"Your phone rings in the middle of the night. As you reach blindly to answer, do you fear that someone you love has been in an accident? Has suddenly died? For a time, early in my marriage to Jihong, such calls would often wake us. The phone was on Jihong's side of the bed. He'd lift the receiver to his ear and mumble a dazed hello. "Go back to Japan!" a loud male voice would yell, or something worse. Jihong would hang up. We nestled in each other's arms. You're paying a sad price for living 'in freedom,' I said to him, in my mind." Phyllis Cole-Dai shares more in this poignant and timely piece.
