QUOTES

• "her father embarked at sunrise"
• "samurai sword"
• "full of powerful incantations"
• "but half way there, she though, recounting it later to her children, he must have looked far down at the little fishing boats strung out like bunting."
• "like a huge flag waved first one way then the other in a figure eight,"
• "And though he came back my mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes"
• "he no longer existed"
• "only we children still chattered and laughed.... till gradually we too learned to be silent, to live as though he had never returned"