Nothing on earth could have prepared Ruth for these words. Now it was she who felt fragile, and burdened with a knowledge she had never anticipated. This woman—Rachel Utagawa—was her “natural” mother. Up until this moment she had never been more than a concept to Ruth, an empty phrase—natural mother; Hawaiian mother—with no face, no name, no voice, no part in Ruth’s life other than the leaving of it. Now, knowing her name, reading her plea, Ruth felt only anger that this woman should intrude herself into Ruth’s life, at a time when that life had returned to something resembling normal. After all these years, now she wanted to be part of her life?
Ruth’s pulse was racing. She sat down on the living room couch, trying to regulate her breathing. On her last visit to their family doctor, Dr. Higuchi, he had warned her that she was in danger of becoming hypertensive.
“Mom!” Donnie yelled from outside. “Can we come in? I’m hungry!”
“I’m starving,” Peggy amplified.
Grateful for the distraction, Ruth hid the letter inside a book. She made three tuna fish sandwiches and ate lunch with her children. Watching them eagerly devour their food, the indoor baseball paled in significance and she was reminded of how adorable they could be. Their presence reassured her of all that she had in life—and no slip of paper could take that away.
After lunch the kids went out to play again and Ruth reluctantly reread Rachel Utagawa’s letter. Her anger had ebbed and she allowed herself to see the sorrow and regret written, not so invisibly, between the lines. Setsubō: she had heard her parents use this word at Manzanar.
Ruth heard her ten-year-old self ask Etsuko why her “Hawaiian mother” gave her away: “Didn’t she love me, like you do?” She remembered Etsuko’s response: “Oh, butterfly, I am sure she did. But she had no choice.” At the time Ruth didn’t understand that. As she grew older, she assumed it meant her mother was underage, or unmarried. She had never asked again.
Maybe she hadn’t wanted to know—or to let go of her resentment.
Could she ignore this woman’s setsubō—knowing that her parents had felt the same longing for something lost to them?
* * *
She hid the letter on the top shelf of her bedroom closet and did not mention it to Etsuko for fear it might upset her; the last thing she wanted to do was cast any doubt on how much she loved her mother. But over the course of the next three days she came to realize that she could not gainsay her “Hawaiian mother” what she said she longed for: “I would give anything in the world to hear her voice.” It might turn out to be nothing more than that—Ruth certainly didn’t want more—but that much, at least, she could give her.
On Sunday morning Ruth feigned illness—an upset stomach, not far from the truth—and let Frank take the kids on the short walk to the Japanese Methodist Church, about a block and a half down Fifth Street. Etsuko had an even shorter walk: San Jose’s beautiful Buddhist Temple stood almost directly across the street. Once alone in the house, Ruth took the letter out of the closet. She read it over again, took a deep breath, then picked up the telephone and dialed the phone number given in the letter.
She heard the hiss and crackle of the radio-telephone connection between the mainland and Hawai'i—God only knew how much this call would cost—followed by a ring. Ruth fought a sudden, panicky impulse to hang up. Another ring—and then Ruth heard, across a gulf of three thousand miles, a woman’s voice, still groggy with sleep:
“Yes?”
She sounded a bit irritated, actually. Ruth belatedly remembered the time difference between California and Hawai'i. Damn. Well, no turning back.
“Is this … Rachel Utagawa?” she asked.
For a moment the only answer was the hiss of static.
“Hello?” Ruth repeated.
All grogginess was quickly gone: “Yes, this is she.”
“My name is Ruth Watanabe Harada.” Then, apologetically: “It’s three hours earlier in Hawai'i, isn’t it? I must’ve woken you up.”
“That—that’s all right,” the woman’s voice said. “I’m sorry, I … wasn’t quite … prepared for this.”
“Well,” Ruth said dryly, “that makes two of us.”
Good God, she thought. Her voice—it sounds so much like mine.
“Are you calling from … California?” Rachel asked.
“Yes. San Jose.” Desperate for something to say, Ruth started to explain how Rachel’s letter had gone to her parents’ old address in Florin, “but a girl at the local post office went to high school with me, and—”
“I named you Ruth,” Rachel suddenly declared, a seeming non sequitur.
“Did you?” Ruth said, not knowing how else to respond.
There was a brief pause, then Rachel asked, “Did you speak with your … parents before you called me today?”
The way she hesitated a second before saying “parents” annoyed Ruth.
“My father passed away several years ago. My mother’s very frail, I didn’t want to possibly upset her.” A note of her old anger and resentment crept into her tone: “Anyway, it was me you wanted to talk to, wasn’t it? Though isn’t it a little late to decide you want to get to know me?”
There was a deep, sad sigh on the other end of the line.
“Ruth,” Rachel finally replied, “I gave you up for adoption because I had to. Because I was forced to … by the government.”
Ruth was completely thrown by that. “What?”
“Have you ever heard of … Kalaupapa?”
“Kala … no.”
“It’s on Moloka'i. Where Father Damien died.”
Ruth had definitely heard of Father Damien: the Catholic priest who went to a remote leper colony to tend to the afflicted, only to himself contract, and die from, the disease. The implications of what Rachel had said now sank in, as did Etsuko’s words of thirty years ago: “She had no choice.”
In a small, shocked voice, Ruth said: “You’re a leper?”
In the silence that followed, Ruth could almost see Rachel flinch.
“They call it Hansen’s disease now. And I’ve been paroled. They found a cure. A treatment. I’ve been released, I’m no danger to anybody.”
Feeling numb, Ruth could only repeat dully, “Hansen’s disease?”
“It’s not hereditary. It doesn’t pass from mother to child unless the baby remains with the parents for an extended time. That’s why we had to give you up.”
The numbness was giving way to panic. She didn’t know what to say except, “I … think I’d better have a talk with my mother.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed, “that’s a good idea.”
“I’ll call back tomorrow,” Ruth said, desperately wanting this conversation to be over before her heart exploded. “Or the next day.”
“Ruth—”
“I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’ll call back, I promise.”
She was not certain if that was true or not.
* * *
“Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me?”
In the privacy of Etsuko’s bedroom, her mother sat on the edge of her bed, her head lowered in embarrassment.
“I wanted to. Many times. But your father thought it best you did not know all the facts of your parentage.”
Ruth was dumbfounded. “But why?”
Etsuko looked up. “In Japan, having leprosy is a terrible thing. It is seen as sinful—in Shintō the word tsumi means both sin and leprosy—and Buddhism says it is a punishment for sins in a previous life. It is the blackest of black marks on a family’s lineage. The shame is so great, no one will marry into the family.” She added pointedly, “Had Frank’s parents known about your mother’s illness, it is unlikely they would have blessed your marriage.”
Ruth labored to understand. “Then why on earth did you go to Kapi'olani Home? Weren’t there other orphanages in Hawai'i?”
Etsuko sighed and patted the bed. “Sit with me. As we used to.”
Ruth sat down beside her mother and waited.
Etsuko asked, “You have heard the story of how your father nearly died of pneumonia when he was twelve?”