We Are Not Free

After our examinations, we’re reunited with Fred and assigned to our new home.

Expect it isn’t home.

I lean against the splintering doorframe. Home was our San Francisco apartment- it’s carved banisters, Mom’s fine china, the worn velvet cushion where I used to practice at my piano for hours, the music drifting out over the busy street below.

Home smelled of wood polish and fermenting tsukemono and Dad’s cigars.

[…] I try playing one of Chopin’s nocturnes on the edge of my blanket, but I stop after twelve measures. The sound here are all wrong: I should be hearing cars passing on the streets and foghorns in the distance, not our neighbor snoring next door and worried snippets of Japanese from the far end of the stables.