She lay on her stomach, then pushed her chest off the ground, arching her back. That felt so good! Then she lay on her back and gazed at the beautiful sky, a few white clouds passing through the blue. Somehow the sky seemed more beautiful here than the sky over Tule Lake, but she knew that must be all in her mind. “I’m in Japan,” she said out loud. “I’m planting rice.” Day after day in Japanese school at Tule Lake, she’d thought about whether she would really ever go to Japan and when. And now here she was, eventually to be gone again, leaving behind her brokenhearted jiichan and baachan . . . both of whom were now moving swiftly down the rows, planting, planting, planting.
Hanako trudged back into the field and began placing more seedlings into the mud. She was surprised to find that she was better at it than she had been before. She still moved slowly compared to her grandparents, but there were fewer “leaners” that she needed to replant. She tried to forget that there were probably leeches on her legs at that very moment. She remembered reading once about how they injected anesthetic into your skin so you couldn’t feel them biting into you.
And then something took her breath away. She heard an unfamiliar noise, and she looked up to see a flock of white birds flying low over the field, their wings making a noise like sheets flapping in a hard breeze. Baachan and Mama stood up to watch, but Jiichan doggedly worked. The birds swooped up then and higher into the air until they vanished.
Akira tugged at Hanako’s arm. “I know what that was.”
“Cranes?” she guessed. “Ducks?” But they hadn’t looked like cranes or ducks.
“That was the spirits from the mountains,” he said knowingly. “We’ll have a lot of rice this year.” He pointed at his head. “Brains, neh?”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
The next morning, Hanako and Akira slept very late, as they liked to do. When Hanako finally woke up, Akira was still snoring softly. Her back ached. She thought the rumbling in her stomach had woken her up. But then she realized that Mama was calling to her, not urgently.
She hopped out of bed and hurried to the living room in her underpants and undershirt—she still did not have new pajamas. Kiyoshi and Mimi were standing there! Mimi pointed at her and laughed. “Shitagi!” That meant “underwear.” Mimi started laughing so hard, she couldn’t stop.
“Oh!” Hanako ran back into the bedroom and grabbed Mama’s pajamas—the purple coat was in the living room. The pajamas were big, but she hurried back into the living room anyway.
Hanako wasn’t sure who she should address first. Her entire family was staring at her as if waiting for her to speak. She decided on Papa. “This is Kiyoshi and his little sister, Mimi.”
Kiyoshi bowed deeply and stayed down while Hanako continued, “And . . . and, Papa, he’s a friend of mine, and, and, Papa”—okay, it was now or never, so she blurted out, “Can he work for Jiichan and Baachan in the rice fields? Please?”
Kiyoshi turned his focus on Papa. The boy got that evaluating look in his face. Then he said, “I’m a very hard worker. I work so hard, I’ll do the work of three men.”
Papa evaluated him in return. Then he said, “Hana, I’m sorry to ask, but can he work?” His eyes rested on Kiyoshi’s injured hand.
For a moment Kiyoshi seemed to be frozen. Then he demanded, “Watch!” He picked an empty teacup off the table with his claw, tossed the cup high into the air, and caught it easily as Baachan gasped. “My hand is even better now than it was before. It’s better now because I work on it every day.”
Papa and Jiichan glanced at each other without speaking.
And finally Jiichan nodded. “We hire young people many year. But we cannot pay much. Not much at all.” To Kiyoshi, he explained in Japanese, “You come back in the early morning one week from now. You must work hard, though.”
“He’ll work hard!” Hanako exploded. “I promise! Jiichan, he’s the one we saw in the train station!”
“He mustn’t steal, though,” Mama chimed in.
“He won’t, I promise!” Hanako assured them, and hoped it was true. She reminded herself to tell her grandparents to hide the rice in the locker at all times.
Mimi had wandered over to where the purple coat lay draped over a basket. “Can I have your coat?” she asked plaintively, stroking it like it was a cat.
Hanako rushed over and took the coat from her. “No, I’m sorry. That’s my special thing!”
But she had scared Mimi, sending her running over to her brother to bury her head in his legs.
“I’m sorry,” Kiyoshi said to Hanako. “She has nothing, and she’s little. She doesn’t understand. We don’t want your special thing.”
He bowed deeply to all of them one at a time, even to Akira, who had just appeared in his own underwear. Then, seemingly on a whim, he even bowed to Mimi. “Next week, then.” He picked up his little sister and departed.
Hanako heard sniffling and saw it was her grandmother. “Baachan! Don’t worry, he’ll work hard!”
Nobody spoke, just kind of squinted at her. All five of them!
“What is it?” Hanako asked with alarm.
Papa half groaned, half moaned before saying, “I. Have. Made. So. Many. Big. Decisions. Over and over the last few years.” He paused. “I should say ‘we.’ We’ve all made a decision.” He studied the floor, as if he saw something extremely interesting there. He even kicked at this imaginary thing with a foot. Then he continued, his forehead wrinkling as he looked at Hanako. “A judge has decided that Wayne Collins won’t be allowed to get our citizenship back with a class-action lawsuit. A class action would mean he only has to prepare one court case, and all the thousands of us could get our citizenship back at once. Instead, he must do each of us one by one. That means . . .” He held out his hands as if it were obvious, but it wasn’t, not to Hanako. “It could take many years. Many, many years. It will take sooner for some and longer for others.”
