AMID ALL THE UNREST of those years when I was ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen, the meaning of comfort became for me Yukako’s blended scents as we slept on her floor: the beeswax in her hair, the minerals from her bath, the cedar-and-geranium smell of the herbs she used to ward moths away from silk, and fainter smells, too, incense and powdered tea. Yu-ka-ko meant Evening Fragrance Child: her compounded smell was sweet and sharp, like fresh earth.
