For five years, my world was defined by the shrieking of grinding steel and the blinding white arc of a welding torch. In the industrial shipyards of Japan, I existed in a state of suspended animation—a machine made of muscle and sweat, banking every yen, driven by a singular, glowing ember of purpose: to buy my mother a life of ease. I, Paul Row, was the dutiful son, the provider, the ghost who sent money across the Pacific but never came home.
