All We Left Behind

by Danielle R. Graham

  By late afternoon, I had collected three more addresses, but nobody knew off-hand where the Setoguchis were. I sat on the bench to write a letter to each family I had an address for and sealed the envelopes just as Mr Hogarth stepped out of the post office.

  I checked my pocket watch and rushed over as he slid the key to lock the door. ‘Mr Hogarth! Wait up. I have some letters I need to post.’

  He stopped and squinted over his glasses. ‘I’m closed. Drop them through the door slot or bring them by tomorrow before the morning ship.’

  I lunged forward and dropped the envelopes through the door slot.

  He slid his cap back and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘You live on the island?’

  ‘I’m Hayden Pierce. John and Eleanor’s son. Don’t you remember me?’

  He nodded, but didn’t actually seem to recall. His hair had turned completely white since I had last seen him, and he stood more stooped over.

  ‘I wanted to ask you if you remember getting any letters for me while I was away fighting in the war.’

  ‘What did you say your name is?’

  ‘Hayden. Hayden Pierce. The letter would have been sent to my parents’ address some time in the last three and a half years.’

  ‘I can’t remember every piece of mail. Sorry.’ He adjusted his hat and shuffled down the street.

  I kept stride with him. ‘The letters would have come from Chidori Setoguchi. Do you remember any letters coming from the Setoguchis to anyone on the island?’

  He shook his head. ‘Sorry, son. If they were sent to you, your parents would have gotten them. If they were sent to someone else, I don’t recall.’

  It seemed futile to pick his brain, so I stopped walking and let him carry on his way.

  The church was up the hill from where I stood. I had no inclination to visit the gravesite, but something outside of myself compelled me to wander over. A reverend, who was new since I last attended a service, crouched in the front yard tending to some flowers. He looked up and nodded pleasantly, then went back to his gardening. I hopped the split-rail fence and meandered around the small cemetery. It didn’t take much searching to find the headstone with my sister’s name engraved on it. A fresh flower braid had been draped around the base of the granite.

  Rosalyn Grace Pierce

  4 October 1921–12 March 1944

  A beautiful light extinguished too soon.

  I ran my finger over the letters, then sat in the grass and leaned up against the stone to unfold the letter I had received from my father before I was shot down.

  Dear Son,

  I write to inform you of very grave news. Your sister has died. She took too many of the pills the doctor prescribed. Apologies for having to tell you in a letter. The funeral has been arranged at Saint Mary Magdalene Church for next week. Your name is up on the bulletin for the congregation to pray for you.

  Love, Pop

  It was a wonder that so few words could deliver the impact of being run over by a tank. I closed my eyes and folded it back up. After a long while of letting the sun warm my face, I whispered, ‘I know why you did it.’

  I half-expected her to respond or appear, but I waited and it didn’t feel like she was with me in any form.

  ‘Earl couldn’t keep his promise to come home, but I did. I wish you would have held on a little longer and let me prove that to you.’ I pulled my air force wings out of my pocket and placed them on the base with the letter. ‘Sorry it took me so long. I love you, Rose.’

  I left the cemetery and made my way back to the general store. Donna Mae’s brother was working the cash register again. His eyebrows angled when I placed two bottles of vodka down on the counter and handed him the money. ‘Having a celebration?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I opened the first bottle as I left the store and started drinking as I walked down to the wharf. The least I could do while I waited for news was drink away my nightmares.

  Nothing in town had changed, even though everything had. I sat on the bench next to the Springwater Lodge drinking for longer than I intended, then staggered up the road to the Agricultural Hall. The hall was all locked up and the fairgrounds were abandoned, but my mind filled with images from the last fall fair as if it had happened only the day before – the boys playing soldiers, the schoolgirls braiding flowers into each other’s hair, the Setoguchis selling their vegetables, and Rose dancing on the grass in front of the amphitheatre. For a second, the scent of warm cinnamon buns and the melody of Chidori’s laughter floated across the breeze, but then the images faded away. Lost forever.

