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took three times as long to cook food as it did for me to eat it, but I knew she was happy when I enjoyed her cooking.
    “Remind me, if I ever meet her, to thank your mother for teaching you to cook.” I arched my eyebrows and smirked. “Of course, I don’t know where you found time to learn, what with washing clothes in the creek all day.”
    She made a face. “My real mother never taught me to cook. I learned that from my adopted Mom. And the creek was before I left my family.”
    Okaasan rarely talked about her life in Japan, but I knew she’d gone to live with another family when she was a teenager. I’d asked her about it once, a long time ago, but never got a straight answer.
    “Why did you leave your family? Your real one, I mean.”
    She took a sip of tea. “My family lived an old-fashioned life, far from any cities. It was wonderful as a child—we could run barefoot in the grass and swim in the creek.” She stared at the wall behind me. “But schooling was difficult, and I wanted a different life.”
    “Wait a minute.” Something clicked into place. “Did you run away?!”
    Her cheeks turned pink. “You can never tell your father I told you this.”
    I nodded, but I was never going to let her live this down.
    She lowered her voice. “When I was fifteen, I spent a year in the city, as part of my studies. It was a rare opportunity, but I was a top student. It was so exciting, so much to see and do! When it was time for me to return home, I didn’t want to. Of course, my family was furious, but I insisted and my mother finally relented.” She smiled. “We had friends of the family in the city and my mother made arrangements. I became their adopted daughter and took their last name.”
    “Seriously?”
    “That isn’t so uncommon in Japan, even now.”
    She got up and started to pile the dishes into the sink. I stared at her back, wondering how I’d gotten to sixteen without questioning her odd life—which reminded me of what had happened in the garden that morning. I still didn’t know how she’d heard me.
    “You were very quiet,” she said without turning, “but I sensed you from the time you got out of bed. Your thoughts were not pure.”
    I choked on my milk, splattering my shirt, the floor, the table.
    She tossed me a towel.
    As I cleaned the milk off the floor, I glanced up. She was staring down, but not at me. She looked a million miles away.
    “Okaasan?”
    She raised her eyes to meet mine. “For some reason, your energy is stronger today, easier to sense.” She paused, looking uncertain. “No … it was harder to ignore.”
    “My energy ? Give me a break.” Then I remembered what I’d been thinking about in bed. My face went red. “Uh, can you hear all my unpure thoughts?”
    “Who has time for that?” she said, facing the sink again. “I tune in to things that require my attention, that’s all.”
    I stood up and tossed the wet towel onto the counter.
    “But how do you know when to listen?” That she could listen, I never doubted. Okaasan had always had an eerie way of knowing exactly what I was thinking or what I’d done—especially if I’d done something wrong.
    She shrugged. “Intuition is like …” She stopped, a wet hand going to her chin. “You just get this feeling, you know?”
    “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
    “It’s like becoming immersed in the stream of life,” she said. “The stream is always flowing around us. If you listen, everything you need to know is available to you.”
    I stared at her. “The stream?”
    She sighed and rolled her eyes. “How about a library? Can you imagine that?”
    I nodded.
    “Everything’s already written and the book lies open. But you have to turn the pages and read the words.” She smiled as if terribly proud of her definition.
    “Is that what you did yesterday, at Grandpa’s?” I frowned. “I’m sure you ran into the house before Lin starting yelling.”
    She thought a minute and then