Sachi
November 14, 1945
“Sachiko, come here, please,” Mama called from the living room.
Sachi rolled her eyes. What now? She closed the book she’d been reading and tossed it on the bed. “I’m coming.” She huffed and threw aside the curtain that divided her room.
Her mother sat at the table, staring at the o-juzu beads she held in her hands. Everything about her—sad eyes framed by dark circles, drooped shoulders—told Sachi this was not a conversation she wanted to have.
“Yes?” Sachi replied and pulled out a chair.
Mama looked up from her beads and stared at her for a moment, then brought the hand that held the o-juzu to touch Sachi’s cheek.
Mama’s affection felt unfamiliar. Sachi had the urge to back away and to cry. She knew what Mama was going to say. She was going to tell Sachi about going to Japan. What if she insisted Sachi go with her? Fear surged as she thought of a thousand excuses not to go. How could she tell Mama she didn’t want to—wouldn’t go with her? She wanted to stay in Arkansas with Papa.
But how could she not want to be with her own mother?
“This is a very small apartment,” Mama said. “The only wall separating your room from this one is a thin curtain. So perhaps you already know what I am going to tell you.” She ran her hand over Sachi’s hair. “It may be difficult for you to hear this, Sachi-chan, but I think you are old enough to understand these things now.”
Old enough? Words she had longed to hear. She smiled, and the tear she had fought fell down her cheek.
Mama wiped it away. “Do you disagree?”
“No, I want to know. I’m old enough to understand, whatever it is.” She felt a little afraid. But wondering about something was worse than knowing the truth.
“Good.” Mama twisted the beads in her hands.
The room was quiet. Sachi listened for sounds to fill the uncomfortable silence: wind rattling the window panes; muffled sounds from the family next door. She waited for Mama’s next words. She didn’t want to stare, afraid it might make Mama too nervous to continue, so she scanned the room for something else to look at. Papa’s slippers under the bed. His folded newspaper on the nightstand.
“You never met my parents, your ojiisan and obaasan. You have only seen pictures and letters from them. I am very sorry about that. Especially now.”
Trying to settle the leg that refused to hold still, Sachi shifted and sat on it. “I’m sorry, Mama. I heard people talking about the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” She looked down at her lap, wanting so terribly to touch Mama’s hand, but not able to bring herself to do it. “I’m sorry you don’t know how they are.” She looked up and smiled. “But sometimes, no news is good news, right?”
Mama smiled slightly, but her eyes watered. “Perhaps. But I think wondering is worse than knowing what really happened.”
Sachi couldn’t believe it. Without hesitation, she touched her mother’s hand. “I just thought that very thing.”
“Then, you will understand that I must return to Japan to find out.”
Sachi cringed and sat back in her chair, waiting for the words she dreaded.
Please don’t ask me to come with you.
Mama covered her face with her hands. When she finally placed them on her lap, her eyes were red. She spoke quickly. “I have missed my mother and father for so many years, Sachi-chan. I love your papa. He has been a good husband and a good father. But as a very young woman, I was not ready to leave Japan. I have tried to adjust to America all of these years, but it is not my home.” She put her hand in her pocket and pulled a photograph out. “I carry this with me always,” she said, holding it for Sachi to see.
Sachi couldn’t believe the girl she saw standing between two adults. “Is that you with your parents? You look just like me.”
“Yes. When this photograph was taken, I was sixteen—only four years older than you are—and already promised to your papa in marriage.”
She tried to imagine Mama and Papa choosing who she would marry. She didn’t know what to say, except to ask, “How did you feel about that?”
“In the years of my courtship with Papa, I kept hoping my parents would change their minds. When the time came to meet your father, I did not want to move to America. To leave all of my friends. To leave Inaba-san—” Mama stopped abruptly and covered her mouth. She rose from her chair and hurried to the window.
“Who was Inaba-san?”
“Nothing. Nobody. I am only trying to explain to you that I had a life in Japan. I did not want to leave.”
Sachi stared at the picture. Obaasan reminded her of Mama. Watching her mother as she stared out the window, Sachi wondered if she would look like her someday.
Mama spoke again, her voice trembling. “I am sorry I forced you to learn Japanese. To learn to play the o-koto. To dance Japanese dances.” She wiped tears from her face before turning to Sachi. “Can you understand that it was my way of holding on to Japan?”
Sachi remembered all the times she didn’t want to practice, how she thought her mother was mean for making her do it. How angry she felt all those times she wanted to do something else instead. But, she had to admit—at least it was better than her parents telling her who she had to marry.
Mama returned to the chair and clutched its back. Sachi could hardly stand the imploring look in her eyes, and she searched her heart for words of comfort, words other than, “I will go with you.”
The fear of what would come from Mama’s mouth bound Sachi’s heart. She wobbled back and forth on the uneven legs of the chair.
“When we thought Papa died, I missed my home even more. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to be with my parents, to run away from all of the hatred Americans hold toward the Japanese. Every night, I dreamed of going home.”
All those nights her mother lay weeping, was it for Papa? Or, was it for Japan, perhaps even someone named … Inaba-san? Queasiness rolled in her stomach.
Mama sat again. “Then, when they put us in these camps where we were forced to live like prisoners behind barbed wire, I longed for Japan even more. I could not talk to anybody about it. I was too afraid of being called a traitor. Yet, I felt angry. Why should missing my home make me disloyal to America?” She stared at Sachi, as if waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know. Sometimes, I’m homesick, too. But then, I tell myself home is wherever my family is.” Her heart stopped. So stupid to say that! She’d given Mama the perfect opening to ask her to come to Japan.
Mama straightened with a deep breath.
Sachi felt sick. Her throat tightened, prepared to give Mama an answer she wouldn’t want to hear. Thoughts of losing Papa again—of leaving Jubie—spun in her head.
The o-juzu beads clicked faster as Mama moved them through her fingers. “Sachi-chan.”
Why wouldn’t Mama look at her? Sachi’s heart pounded harder. Would Mama force her to go to Japan? Where was Papa? She needed his help.
Mama stopped twisting her beads, then whispered, “I am so sorry … I must leave you behind.”
Feeling the look of relief on her face, Sachi was happy Mama wouldn’t look at her. She forced a solemn face, not wanting to let her mother see her relief.
“I have already spoken to Papa about it, and of course, he wants you to stay with him. Do you understand that I cannot take you with me? Do you see that I have no idea what the conditions in Japan will be like?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“But most of all, Sachi-chan, I know that taking you from America would be as hard for you as it was for me to leave Japan. This is your home. You are an American.”
Joy. Sadness. Love. Pride. Longing. How could all of these feelings be mixed up together? She felt she might explode with the fullness of it. No longer afraid, she leaped up to hug Mama.
Mama held her, and Sachi breathed in the scent of cedar in her mother’s clothes, tasted salt in the tears still on her cheek. Mama pulled her closer—so close Sachi could hear the rapid flutter of Mama’s heart begin to calm.
Then Sachi felt it, too. Gaman. Endurance. Resolve. No matter what the future held, everything was going to be okay.