Sachi
May 2, 1944
The day had finally arrived. Mama and Papa’s twenty-second wedding anniversary! Sachi concentrated hard on designing the card she would give to them later that afternoon. Beneath a large “22” she’d written on a piece of paper, she began to draw a bride and groom.
What a wonderful idea Papa had—that he and Mama should have a reuniting ceremony. There was nothing more romantic than a wedding, and best of all, Papa had asked Sachi to “officiate” by reading the words he’d written for the big event.
At first, Mama thought the idea was silly, but Papa kept after her.
One night, Sachi had peeked from behind her curtain and saw Papa sitting at the edge of the bed. Mama was lying down next to him.
“Sumiko,” he whispered. “We’ve been apart for two and a half years. It is no surprise that we feel awkward together. Perhaps it would help to reaffirm our commitment.”
Mama exhaled. “I thought you were dead, Michio-san, and now you are alive. A commitment is a commitment. I do not need a new ceremony. It will simply take some time to adjust.”
“Perhaps I need a ceremony,” he’d replied.
A few days later, he had announced that their anniversary would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate and told Mama that he’d even written some verses for the event.
Sachi had tried to control her excitement, but couldn’t help trying to persuade Mama. Ever since Papa first brought up the idea, a wedding was all she could think about.
She pleaded. “It’ll be fun, Mama. Besides, how many kids get to see their own parents’ wedding? Please?”
Mama had clucked her tongue and shook her head at them. “Oh, all right. What can I say to two against one?”
Sachi stood and clapped her hands. “Yippee!”
She added the finishing touches to the bride’s gown on her card. On the inside, she wrote, “Happy Wedding to the best parents ever.”
Mama was shuffling around in a corner of the room.
“What are you doing?” Sachi asked.
“I thought I would wear my red kimono for the ceremony. The very one I wore when Papa and I married”—she turned and smiled at Sachi—“the first time.”
The red kimono?
An image of Jubie dancing in Mama’s red kimono flashed and her heart began to race.
Calm down. Mama will never know.
She stared at the card, afraid to watch her mother pull the kimono from the box.
Mama gasped. “Oh, no!”
Papa looked up from his book. “What is it?”
Sachi squeezed her eyes shut.
“My kimono,” Mama cried. “It has water spots on it.”
“What?” Papa rose from his chair and walked to the corner. He looked up at the ceiling. “Perhaps we have a leak.”
The rain! Sachi remembered it was raining the day Jubie had worn the kimono. But they were inside for the dance. Then she remembered she’d held her satchel over her head as she ran home in the rain—the satchel that held Mama’s kimono.
Please, let there be a leak in the roof.
“No, I do not see a leak,” Papa said.
Her stomach sank and she wished she could sneak out without them noticing.
Mama pointed at the box. “It could not be a leak. There are no watermarks on the outside of the box.”
They both looked at Sachi.
She wanted to smile—do anything to act normal, not guilty. But she was frozen.
Papa spoke first. “Sachi-chan?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything about this?”
“No. How should I know how it got water spots?”
Mama lunged toward her. “Sachiko! I can tell when you are lying to me! This was my wedding kimono. What did you do?”
She started to cry and hid the card she’d drawn under the table. She didn’t know the red kimono she had “borrowed” was Mama’s wedding kimono. “I didn’t know, Mama.”
“So, you do know what happened?” Papa asked.
Oops. “No. But I didn’t know it was Mama’s wedding kimono.”
Mama began to cry and looked at Papa. “You see! You see what I have had to put up with while you have been gone? She is lying. I know she is lying. I have not taken it out of its box since we moved from California. She must know what happened to it.” She glared at Sachi. “How could you?” she cried, then ran out the door.
Papa stared at Sachi and waited for her to speak.
“Papa, I don’t—”
“Sachiko!” he interrupted. “I have never known you to tell me a lie. Are you lying now?”
There was no way she could continue to get away with it. “Yes, Papa. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what, your lie or ruining Mama’s kimono?”
“Both.”
“How did this happen, and why would you lie to us?”
She’d never seen such anger in his eyes.
How could she possibly explain everything so that he would understand? There was no way. No way. All she could do was blurt everything out.
“Papa, I have a friend. Her name is Jubie. Mama told me I couldn’t play with her anymore, because she’s … she’s colored and we thought a colored boy killed you. The day we met, I found out her father was killed, too. All because he was a Negro. Don’t you see, Papa? That meant we both lost our fathers because of the color of their skin.” She put her head on the table and started to cry again.
Papa pulled out a chair and sat.
She lifted her head and continued. As she spoke, anger began to grow inside her. “I couldn’t believe Mama said I couldn’t play with Jubie anymore. I thought she was just as hateful as the people who put us in these camps, just because we looked like the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. How could she think they were wrong, but tell me I couldn’t play with Jubie? Did she think that was okay?” She took a deep breath and waited for Papa to speak.
But he only stared at her.
“Well, Papa? What do you say to that? Isn’t it true that Mama should not have judged Jubie for the color of her skin?”
His face hardly moved as he spoke. “You still have not told me what happened to the kimono.”
Didn’t he hear what she said?
“Sachiko? The kimono?”
“Well, the day I borrowed it, Jubie and I were having a dance with her ma and Auntie Bess. I’d been teaching Jubie Japanese dances, and she had taught me the jitterbug. I didn’t see the harm in borrowing the kimono for Jubie. I was very careful and thought Mama would never find out. But it was raining that day, and it must have soaked through the satchel that held it. I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at Jubie. It’s my fault, not hers. That’s why I lied. I was afraid both you and Mama would tell me I couldn’t play with her anymore. But she’s my sister, Papa.”
“What?”
“Oh. I forgot that part. That day Jubie danced in Mama’s kimono. We became blood sisters. We decided Mama’s kimono was magic, because that’s the only way a Negro girl and a Japanese girl could become sisters.”
A smile appeared for a tiny moment on Papa’s face, then he grew stern and folded his arms. “Sachiko, Sachiko. First, it is never okay to lie. Second, you should not have borrowed your mother’s kimono. Just because she would never find out does not make it okay. You were wrong on two accounts, and we must figure out how you can make it up to Mama.”
Somehow, she knew there was a third thing he wanted to say, but he was quiet.
He unfolded his arms, leaned toward her and smiled again. “Third, I must tell you I am proud that you did not judge Jubie by the color of her skin. You are right. She no more had anything to do with my ‘death’ than we had anything to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”
Sachi stood up and exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I thought, Papa!”
“But—”
Sachi interrupted. “I know, I know. Mama’s kimono. But what can I do to let her know I’m sorry?” she asked.
“Shikata ga nai, Sachi-chan. Shikata ga nai.”