Driving home from the airport, I found myself struggling almost immediately.

Dani’s father drove.

Every few seconds another driver offended him.

“What was that?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Doesn’t anybody know how to drive anymore?”

He searched the road for mistakes with the same attention I’d spent the last two weeks searching train windows for mountains, shrines, and unfamiliar neighborhoods.

I watched traffic instead.

One day earlier, I’d been on a bullet train watching Mount Fuji drift past the window.

Now brake lights stretched to the horizon.

~

The trip dissolved faster than I expected.

The stations.

The noodles.

The sound of train doors closing.

My kids on crowded platforms.

Even the long stretches of countryside slipping past the windows had already started feeling farther away than they should.

I wondered if anything had actually changed.

~

The next afternoon, I drove to my mom’s house to pick up our dog.

Traffic merged and separated around me.

Someone squeezed into my lane without enough room.

My hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Then loosened again.

There wasn’t anything else to do.

A few miles later another driver cut across two lanes to make an exit.

This time I barely noticed.

The spaces between the cars caught my attention instead—the gaps opening and closing, everyone finding their place for a few seconds before moving on again.

I drove the rest of the way watching that rhythm.

~

When I pulled into my mom’s driveway, our dog was already waiting at the front door.