38. Dojin
THIRTY-EIGHT
DOJIN
Colette had texted the dinner invitation three days ago. Not an invitation—a summons. Thursday. Seven o’clock. The den. Bring her. I’m making the duck. Followed by a second text: Papa is carving. You know what that means. Followed by a third: Don’t be late. The sauce is time-sensitive and so am I.
His mother’s dinners were not meals. They were theatrical productions with courses, and tonight’s had been in rehearsal since the moment Colette had learned her son was keeping company with Hideo Saitō’s granddaughter.
Nari arrived at the den in a black dress that stopped above the knee and heels that brought her to his collarbone.
She’d done her hair differently—loose, falling past her shoulders—and the effect was immediate and thorough.
He froze mid-thought, a certainty he recognized from every irreversible thing he’d ever decided settling in behind his sternum.
“You look—”
“If you say ‘nice,’ I’m leaving.”
“Devastating was the word.”
She paused. Adjusted a nonexistent wrinkle in her dress. “Acceptable.” But her cheeks had darkened by a shade, and she was biting the inside of her lip, and he tracked both reactions with the satisfaction of a man who had been waiting for this woman to accept a compliment for two months.
Tracked. Not studied. There’s a difference. The difference matters.
Colette met them at the entrance to the gathering floor.
She was wearing the apron she wore for significant dinners—cream linen, hand-embroidered with tiny bees that Hana had stitched for her birthday.
Her hair was pinned in a French twist. Her eyes were assessing Nari the way a stage director assessed a lead on opening night: with hope, expectation, and the readiness to be either thrilled or annihilated.
“Nari.” Colette took both of Nari’s hands. Held them. Studied her face. “Ma chérie. I’ve heard so much.”
“All terrible, I hope.”
Colette laughed. The sound was operatic—full-bodied, pitched to carry, warm with delight. “Oh, I like her already. Come. The duck will not wait.”
Stellan was in the kitchen. Standing at the counter, carving knife in one hand, a block of cherry in the other.
Wood shavings curled on the surface around him like fallen leaves.
He looked up when they entered—ice-blue eyes in a weathered face, six and a half feet of retired CEO who had traded boardrooms for a woodworking bench and never looked back.
He nodded at Nari. Said nothing. Returned to carving.
Hana was setting the table. She’d arranged wildflowers in a low vase—lavender, chamomile, sprigs of rosemary that smelled like the rooftop garden.
She glanced at Nari and smiled. Small, warm, shy in a way that revealed the girl beneath the composed musician—one who still wrote, Nari suspected, even if the world no longer knew the name she wrote under.
Nari squeezed her arm as she passed. Hana squeezed back.
Course one arrived on handmade ceramic plates. Seared scallops with yuzu butter.
Colette: “Do you cook?”
Nari picked up her fork. “I cook well enough to feed myself and poorly enough to appreciate anyone who does it better. Which, based on these scallops, includes your entire family.”
Colette turned to Stellan. Stellan kept carving. Colette turned back to Nari with the expression of a woman collecting data points.
Course two. Roasted beet salad with goat cheese and honeycomb from the rooftop.
No interrogation question. Nari ate the honeycomb first. Dojin watched her close her eyes—the same unconscious pleasure from the first tasting, the small sound she didn’t authorize. The ache settled deep behind his ribs.
Course three. Wild mushroom risotto. Colette, stirring the pot: “Are you close with your family?”
“My grandmother calls me every morning at seven to discuss my emotional state and critique my breakfast choices. My mother texts me articles about vocal cord health she’s bookmarked at three a.m. My father once cross-examined my college boyfriend over appetizers until the boy excused himself to the bathroom and never came back.
” She took a bite of risotto. “We’re close. ”
Hana, across the table, covered her mouth. The laugh escaped through her fingers anyway. Dojin looked at his sister—the surprise of hearing her laugh at a dinner table, open and unguarded, and the ache that accompanied the surprise because it used to be common and hadn’t been for years.
Course four. Pan-seared salmon with miso glaze. No question. Colette was pacing herself.
Course five. Duck confit with cherry reduction. Colette set the plate down with the precision of a woman delivering a keynote.
“How do you feel about beekeeping? As a hobby. For a couple.”
“Maman.”
Nari didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate. Picked up her knife and cut into the duck with ruthless focus—she’d survived James Wixx’s interrogation dinners since childhood and was not about to be outmaneuvered by a French-opera-trained mother with a duck agenda.
“Yes to family, and the beekeeping is the most charming thing about your son, which is saying a lot because the bar is high.”
Colette turned to Stellan. Stellan looked up from his carving. They exchanged a glance that contained thirty-five years of marriage and approximately nine thousand wordless conversations.
Colette: “We’re keeping her.”
Stellan returned to the cherry. The ghost of a smile crossed his face, gone before it fully arrived, but Dojin caught it.
He’d been tracking his father’s micro-expressions since he was old enough to understand that Stellan Keiser spoke through the spaces between words, and that smile was a standing ovation.
Course six. Cheese plate with fig preserves.
Nari told Colette about the izakaya. Colette told Nari about the opera house in Lyon where she’d met Stellan—“He was in the third row. Enormous. Silent. Crying during the second act. I knew immediately.” Stellan: “I had allergies.” Colette: “You had feelings. Don’t rewrite the origin story, mon ours. ”
Course seven. Dark chocolate mousse with espresso cream. Colette set a plate in front of Nari, then rested her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder for three seconds. Three seconds. The benediction of a mother who had been watching all evening and had arrived at her conclusion.
Stellan set down his carving knife. Brushed the cherry shavings from the counter. Slid a small object across the table to Nari.
A bear. Carved in cherry. Three inches tall, sitting on its haunches, head tilted slightly to the side. The detail was extraordinary—individual hairs in the fur, the texture of the paws, the patient expression. It smelled like the forest after rain.
Nari picked it up. Turned it in her fingers. Ran her thumb over the carved fur with the same care Dojin had given her grandfather’s sketchbooks.
“Kodiak?”
Stellan nodded.
“Beautiful. Thank you.”
Stellan: “For people who matter.”
She put it in the pocket of her dress. Carefully.
The way a person pockets a diamond or a house key or a letter from someone who is no longer alive.
As though the pocket were a vault and the bear inside it were irreplaceable, because it was, and she understood that without being told, which is how Dojin knew she belonged at this table.
Hana stood to clear the plates. Nari stood with her.
Colette tried to object—“Guests don’t—”—and Nari was already in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, running water over the handmade ceramics.
She’d grown up in a household where guests cleared their own plates or answered to Suki Saitō, and the instinct was deeper than politeness.
Colette watched from the doorway. Turned to Dojin. Five words, delivered with a satisfaction that could only come from a seven-course strategy performing exactly as rehearsed:
“The duck never lies, darling.”