She came face to face with a scruffy looking elderly man sitting in the front passenger seat with her phone.

Two things passed through her mind, she was too young to die, and why hadn’t she locked the damned Toyota’s door!

THREE POINTS OF A TRIANGLE BY KAREN BREMER MASUDA 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 48

For Janie Matsushita the run to the elevator in the freezing cold morning felt like punishment. She’d left the phone in the car and had no choice but to go down and get it. Never mind, she would be back in the apartment in no time, back to the warmth of indoors and her family on this wintry Sunday. As she boarded the elevator Janie held tightly to her arms, shivering.

It was warm in the apartment, even if the girls weren’t talking to her, her husband, Kazu, lay like a beached whale in front of the TV, incommunicative as ever, and Toma was in his room gaming. These days when her family was gathered in one place, a collective boredom settled and bickering commenced. Who started it? If she tried to make things right by being bright and cheery she often got a sulky “leave me alone” grunt from one or …