The night before I left for Kagawa Prefecture from Tokyo in late December, my grandmother asked me imploringly, "You're still going to drive even though you know I have a bad heart?"
Shocked by the degree of her guilt-tripping, I smiled and reassured her that my friend was an experienced driver. Little did she know my "friend" would be a random assortment of strangers: families, couples, lone travelers — anyone willing to let me into their car.
I didn't like lying to her, but I reckoned if I ended up in a freezer instead of my destination, I could discuss the details with my grandmother in the afterlife.
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