When my mother died, I told everyone I was flying to Japan because Aunt Sachiko shouldn't have to grieve alone. That wasn't really the whole truth. The truth was I didn't want anyone asking why I wasn't going back to work after the funeral. I'd already been laid off a month earlier and still hadn't found the courage to tell most people. Oliver knew, of course, but even with him I'd started pretending things were better than they were. Every morning I'd open my laptop, send out a handful of applications, get another rejection or, more often, no response at all, and by dinner we'd somehow be talking about my mother again. Grief has a way of swallowing every other problem. Losing your job feels selfish when you've just buried your mom, so eventually I stopped bringing it up altogether. Japan gave me an excuse to disappear for a while without having to explain why I needed to. Aunt Sachiko had lived alone since my uncle died nearly twenty years ago....