Hanako tried to understand what he was saying. She did not have her brother’s brain! “So we’ll be staying here for a long time, then?” she asked at last. Every time Papa and Mama made a decision, it shook her up deeply, no matter what the decision was. They were leaving in maybe a couple of years? Shook her up deeply! Staying for a long time instead? Shook her up deeply! So she would be a tenant farmer after all? She jerked her head a couple of times, trying to comprehend.
“That’s what we need to tell you. Your mother and I will need to stay here until we get our citizenship back. It could take as long as five years.” He looked down again. “It could take twenty.” He turned his head to the side, holding his eyes closed for half a minute. “We are . . . your mother and I have decided . . .”
Hanako stood very still. “What, Papa?”
“We are going to need to send you and Akira back to live with your auntie Jean.”
Hanako’s whole body felt white-hot. “But . . . you mean we wouldn’t live with you?”
Papa sat on the table. Hanako had never seen anyone do that before. It seemed such an odd thing for a Japanese person to do. He looked at his palms, touched two of his fingertips together. For no reason. “Hanako, we must send you back. There is no future for you and Akira here.” He stood up like that was the end of the conversation. “It’s hard to get ahead in America, but at least it’s possible.”
“My parent were tenant farmer,” Jiichan reminded her. “My grandparent, too. My great-grandparent were less even than that.”
Baachan was crying, a string of drool falling to the tatami. “You will never own anything; you will always worry for food. I like very much you own something. Eat, ah, peanut butter.” She pronounced it “but-erroo.” “We do not even own this house. We live here many year. We do what we want with house, but we do not own.” There was a silence, and then she added, “Even if only table.” She gestured at theirs. “This table come with house when we rent. There are many table in America you can own. Many peanut butter. Akira will get sick of it, there is so much!”
Hanako f
elt so many things at that moment. She felt things that were total opposites! She felt that she never wanted to leave her parents and grandparents, and she felt that she did not want to be a tenant farmer her whole life. She did not want to spend her life with leeches covering her legs, she did not want her back to bend out of shape, and yet she never wanted to leave this house. Hanako reached for her braid . . . but of course it was still gone.
Papa closed his eyes tightly, a couple of tears squeezing out anyway. “A table . . .” was all he said. “Hana, it’s not the table.” He paused, turned to his mother. “Okaasan, what I mean is that I understand what you’re saying. You know, maybe it’s me being selfish. But I don’t want to think that all I’m doing is working to survive so that my children have to work only to survive. All right then, a table, if you will! Why shouldn’t you own your own table?” Then he slumped over as if in agony. He lifted his head, opened his arms to Akira. Akira ran hard into him, bumping into Papa’s stomach as they hugged each other.
“Ow, you’re hurting me!” Akira screamed.
Papa loosened his grip. He stared into Akira’s eyes like he saw something very sad there.
“You’re scaring me!”
So Papa let him go, and Akira ran to Mama.
“But, Papa,” Hanako said. She was trying to get everything straight in her head. She wasn’t sure she understood! “Papa?” She felt almost delirious—and then she thought of Kiyoshi—all alone taking care of his sister all by himself. Doing anything he could for her. And she cried, “Do you mean I’m going to be responsible for Akira all by myself?”
“Of course not! You’re just a child!”
“But why won’t you come with us?” Akira shouted. “Mama, come with us!”
“We can’t—we can’t go anywhere in the world,” Mama said sadly. “We can only go here, because we aren’t citizens anywhere.”
Akira put his palms over his ears. “I’m not going! I’m not listening, either!”
But Mama held him and rocked him and sang songs that Hanako had not heard since Akira was a baby, songs about falling asleep and moonbeams and angels.
Akira was staring into space with his special dead-eyed look. “But they like their own kids better!” Akira said. “You like me better. You like me better than Hanako.”
Hanako didn’t think that was true, but for now Mama didn’t deny it. She winked at Hanako.
“Of course I do. I love you best in the world,” Mama said soothingly.
“You love me more than anyone.”
“Of course I do. Everybody loves you best.”
Hanako started to say she loved him best also, just to make him feel better, but then a thought occurred to her.
“They do—they love their own kids best!” Hanako suddenly exclaimed, as if accusing Mama and Papa of something. “Akira will have me to love him best, but . . . who will I have?” She burst into tears.
Akira pushed free of Mama and ran to Hanako now, falling into her arms. “I’ll love you best, Hana!”
They held on to each other for dear life. Hanako felt if she let go of her brother, they would both drown right in the middle of the living room.
