During the week-long cross-country train ride to Vancouver, I rehearsed the reunion with Chidori in my mind a thousand times. Sometimes I imagined that, although she didn’t know exactly when I was supposed to arrive, she’d by chance be waiting at the dock in Miner’s Bay when the ship pulled in. Other times, I surprised her at her house with picked flowers from the garden while she played violin in the solarium. Once, I envisioned showing up only to find that Chidori was married to someone else and expecting a baby. That scenario made me so depressed I decided it would be better if I didn’t visualize the reunion any more. And as it turned out, none of it mattered anyway.
From the train station in Vancouver, I had to run to catch the sailing to Mayne Island. The crew had already prepared for departure but held the ramp for me because I was in the fresh uniform I’d been issued in Barth.
The vessel seemed smaller, and the passenger cabin smelled mustier than I remembered. I had to step out on deck to escape the stuffiness. The wind tore through my hair as we crossed the strait, and the salt from the spray coated my lips as I hung over the edge of the railing. I was so close.
The strangest sensation washed over me at the thought of being only minutes from the moment that had kept my hope alive for more than three years. A dream, only it was about to come true. My elation could not have been stronger as we finally passed the Georgina Point lighthouse and entered Active Pass. I could barely contain the urge to jump off the ship and swim the rest of the way. The first buildings visible on the island when we rounded the corner into Miner’s Bay were the doctor’s office and the Springwater Lodge. Just as when I left.
Before the vessel was even secured, I hopped over the ramp railing with my kit and crouched down to touch the wood of the dock with my palm. The old, familiar planks, warm from the sun, reminded me of all the time I had spent as a kid sitting on the dock while my father and Massey sold fish from the Issei Sun. Before the other passengers disembarked, I jogged up the dock and ducked into the general store to buy a bouquet of flowers for Chidori. A young man who I didn’t recognize worked behind the counter.
‘Hi Hayden. Did you just get home?’
‘Yes.’ I handed him money from my stash of military back-pay, trying to place his face.
He must have noticed my wheels turning because he said, ‘Gavin.’
‘Oh, Donna Mae’s kid brother. You’ve shot up since I saw you last. How’s that sister of yours?’
‘Fine. She’s expecting a baby.’
‘Really? Did she and Joey get married?’
‘Yup. They live over in Victoria now.’
‘That’s swell.’ I opened the door to leave and added, ‘Tell them I’m home, will ya?’
‘Sure thing.’ He waved and then helped the next customer.
A black dairy delivery truck rolled up and parked out front as I exited the store. The driver was heavier than when I had last seen him, and he sported a moustache, but he was unmistakably Rory. His eyes met mine as he stepped out of the open sliding driver’s side door. When he recognized me he tipped his cap back. ‘Hayden.’ He extended his arm to shake my hand. ‘Good to see you. Welcome home, pal.’
I shook his hand but frowned as I attempted to sort out why he was being so friendly. I still considered him the schoolboy bully that he had been before I left. But he’d evidently outgrown that. I wasn’t sure how to respond to his new level of maturity, so I ended up sounding like my mother and made a completely redundant comment. ‘You work for a dairy now.’
‘I own it.’ He slapped his palm on the hood of the truck with pride. ‘I started it after the evacuation.’
‘And Fitz? What’s he up to these days?’
‘He’s a bank manager over in Victoria. Engaged to be married.’ Rory slid his hands into leather gloves.
‘Wow. Manager? Impressive.’
‘Yup, he’s a bigwig now.’ Rory reached into the open sliding door and lifted a crate of milk bottles from the floor of the truck.
To be perfectly frank, it annoyed me that they shirked their duty and hadn’t served. Or, maybe I simply resented that – since they hadn’t been conscripted – they had ultimately made the more prudent choice by not volunteering. It didn’t matter. What was done was done.
‘Are the flowers for your ma?’ he asked.
‘No. They’re for Chidori.’
He paused briefly to check my expression, as if he worried I was not quite right in the head, then placed the crate on the ground in front of the store. ‘Chidori’s not here.’ He pushed his cap back on his head and then rested his hands on his hips, undecided whether he wanted to be the one to break the hard truth to me or not. ‘They never came back.’
‘Why? Because the war in the Pacific isn’t over yet?’
‘Actually, I heard on the radio the Americans dropped a new type of bomb on Japan that was so massive they wiped out an entire city.’
I frowned as Michiko and her family crossed my mind. ‘Which city?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but that battle’s essentially over. Japan will have no choice but to surrender now. Regardless, I doubt any of the Japanese-Canadian families will ever return to Mayne Island.’
All of the organs inside my body contracted at the same time and sucked the air out of my lungs. ‘Why?’
‘The government auctioned off all of their properties and belongings. There’s nothing left for them to come home to.’
It felt as if I’d been hit with that American bomb that was big enough to level an entire city. ‘Is the auction how you ended up owning the dairy truck?’
‘You bet. And thank my blessed horseshoes I got it for less than the appraised value, so I was able to keep my operation profitable through the war. Lucky, huh?’
My knees weakened and my mind spun with hundreds of questions about who had bought everything and if anyone had tried to stop it from happening, but the most important question was, ‘Where are they all now?’
He shrugged apologetically, then hauled another crate of bottles.
I stood in the middle of the parking lot, numb with disappointment as he unloaded the rest of the milk, cheese and eggs. Once he was finished he glanced at me. ‘You okay?’
I shook my head, not able to produce a more elaborate response.
‘You want a lift home?’
