In Bangkok, Satsuki stayed mainly with her Detroit friends. Those were the ones she felt most comfortable with. She had worked at the university hospital in Detroit for almost ten years, researching the immune function of the thyroid gland. Eventually she had had a falling-out with her securities analyst husband, whose dependency on alcohol had grown worse year by year, in addition to which he had become involved with another woman someone satsuki knew well. They separated, and a bitter feud involving lawyers had dragged on for a full year. "The thing that finally did it for me," her husband claimed, "was that you didn't want to have children They had finally concluded their divorce settlement three years ago. A few months later, someone smashed the headlights of her Honda Accord in the hospital parking lot and wrote"JAP CAR" on the hood in white letters. She called the police. A big black policeman filled out the damage report and then said to her, "Lady, this is Detroit. Next time buy a Ford Taurus what with one thing and another, Satsuki became fed up with living in America and decided to return to Japan. She found a position at a university hospital in Tokyo. "You can't do that," said a member of her research team from India"All our years of research are about to bear fruit. We could be nominated to a Nobel Prize-it's not that crazy," he pleaded with her to stay, but Satsuki's mind was made up. Something inside her had snapped.