked. The mixing bowl was filled with creamy pancake batter flecked with thin slices of scallion and chunks of scallops.
“You like pajeon? So does Solomon! How does your umma make it?” Kyunghee asked; her tone was casual, though she held strong opinions about the ratio of scallions to shellfish.
“My mother doesn’t cook,” Phoebe said, looking only a little embarrassed.
“What?” Kyunghee gasped in horror and turned to Sunja, who raised her eyebrows, sharing her sister-in-law’s surprise.
Phoebe laughed.
“I grew up eating pizza and hamburgers. And lots of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I love the KFC corn on the cob.” She smiled. “Mom worked in my dad’s medical office as his office manager and was never home before eight o’clock.”