Swimming to Tokyo Read Online Free

knows it.
    “Kingston is close to Boston. You can track down Finn O’Leary for that coffee.”
    “Yeah, great idea. I’m sure if he saw me again, he wouldn’t even recognize me.”
    “Well, didn’t you say you saw him after you went running? You weren’t exactly at your best then.”
    I yank at my hair. “I’m not exactly at my best now.” And all of a sudden I’m crying again. Not the hysterical crying from before, but tears spill over and run down my cheeks. Mindy gets up from the floor and picks up her keys. “Where are you going?”
    “You need to talk to your dad. Come on.” She pulls me up before I can tell her that’s the last thing I need and leads me downstairs.
    Dad’s left Babci to her programs and the door to his so-called study is ajar. It used to be a walk-in closet, but when Mom’s hospital bed got set up in the dining room, Dad moved a desk in and the coats out so he could be near enough to hear her but far enough away not to wake her with his typing. I’m not sure why he’s kept it, except that it gives him a door to close like a desk in the corner of the dining room doesn’t.
    Mindy knocks and then pushes the door. “Mr. Easton, I have to go. But I think Zo needs to talk to you.” She hugs my shoulders and leaves me standing in the middle of the rug my mom bought in Dubai when I was thirteen. Mom and I had tagged along on one of Dad’s work trips and turned it into a family vacation. It was our last one. Pre-cancer.
    Dad comes up and stops just shy of embracing me. Between him and Mom, he was never the touchy one, and he still isn’t. But I’m still teary, so he closes the gap between us and puts his arm around me to lead me to the tiny loveseat crammed between the door and the desk. He kisses my hair, and I let myself sink into him in the soft cushions.
    “I’m sorry, Zo,” he whispers, and it sets off a fresh batch of tears.
    It takes a while for me to get it together, but I finally lean away, dabbing my eyes with the soggy tissue I’ve been clutching. “It’s fine, Dad. It is.” My words are automatic.
    “I know, Zo. It is.”
    It’s not even a little bit fine, but the lines in Dad’s forehead are deep, like they get when he’s really worried. They’ve smoothed out over the past year, but now they’re etched in and I can tell he’s off-the-chart anxious. I’ve tried my damnedest not to add to them, and I’m not about to start now, even as I swallow the lump in my throat and squeak, “I’ll be off at school anyway and you’d be here alone. I was just so surprised about Tokyo and the house. I can’t imagine not coming back here on break, and someone else living with our stuff. Mom’s stuff. She was always so…particular…and what if they’re not? What if they don’t care the way she did?”
    “I know. I just…Zo, I can’t.” His voice cracks, and I’m so shocked I sit there staring at him for a good twenty seconds before I throw my arms around his neck. Dad hasn’t cried since we packed Mom’s things away in the attic. When he finally leans away, he’s really flustered. “God, Zo, I’m sorry. It’s so hard.”
    I want to scream, “If it’s so fucking hard, don’t do it.”
    But I don’t.
    “Mom would want you to. She would, even if the people who move in here are total slobs. I mean, that’s why she didn’t want a grave, because she didn’t want us to be obligated to a place. I mean, Tokyo. She’d be all over that.” Even though I’m saying this for Dad’s benefit, it’s actually not far from the truth.
    “Can you imagine your mother speaking Japanese?” Dad and I both smile at the image of my mom with her strong Polish accent trying to say arigato .
    “Can you imagine you speaking Japanese?” I smile a little more at this, since Dad’s horrible with languages. Even after twenty years of Babci’s efforts to teach him Polish, he still only knows the basics, although that might be a little passive-aggressive on his part.
    “I got