I nodded, climbed into the passenger seat, and placed the bouquet on my lap. We didn’t speak as we crossed the island, but when he stopped on the road in front of my parents’ property I said, ‘She’ll come home as soon as I let her know that I’m back.’
He half-smiled, as if he felt pity for me. ‘I’m sure she will. Say hi to her and your folks for me.’
Still not accustomed to his friendly, grown-up demeanour, I stepped out of the truck. He waved and drove away in a cloud of dust.
My father was in the front yard, working on the truck engine. When I walked up the driveway, still holding the flowers, he stood upright. Relief washed over his face as he wiped the grease off his hands onto a rag. ‘Eleanor!’ he shouted. ‘Eleanor! Get out here.’
Ma opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, squinting against the sun. She focused on Pop initially, wondering what he was hollering for, but then she followed his gaze until she saw me. Her hands flew to her mouth as she gasped and rushed down the steps to meet me. As soon as her arms were wrapped around me, I started to cry, which made her sob.
Father’s arms circled both of us and he cupped my neck. ‘Welcome home, son.’
‘Oh, Hayden.’ Mother squeezed me for a long while before leaning back to get a good look at my face. ‘Why didn’t you ring us? We are so glad to see you. Are you okay?’
I nodded and wiped my eyes with my sleeve. I handed her the bouquet.
Pop hugged me again and slapped my back. ‘Damn, it’s good to see you.’
Ma studied my scarred face with concern before she pinched my cheeks lightly. ‘You’re too skinny still. I’ll make us a nice welcome home dinner.’
‘No soup.’
Her eyebrows angled sharply into a frown in response to my abruptness.
‘I mean thank you, but I can’t eat soup any more.’
After a hesitation, she said, ‘All right.’ Her worry deepened across her forehead, but she managed to bolster a smile. ‘I wish you would have rung on the telephone to say when you would be arriving. We would have met you at the dock and I could have prepared something special.’
‘Sorry. I wanted to surprise you.’
‘It’s okay, darling. It is the best surprise. Truly. The very best surprise. Our prayers have finally been answered.’
I nodded and hugged her again before we made our way towards the house. ‘Patch!’ I hollered and then whistled. ‘Come here, boy.’
Both my parents stopped in their tracks and exchanged an unsettling look with each other. A young docile golden retriever wandered out from behind the barn to check out who had been calling. I waited for a flash of black and white from a spunky Border collie to tear around the corner.
‘Patch died,’ Ma said.
The news hit me as sharply as the time my Spitfire undercarriage wouldn’t drop and I had to smash down a hard belly-landing on the tarmac.
‘This is Lacey.’ She patted the golden retriever and looked up at me. ‘Doesn’t she have a lovely temperament?’
My father studied my reaction and seemed to sense what my mother was oblivious to.
When I didn’t make any overture towards the new dog, Ma shrugged, baffled by the awkwardness, before she headed into the house to get the meal started. Pop gave my shoulder a compassionate squeeze. ‘Sorry about Patch. Your mother thought it best at the time not to dishearten you with the news.’
I nodded and swallowed hard to hold back the thwarted sting, then shifted my focus. ‘I need to let Chidori know I’m home.’
His eyelids dropped in a longer than normal blink as he prepared to deliver the next round of rotten news. ‘The Setoguchis didn’t come back.’
I climbed the porch steps. ‘I know. That’s why I need to contact her. She’ll come home once she knows I’m here. Where did you store the letters she wrote?’
‘I’m sorry, son.’ He paused and rubbed the tension out of the back of his neck. He squinted at me through the sun and then reluctantly delivered the blow. ‘Chidori never wrote.’
And that struck like the butt of a rifle to the temple. ‘That’s impossible. She promised she would send a letter here to let me know where she ended up.’
He shook his head apologetically. ‘While your sister was sick, and we were staying in Vancouver, Mr Hogarth held our mail for us. Your mother picked it all up when we returned. There wasn’t anything from Chidori or the Setoguchis.’
‘Their letters must have been intercepted by the government. She’ll be able to write now,’ I theorized the most logical possibility to reassure myself.
Pop rested his hand on my shoulder, maybe because he could tell I would literally need the support when he burst my bubble. ‘The government censored parts of the letters but didn’t block correspondence. People here on Mayne received letters from other Japanese-Canadian families over the years.’
‘Well, there must be some other reason,’ I said, clinging desperately to the unravelling threads of hope. ‘I’ll write to Massey. He’ll know where they are. You have his address at the work camp, right?’
‘I did, but I don’t know where he is any more. In his last letter, he said he had been released from the work camp in Jasper and hoped to reunite with the family if he could find them. But he wasn’t sure yet where he was going to settle. We haven’t received another letter with his new address yet.’
Not willing to wait that long, I said, ‘I’ll write letters to every Japanese-Canadian family I can contact. One of them must know where the Setoguchis ended up.’
‘Years have passed, son. Have you prepared yourself for the possibility that Chidori has a new life?’
If he’d stabbed me with the pitchfork, it would have hurt less than the puncture of those words. It took every thread of will I had to suck in enough air to speak. ‘I’m going to find her. I have to find her as soon as I can.’ I stumbled back across the porch and down the steps to the yard.
‘You can’t find her right now. Where are you going?’
Not enough pressure was left in my lungs to respond, so I staggered down the driveway towards the road. It genuinely felt as if I’d been impaled and my insides were leaking out. My fingers searched my chest, and I fully expected to find the bloody, gaping holes. There was no physical wound, but I would be begging for a real pitchfork to the heart if I found out she had moved on with her life without me.