“You loved all animals, especially—” Louisa stopped, as if accidentally stepping off a walkway into a briar patch, then went on, “On your sixth birthday, I gave you a toy cow.”
“I remember that cow!” Ruth said excitedly. “I had it with me in Florin. I used to sleep with it.”
Louisa seemed pleased by that. She served them coffee and asked about Ruth’s life in Florin. Ruth relaxed and told her about the farm, about her brothers, about meeting Frank. She skipped over the war and brought out photos of Donnie and Peggy from her purse. Louisa took the snapshots and smiled. “Oh, they’re beautiful, Ruth. You must be so proud.”
They chatted about Ruth’s life and her meeting Rachel, and despite her lack of recollection, Ruth felt a growing warmth for this kind-hearted woman.
Finally, after an hour, Louisa stood and said, “Well, you probably want to get back to your family. Thank you for coming to see me, Ruth. It’s so good to know that you grew up healthy and happy and loved. God bless you.”
“God bless you, Sister,” she said, hugging her, “for taking care of me. You and Sister Catherine both.”
Driving back to Waikīkī, Ruth had to admit she didn’t recall “Sister Lu” or Kapi'olani Home. “I don’t understand why I should recall the scent of a flower and not this woman who obviously loved and cared for me.”
Rachel considered that. “I think you remember your family’s store because that was a place of great happiness for you. An orphanage, even when one is looked after by a loving nun, is not usually a happy place. I grew up in one too, and even though I had friends, it still wasn’t home. Home, for you, started the day Etsuko and Taizo adopted you.
“But whether you remember her or not, you made an elderly woman very happy today.” She added, smiling, “Make that two elderly women.”
* * *
After several days of sightseeing—including 'Iolani Palace, home to Hawaiian royalty before the kingdom was overthrown by greedy haoles and later annexed to the United States—the seventh day of their trip found them all back on the beach, ready to go into the ocean when they heard:
“Mr. Harada?”
A bellhop, his uniform looking somewhat outlandish on the beach, approached them. “Yes?” Frank said.
“There’s a phone call for you, sir. You can take the call in the lobby.”
“Probably somebody from work,” Frank said, and left.
But when he returned several minutes later, his expression had turned somber.
“What’s wrong?” Ruth asked.
“It was Betty Oda.” Betty was the teenage daughter of their next-door neighbors, who was looking after the pets. “She had to take Snowball to the vet.”
Peggy’s alarm was immediate. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She wasn’t eating for the past few days, and today, when Betty came over to clean the litter box, she found … blood,” Frank said grimly.
“Oh God,” Peggy gasped.
“Dr. Nealey says she has tumors—cancer—in her stomach.” Frank was at pains to say the words. “He says she may only have a—day or two left.”
“But she was fine when we left!” Ruth said.
“No, she wasn’t,” Peggy blurted. “I—I could tell something wasn’t right. You know how she loves to jump up onto the windowsill and sun herself? She stopped doing it last week. I thought she was getting old, I never thought—” The words ended in a sob. “I should’ve known, should’ve said something—”
“It’s not your fault, Peg,” Ruth consoled her.
“They—they can’t do anything?” Donnie asked.
“All they can do is end her suffering,” Frank said gently. “Betty doesn’t know what to do. I told her I had to talk with all of you first.”
“We can’t just let her die alone!” Peggy said.
Ruth thought of Slugger. She knew exactly how Peggy felt.
“I’ll go back,” Peggy said, “to be with her when they do it. She’s been with me every night for the past twelve years—now I need to be with her.”
“You can’t go by yourself, honey, you’re only fourteen,” Ruth said. “I’ll go with you.” Ruth turned to her makuahine: “I’m sorry, Rachel, but—”
“I’d do the same thing,” Rachel said. “Go.”
* * *
In San Francisco they took a cab from the airport directly to Dr. Nealey’s veterinary clinic in San Jose. One glimpse of Snowball brought tears to Peggy’s eyes: she lay in a cage looking lethargic and weak, eyes closed, a small bald spot on her white head.
“Oh, Snowball,” Peggy said. At the sound of Peggy’s voice the cat opened her eyes, looked up, and managed a faint miaooww.
“Can I pick her up?” Peggy asked.
Dr. Nealey nodded. “Gently. Don’t put any pressure on her stomach.”
Peggy took Snowball and nestled her in the crook of her arm. “I’m so sorry, baby, I should have known you were sick…”
“No, Peggy, don’t think that,” Dr. Nealey said. “Animals do their best not to show their pain. In the wild it would be a sign of weakness. By the time you noticed her symptoms, it would have been too late to do anything.”
“You’re sure it’s too late, Doctor?” Ruth asked.
“There are too many tumors in her stomach to remove surgically. And she’s bleeding internally. All we can do is end her suffering.”
“Can we have a few minutes alone with her? To say goodbye?”
“Of course.”
Dr. Nealey left. Peggy raised Snowball up and the cat managed to brush her head against Peggy’s cheek in one last show of affection.
“I love you too, Snowball,” Peggy said. “I always have and I always will.”
Ruth gently stroked the cat’s head. “Our little angel of Manzanar. We needed you as much as you needed us.”
* * *
Ruth and Peggy got a ride home from Betty Oda. Betty brought Max over from her house, where she had been looking after him, and he greeted them with a happy bark. But once inside the Haradas’ home he began to seem confused. He followed Ruth and Peggy from room to room, sniffing and poking around as if searching for something. When he got to Snowball’s litter box, he lay down on his haunches and whimpered plaintively. Peggy petted him with tears in her eyes. Ruth called Frank in Honolulu to tell him; he sounded like he was crying too.
Their exhaustion catching up with them, Ruth and Peggy both napped for a while. When it was time for dinner, Peggy sat down at the table, and a small smile came to her wan face as she looked down at her plate.
“Hotcakes?” she said in surprise.
“With coconut syrup.” Ruth put the bottle of syrup by Peggy’s plate. “If we can’t be in Hawai'i, we’ll bring Hawai'i here.”
Peggy tucked into her pancakes and after a minute said, “Mom? If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“I think I know what I want to do, after I graduate high school. I want to be a vet, like Dr. Nealey.”
Ruth felt a bittersweet rush of pride, gladness, and a little envy.
“Why would I laugh at that, Peg?” She smiled and squeezed Peggy’s hand. “I think that’s a wonderful thing to want to be.”
Chapter 18
1957
Uncle Jiro, now seventy-seven, with thinning hair and a thickening paunch, leaned back in Frank’s easy chair. “When your aunt and I brought Akira back to Hōfuna in 1946,” he told his audience of Ralph, Horace, and Stanley, “we found the family fortunes in decline. My elder brother Ichirō, who inherited the farm, had died of a heart attack three years before, and his sons had been conscripted into the army. Ichirō’s wife made do with hired labor, barely breaking even. Only one son, Eiji, returned from the war, and so she was broken-hearted as well. I offered to take charge in exchange for room and board. Once Akira had recovered from his injuries he helped with the spring planting, and within two years the farm was again turning a profit.”
Jiro took a sip of sake, his listeners aware that any narrative their uncle told inevitably made him the hero of the tale.
“But you’re not returning to live here, Ojisan?” Stanley asked.