Chapter 9 - The Father on the Porch
Spring melted into summer, and with it, the ghosts of my old life continued to fade.
Our three weeks in Japan had transformed Emma. The shy, hesitant little girl who had bitten her lip on her grandmother's carpet had returned to Ohio with an expanded horizon and an unbreakable spark in her step. She gave a twenty-minute presentation to her second-grade class about the Shinkansen bullet trains, showing off her collection of train stamps and dried cherry blossom leaves. Her teacher sent me an email that afternoon: *Emma spoke with so much confidence today. She was glowing.*
I had also made changes. I hired an interior designer to strip my home of anything that reminded me of my childhood. We painted the walls in warm, airy tones of cream and sage, filled the living room with live plants, and bought a grand piano that Emma had expressed an interest in learning to play.
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I hadn't spoken to my mother or Jessica since December. Their numbers remained blocked, their emails routed straight to an unread archive folder that I never opened.
My father, however, had not called. He had sent three handwritten letters through the mail over the course
