Louisa thanked her and, with Sister Praxedes, hurried to find Ruth.
Ruth had quieted down enormously after her chat with Mara, but when Louisa and Praxedes told her about the couple who wished to see her, a shadow of her old anger eclipsed her sunny mood. “No,” she declared defiantly. “I won’t go!”
“This time it’s different, Ruth,” Praxedes insisted.
“No!”
Louisa could hardly blame her; she had been disappointed often enough. “It is different, Ruth. This couple—they asked especially for you.”
God forgive me. But it was, in a sense, the truth.
Ruth said, “Me?”
“Yes. They don’t want to see any other girl in the Home. Only you.”
Ruth didn’t know what to make of that. “Why?”
“Why don’t you come with us and find out?”
Ruth grudgingly agreed and even allowed Sister Lu to scrub the dirt from her hands and knees. But she was determined not to show the slightest bit of interest in these people. She knew better than that.
The Japanese couple was waiting in the library. They were in their late thirties, the husband thin and dressed in a dark Western business suit; the wife petite, smiling, wearing a black cotton kimono.
But Ruth only noticed one thing about them.
Their eyes. Their eyes were just like hers.
She forgot her indifference and stared at them in absolute fascination.
“Ruth,” Sister Praxedes said, “this is Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe.”
“Hello,” Ruth said, still staring.
The couple bowed in greeting. The wife said, “Konnichiwa. Hello, Ruth.”
“Sit down, Ruth.” Louisa gave her a little nudge. Ruth went to the small chair reserved for children.
The couple sat opposite her, the man studying Ruth closely.
“She is—part kanaka?” he asked in halting English.
“Yes. Her mother is Hawaiian. Her father is a Nisei,” Sister Praxedes explained, using the term for second-generation, American-born Japanese.
“She is very pretty, don’t you think, Otōsan?” the wife said with a smile. Her English was a bit smoother, more assured.
Mr. Watanabe nodded, both in agreement and, it seemed, giving license to his wife to continue speaking. “How old are you, little one?” she asked.
“Five,” Ruth answered. Now this was starting to feel familiar. Even the woman’s smile, as friendly as it was. All the smiles were friendly, weren’t they? But it always ended in tears.
“Such a serious face,” Mrs. Watanabe said. “Why do you keep looking at us like that, Ruth?”
“’Cause of your eyes,” Ruth said bluntly.
“Ah, I see. We have eyes like yours, yes?”
Ruth nodded.
“That is because we come from Japan. Do you know where Japan is?”
Ruth shook her head.
“It is an island like this, but far, far across the sea. We came a long way to get here.”
“Why?”
“We came to Hawai'i to work.”
“I’m told you were both contract laborers at Waimānalo Plantation,” said Sister Praxedes.
The husband nodded. “Three years. I grew up on a small farm—in Hōfuna, Okayama Prefecture. I wished to buy my own farm here, but … too difficult.”
“So much of the land in Hawai'i,” Mrs. Watanabe noted, “is in the hands of a very few.”
“Very few haoles,” Mr. Watanabe added, then, realizing his tactlessness: “Sumimasen. Beg pardon. I mean no offense.”
“None taken,” Sister Praxedes said with a smile. “So you moved to Honolulu and became a contractor?”
He nodded. “On a farm you are always building, fixing things. I like farming numbah one, but I like building too.”
Mrs. Watanabe turned to Ruth. “And what do you like to do, Ruth?”
Ruth had never been asked this before. “I like animals,” she blurted out.
“You do?”
“We went to the zoo and I saw a bear and a monkey and an elephant and a lion and a bear,” Ruth exhaled all in one breath.
The woman smiled. “Do you like cats? We have a cat.”
Ruth’s eyes widened. “You do?”
“Oh yes. In Japan, cats are very popular. They are said to bring good luck.”
Ruth’s indifference forgotten, she asked, “What color is your cat?”
“She is black,” Mr. Watanabe declared. Ruth’s eyes went to him. “Americans think black cats bad luck. No cat is bad luck.”
“Mr. Watanabe found her in an alley,” his wife explained. “And she has brought us nothing but good fortune.”
“What’s her name?” Ruth asked.
“Mayonaka,” the wife replied. “It means ‘midnight.’”
“Mayo … na … ka?” Ruth repeated.
“Yes, very good,” Mrs. Watanabe said.
“I wish I could meet her,” Ruth said wistfully.
Mrs. Watanabe glanced at her husband. He gazed at Ruth a long moment, then looked back to his wife and nodded.
Mrs. Watanabe told Ruth, “You will meet her—and your three brothers—when you come home with us, if you choose. Would you like to be part of our family?”
Ruth’s heart fluttered. Joy, hope, longing, and fear washed over her in waves. She began to cry.
Mrs. Watanabe blinked. “Did I say some wrong thing?”
“No, no,” Sister Louisa said quickly. She bent down to meet Ruth’s eyes. “It’s all right, Ruth. It’s not like before. Do you want to go with them?”
Afraid to put the thought into words, Ruth merely nodded. But the longing in her eyes was unambiguous.
Mrs. Watanabe smiled. “Good. That makes us very happy.”
Her husband stood, businesslike, and said to Sister Praxedes, “We will fill out necessary papers now?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Praxedes said. “I’ll take you to see Sister Helena. She’ll have you fill out a petition for adoption, which will then be submitted to the family court here in Honolulu. If all goes smoothly, you should be able to take Ruth home with you within the week.”
Louisa accompanied a jubilant Ruth back to her dormitory, which was empty this time of day. “I told you, didn’t I,” Louisa said, “that someday you’d have a home and a mama and a papa all your own?”
“And a cat,” Ruth added wonderingly.
“Yes, mustn’t forget the cat.” Louisa looked at Ruth, seeing the memory of the year-old infant being carried in Sister Catherine’s arms, and smiled. “I’m going to miss you, Ruth. But I’m very, very happy for you.”
Ruth hugged her legs. “I’ll miss you too, Sister Lu. Every day.”
“Oh, you’ll be much too happy and busy to miss me,” Louisa said, even as she blinked back tears.
* * *
Louisa returned to the dining hall to share the good news with Sister Bonaventure—but the older sister’s response was troubling, a look of concern wrinkling her usually impassive face.
“This is … odd,” she said gravely.
“What do you mean? What’s odd about it?”
“You’ve only been in Hawai'i a few years, Sister, but … to the Japanese, there is nothing more important than the family name. There is nothing worse than to dishonor it. There’s a book called the Yakuba, a sort of neighborhood family history … a black mark in this book shames the family, disgraces their ancestors. They would do anything to avoid that.”
“But what on earth does this have to do with Ruth?” Louisa asked.
“Leprosy,” the older sister said, “is considered the blackest of black marks on a family’s lineage—one that can never be expunged. The stigma is so great, the family is shunned; no one will marry into it. I’ve known lepers at Kalaupapa whose families had completely disowned them.”
Louisa was at a loss to comprehend this. “But Ruth isn’t a leper! She’s as healthy as you or I.”
“Even so. To the Japanese, a family adopting her would be stigmatized for all time. Why would any Japanese couple knowingly risk that?”
Louisa considered a moment, then suggested, “Do you … suppose they just don’t know?”
“Everyone in Hawai'i knows that our girls are the children of lepers.” She frowned. “But if by some chance they don’t know, they should be made aware of the implications of their actions. The possibility that they could be ostracized—forced to move away, as so many families of lepers have had to—”