“Hana, Aki . . . ,” Mama was saying. “Did you know, Hanako, that my sister was there when I delivered you in the bathtub at our little house? I saw her clean you off. She didn’t have children yet, and I had to remind her to give you to me. She didn’t want to let go. She will take good care of you. If I didn’t trust her, I would never send you back to America.”
Hanako was suddenly five years old! She stomped her foot and crossed her arms. “I don’t remember that!”
“You were just a newborn,” Mama said.
Hanako’s chest felt so hot that she slipped a hand under the pajamas to feel it: it felt normal.
Papa cleared his throat. “As long as we’re talking about all of this, there’s one more thing you must hear. If we are lucky enough that your baachan and jiichan are still alive when your mother and I get our citizenship back, if we get it back, I will stay here to take care of them. I will not leave them alone. But your mother will return at that point.”
Hanako gaped. “That could be twenty years!”
“We don’t know,” Papa said, holding out his palms as if to prove they were empty, as if to prove he was not trying to trick her. “We don’t know.”
“We will not live long,” Jiichan said soothingly. “Do not worry that we will take your father away from you.”
“I want you to live long!” Hanako said, still shouting. Then she added, “I want him to stay with you!” She did not want them to be alone, ever! Ever!
And so . . . what was happening was in fact what had to happen. Given their choices. And something dawned on her: Kiyoshi had no such choices. He would probably never own so much as a table.
But then, very suddenly, Hanako had a thought—an important thought. “But Papa said America destroyed our lives! He said that once.”
Baachan grunted loudly and sat down on the floor. She often grunted when she lowered herself. Sometimes her grunts were almost groans. She leaned back and tried to look up at Hanako. “Hana-chan. I don’t know many other country, but I think every country can destroy your life if thing go wrong. Every one. But you need go to place where you have best chance at good future. You have only two choice: Japan and United State.”
Hanako stared stonily at the tatami, right at a hole. All the things in her grandparents’ house—all the things they didn’t even own—were old. They had worked in the fields their whole lives, and now they were old. But she thought of the few things they did own, like the small stuffed animals with hers and Papa’s names on them. There was probably one for Akira as well. If her grandparents owned a million things, maybe they wouldn’t even have thought to save those stuffed animals.
Baachan got up and began stroking her hair. “It very nice to have you here. I appreciate so much. Best time of my life, and I never forget.” She nodded her head a few times. “I never forget.” Her eyes got a faraway look. Then her face grew bright. “Yes, I already remembering when I first see you. I never forget that.”
CHAPTER
FORTY
Later that evening, when Hanako and Baachan were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, Hanako asked, “Will you please come to America when my parents get their citizenship back?”
Baachan smiled at her patiently. “Oh, I may be dead by then.”
“No!”
Baachan nodded. “Even if only five year, I hope I be alive, but maybe I be dead. Don’t look so worry; when you old, you understand will die someday. Anyway, I stay here now. I too old to move. I don’t even like walk so much anymore.” She smiled again. She had been looking at Akira and Hanako all night and smiling.
Baachan left for her bath, and Hanako washed and dried the dishes and put them away. It would not be an easy trip, going back to America. She thought of the journey to Japan on the ship and how awful it would be making that same trip back, this time without her parents. But she knew that sometimes merciful people could just appear suddenly. It happened. There was a time in Jerome when she got lost in the barracks in a storm. Her dress was covered in mud. All the barracks looked exactly alike. And out of nowhere a middle-aged couple had found her. The man had picked her up. She hadn’t even remembered her barrack number, but somehow they had figured out where she belonged. Maybe sometimes you just had to go out into the world and trust what would happen. You had to trust that there were good people in the world. Like Mr. Collins. Like that couple. Like her family. This was life. This, she knew, was also kintsukuroi. Putting broken things back together with gold. That was what Mr. Collins was doing, it seemed to her, but it would take a long time.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Papa talked to Mr. Collins several more times. He said he did not think the man could possibly sleep more than a few hours a night. Otherwise, how would he have time to talk to all the renunciants? Mr. Collins had found a young woman who’d c
ome over to Japan with her family, though she herself had not renounced. And now she was returning. Papa would be paying her to watch over Hanako and Akira on the ship. The only problem was that she was leaving soon. Very soon.
In a week.
Akira threw up when he found out. Then he ran and got his green Monopoly houses and threw them across the room. After that, he went to the corner and stood there and refused to move. If anyone came near him, he would scream. Usually, Hanako was used to him and took him in stride. But watching him in the corner that way, she started to feel very fearful of the responsibility. She did not understand how Kiyoshi could stand the responsibility of taking care of a young sibling. Didn’t he like it better when someone took care of him? But . . . choices. He had no choices.
Every night after dinner, Baachan wrapped her arms around Hanako, and Jiichan wrapped his around Akira, and they sat by the table just like that, sometimes not even talking.
“This is fair,” Baachan said. “Your parent have you your whole life, but we have for only short time. So we need hold you now.”
“You will see your parent again,” Jiichan agreed. “But we are old.”
Then one night Papa said loudly, “I have an idea! Is there a photographer in the village? Let’s take a picture!”
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