  I took a few more swigs of alcohol that burned. Once the pain was numbed, I stumbled home.

  For a couple of days, maybe almost a week, I only left my room to use the outhouse. Since my body was accustomed to the POW camp, I didn’t even need to do that very often. I ran out of vodka on the third day, so I stole a couple jugs of my father’s home-brewed ale from the barn and took them to my room. Everything became blurry in my mind and the hours passed in a haze, which was what I wanted – at least until I heard back with the Setoguchis’ new address.

  One evening, there was a knock on my bedroom door. It wasn’t my parents checking on me. I knew that because they’d stopped bothering to knock once they realized I was being unresponsive.

  ‘Go away,’ I mumbled and rolled over.

  Joey popped his head in and said, ‘Howdy.’ The cheeriness on his face was forced, as if he had been warned beforehand to prepare himself for the foul state I was in, but was nevertheless still shocked to witness it.

  I heaved my weight out of bed and stood to greet him with a hug.

  Joey slapped my bony back and shook me by the shoulders. ‘Goddamn, you’re scrawny now. And you smell awful.’

  I chuckled, sardonically. ‘You think this is bad? You should have seen me three months ago.’

  He shoved my chest. ‘It’s good to see you, pal.’

  ‘Yeah, you too.’

  ‘I’m only home until tomorrow to visit my folks, but Donna Mae asked me to invite you to come stay in Victoria with us for a visit. I’ll apologize in advance because she’s not a very good cook.’ He sat on the foot of the bed and slid his hand into my old baseball mitt. ‘Don’t tell her I said that.’

  One of my parents had likely called him and asked him to come over on the ferry to cheer me up. Although it was friendly of him to make the trip, I wasn’t going to feel truly better until I heard from Chidori. I sat on my desk chair. ‘I hear you’re going to be a father. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s terrifying, but what can I do about it now?’

  I laughed and studied his face. He looked the same, only older. ‘What have you been doing for work?’

  ‘I’m the chief operations manager at the shipyard.’

  ‘Wow. You moved up the ladder quickly.’ My tone had more disapproval to it than I intended.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he removed his fedora and combed his fingers through his hair. ‘With so many men overseas—’ He interrupted himself to change the subject, ‘My pop says you can start back at the sawmill whenever you’re ready to start working. He’s holding a position for you.’

  I nodded, appreciative of the offer. ‘Thank you. I’ll need some money to buy the lumber for Chidori’s and my house.’

  ‘Chidori?’

  ‘Yes. I’m just waiting to find out where she’s living so I can contact her to let her know she can come back home now.’

  ‘She can’t come back here.’ His hands rested in his lap, wringing the brim of his hat as he studied my shaken expression, then he glanced down. ‘Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘No.’ I stood. ‘What do you mean she can’t?’

  ‘The government hasn’t lifted the travel restrictions on Japanese Canadians. They probably won’t be able to enter the restricted zone until all the servicemen get back and have a chance to buy land and get set up with employment. That won’t happen for several more years from now.’

  ‘I don�
��t understand.’ I paced the length of my room and back. ‘The war is over. She’s a Canadian. She never should have been sent away in the first place. They can’t prevent her from coming home.’

  He held his hands up defensively. ‘Don’t get mad at me. It’s the government who refused to lift the restrictions when the war ended, not me.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not blaming you. I’m just frustrated.’ I opened the window to calm myself with fresh air. ‘They’ll have to let her come home if we’re married, won’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know. When was the last time you spoke with her?’

  ‘The day she was taken away.’

  His laugh was shockingly loud. ‘Oh. You aren’t kidding? You haven’t talked to her in over three years?’

  I closed my eyes for a long blink, realizing how crushingly far-fetched my dreams sounded.

  ‘Jesus, Hayden. She’s probably married and has two kids by now.’

  Although I knew that was probable, I didn’t want to believe it. ‘She promised she would wait.’

