I think you should come out as an artist.

You could do your art for the rest of the year, after you come out with the paintings you have, and prepare for your role as the mother of the most colorful rags-to-riches Shogun ever in Japan.

ARTFUL BY KAREN BREMER MASUDA 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 81

The little shrine was at the end of a street along the canal. Momoko stopped and stared at it. She wanted to put her hands together in respect for whoever had died except there was the word “Rejoice!” painted in English next to it.

“An Easter celebration a couple of weeks ago,” said an elderly man with salt and pepper hair, dressed in a brown tweed jacket and a bright blue shirt. He pointed to the word rejoice and then to the Russian Orthodox church’s round dome and golden cross on the rugged mountainside down the coast.

“A seeing-eye dog died here,” he said. He smiled at her, and she had the impression that he knew who she was. She didn’t want it to be known that she was back in her home town for her father’s funeral.

She had avoided…