Summary

In the chapter "The Panama Hotel (1986)," Henry Lee watched as a crowd gathered at the Panama Hotel. The hotel was a symbol of the line between Chinatown and Nihonmachi, Japantown in Seattle. He had met the love of this life there more than forty years ago. Now Henry was widowed, his wife had just died following a long battle with cancer. He and his son were still at odds because Marty thought his mother should have been taken care of in a nursing home while Henry’s Chinese upbringing taught him loved ones should be taken care of by family members at home.

Inside the lobby of the hotel, which had been boarded up since 1950, the new owner told those gathered that something had been found in the basement. She opened a Japanese parasol and said it was among the...