  He shook his head, heavy with pity. ‘I don’t want to rain on your parade when you are already so glum, but that was a different time. You can’t expect you’ll just be able to pick up where you left off.’

  ‘She promised,’ I said with enough conviction to anchor my own faith.

  He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ‘Let me give you a little advice. Take the mill job my father has offered you, build your new house, and settle down with some other nice Mayne Island girl. Save yourself the heartache.’

  Furious, I stormed out on him.

  Chapter 40

  After leaving Joey behind in my room by himself, I rummaged through the barn for more of my father’s ale. He must have wisely hidden it somewhere else or dumped it. The only thing I could find was an old bottle of cooking wine. I took that, waited for Joey to leave, and headed back to the house. The porch creaked when I stepped up onto it, and just before I turned the doorknob, I heard another creak behind me. I spun around prepared to fight. ‘Marguerite! Jesus. You scared me half to death. What are you doing sneaking around here?’

  ‘I want to see the inside of your home.’ She walked past me, pushed the door open, and stepped into the house. ‘I feel like I already know it from Chidori’s descriptions.’

  ‘Whoa there. Nobody invited you in. It’s getting dark. You need to get on home.’

  ‘It’s a full moon. Besides, it’s Mayne Island. Nothing bad ever happens here.’ She wandered through the living room wearing what I could only guess was a traditional Hungarian folk dress of some sort. The skirt was a wild floral pattern over a white petticoat, with a white apron, a bright green lace-up vest, a puffy sleeved blouse, and an embroidered hair band with silk flowers attached above each ear.

  ‘Were you just at some kind of dance performance or something?’

  ‘No. This is just what I felt like wearing today.’ She admired everything in the living room with great attention, then headed into the kitchen. I followed her and opened the cupboard to see if Pop’s bottle of rye was still hidden behind the flour. It wasn’t. ‘Are you intending to get sloshed?’

  ‘Yeah, so skedaddle,’ I said as I took the cap off the bottle of cooking wine.

  The golden retriever pressed its nose against the back screen door to check out who was inside the house. ‘Where are your folks?’ Marguerite asked.

  I shook my head, unconcerned.

  ‘Then I reckon I’ll stay until they return. What’s the dog’s name?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Have you had supper?’ Not waiting for my answer Marguerite searched through the cupboards and pulled out a sack of rice.

  ‘I’m not hungry, and you’re not staying.’ I left her there and climbed the stairs back to my room. The cooking wine made me feel dizzy in a nauseated way. I fell onto my bed and stared at the ceiling.

  When I lifted my head, Marguerite stood in the doorway with one of Rosalyn’s hair clips in her hand.

  I shot up and shouted like a bear, ‘Put that back where you found it and get the hell out of here!’

  Her body flinched from the roar of my voice, she blinked hard, then spun around. The floor in Rose’s room squeaked as she put the clip back. Her footsteps clambered down the stairs, then the front door slammed. I stood and watched out the window as she ran across the yard in a flash of colourful Hungarian folk dress and disappeared into the darkness.

  The next morning there was a very soft knock at my bedroom door. I knew it was Marguerite before she even poked her head in. Although I was filled with regret for snapping at her, I grumbled, ‘Go away.’ The door creaked open and she crept in. ‘The Maiers wouldn’t be thrilled to know you’re sneaking around in a strange man’s bedroom.’

  ‘Sorry for touching your sister’s hair clip without asking.’

  ‘It’s fine. Just don’t do it again.’ I pulled the cover over my shoulder and face to block out the light.

  ‘Did your sister really kill herself?’

  Jesus. Were all kids so forward? I sat up. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Nobody. I overheard folks talking about her.’ She stepped inside my room and stood in the corner with her hands clasped together, as if she had promised herself not to touch anything. Her hair was braided into pigtails with blue ribbons tied at the ends. She wore a more traditional girl’s blue dress that had a black collar and black buttons along with a matching blue tam, maybe the outfit she wore on the orphan ship.

