Read the excerpt from chapter 8 of Obasan by Joy Kogawa.I can hear the scratch slap of the tree's fingers by the kitchen window this morning. The tree's outline is blurred through the plastic covering the pane. Ever since Obasan’s operation for cataracts, she's lived in a darkened house. The branches of the tree are as elastic as whips in the gusts-slap clatter clatter, insistent as a drummer.