  ‘You shouldn’t be eavesdropping, especially not on gossip.’

  ‘Is your sister dying like that why you have nightmares, or is it because of the war?’

  I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘Don’t you have someone else you could pester?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’ She studied me seriously as she sat on my desk chair and rested her elbows on her knees to mimic my posture. ‘If your sister would have held on, things would have gotten better. You know that, right?’

  ‘What would you know about that?’

  ‘Plenty.’ She reached over and was about to lift my saxophone from its stand. She paused. ‘Is it fine if I look at this?’

  ‘No. Please leave me alone.’ Exhausted, I lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Will you teach me how to play it?’

  ‘No.’

  All out of ways to engage me in conversation, she stood at the foot of my bed and watched me for a good while before eventually leaving.

  The following week I received correspondence. The eldest son in the Teramura family sent me a letter informing me that their father had been initially taken away to Petawawa, which was essentially a POW work camp on Canadian soil. And although the rest of the Teramuras had been at Hastings Park with Chidori’s family, his family was sent to Lemon Creek Internment camp, which was a shanty-town of cabins built in the Slocan Valley to house them. Chidori’s family didn’t go to Lemon Creek, and he hadn’t heard where they ended up. There were other internment camps in British Columbia – Greenwood, Sandon, Kaslo, New Denver Tashme, and more. He also wondered if maybe they had decided, like the Koyama family, to move east of the protected area on their own dime to become a self-supporting family. If the Setoguchis had done that, they could be in any number of communities – Minto, Bridge River, Lillooet, Christina Lake, Chase, Taylor Lake or Salmon Arm. Or anywhere east of the Rockies, realistically. It would be nearly impossible to track them down if they hadn’t sent word to anyone. And that was the part I simply couldn’t comprehend. Why hadn’t they sent word? Even if something tragic had befallen Chidori, her parents or brothers would have attempted to notify me … wouldn’t they?

  My mother was in the living room, crying to Pop about how watching me suffer was too much and how she couldn’t survive losing both her children to suicide. After almost an hour of her sobbing about what she had done wrong to raise two morose children, I got up, went downstairs, and told them I was going for a w
alk so she wouldn’t worry. Or maybe so I didn’t have to listen to her any more. I didn’t actually go for a walk. I sat with my back up against the barn, drinking from a bottle of vodka that I had picked up when I was in town collecting the post. The golden retriever moseyed over and flopped down next to me. The sun had started to set when little footsteps approached. I hid the bottle behind my back as Marguerite walked towards me wearing a grey wool pleated jumper and blazer that was embroidered with London Junior Collegiate Preparatory. And yellow rubber boots, even though the dirt was dry as stone.

  ‘Hi,’ she said quietly, and sat down beside the dog to stroke her palm across the fluffy fur.

  ‘When are you going to take the hint that I don’t want you coming around here?’

  Ignoring my question, she asked, ‘How long do you think it will take before you hear where Chidori lives?’

  ‘I don’t know, why?’

  Her eyebrows rose in an adult-type concern. ‘I’m just wondering if you’ll die before that happens.’

  I chuckled, lifted the bottle that I’d been hiding behind my back, and tilted it in a gesture of cheers before I took a swig. ‘You and my ma both.’

  She sighed and was quiet for a spell. ‘You can talk to me about your sad if you want.’

  ‘What’s there to talk about? I want Chidori to come home and, even in the unlikely event that she also wants that, she can’t.’

  ‘Not that sad.’

  Taken back by her forwardness once again, I swallowed back more alcohol. ‘I don’t want to talk about the other sad.’

  ‘It might help if you aren’t carrying the burden of all that rubbish by yourself.’

  ‘It’s horrible enough that my mind has to know what it knows. Sharing it with you would only spread the evil to both our minds.’

  She braided strands of long grass together. ‘My foster parents sent me to a doctor who helps folks who are haunted by the horrible things they witnessed in the war.’