After leaving Joey behind in my room by himself, I rummaged through the barn for more of my father’s ale. He must have wisely hidden it somewhere else or dumped it. The only thing I could find was an old bottle of cooking wine. I took that, waited for Joey to leave, and headed back to the house. The porch creaked when I stepped up onto it, and just before I turned the doorknob, I heard another creak behind me. I spun around prepared to fight. ‘Marguerite! Jesus. You scared me half to death. What are you doing sneaking around here?’
‘I want to see the inside of your home.’ She walked past me, pushed the door open, and stepped into the house. ‘I feel like I already know it from Chidori’s descriptions.’
‘Whoa there. Nobody invited you in. It’s getting dark. You need to get on home.’
‘It’s a full moon. Besides, it’s Mayne Island. Nothing bad ever happens here.’ She wandered through the living room wearing what I could only guess was a traditional Hungarian folk dress of some sort. The skirt was a wild floral pattern over a white petticoat, with a white apron, a bright green lace-up vest, a puffy sleeved blouse, and an embroidered hair band with silk flowers attached above each ear.
‘Were you just at some kind of dance performance or something?’
‘No. This is just what I felt like wearing today.’ She admired everything in the living room with great attention, then headed into the kitchen. I followed her and opened the cupboard to see if Pop’s bottle of rye was still hidden behind the flour. It wasn’t. ‘Are you intending to get sloshed?’
‘Yeah, so skedaddle,’ I said as I took the cap off the bottle of cooking wine.
The golden retriever pressed its nose against the back screen door to check out who was inside the house. ‘Where are your folks?’ Marguerite asked.
I shook my head, unconcerned.
‘Then I reckon I’ll stay until they return. What’s the dog’s name?’
‘No idea.’
‘Have you had supper?’ Not waiting for my answer Marguerite searched through the cupboards and pulled out a sack of rice.
‘I’m not hungry, and you’re not staying.’ I left her there and climbed the stairs back to my room. The cooking wine made me feel dizzy in a nauseated way. I fell onto my bed and stared at the ceiling.
When I lifted my head, Marguerite stood in the doorway with one of Rosalyn’s hair clips in her hand.
I shot up and shouted like a bear, ‘Put that back where you found it and get the hell out of here!’
Her body flinched from the roar of my voice, she blinked hard, then spun around. The floor in Rose’s room squeaked as she put the clip back. Her footsteps clambered down the stairs, then the front door slammed. I stood and watched out the window as she ran across the yard in a flash of colourful Hungarian folk dress and disappeared into the darkness.
The next morning there was a very soft knock at my bedroom door. I knew it was Marguerite before she even poked her head in. Although I was filled with regret for snapping at her, I grumbled, ‘Go away.’ The door creaked open and she crept in. ‘The Maiers wouldn’t be thrilled to know you’re sneaking around in a strange man’s bedroom.’
‘Sorry for touching your sister’s hair clip without asking.’
‘It’s fine. Just don’t do it again.’ I pulled the cover over my shoulder and face to block out the light.
‘Did your sister really kill herself?’
Jesus. Were all kids so forward? I sat up. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Nobody. I overheard folks talking about her.’ She stepped inside my room and stood in the corner with her hands clasped together, as if she had promised herself not to touch anything. Her hair was braided into pigtails with blue ribbons tied at the ends. She wore a more traditional girl’s blue dress that had a black collar and black buttons along with a matching blue tam, maybe the outfit she wore on the orphan ship.
‘You shouldn’t be eavesdropping, especially not on gossip.’
‘Is your sister dying like that why you have nightmares, or is it because of the war?’
I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘Don’t you have someone else you could pester?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She studied me seriously as she sat on my desk chair and rested her elbows on her knees to mimic my posture. ‘If your sister would have held on, things would have gotten better. You know that, right?’
‘What would you know about that?’
‘Plenty.’ She reached over and was about to lift my saxophone from its stand. She paused. ‘Is it fine if I look at this?’
‘No. Please leave me alone.’ Exhausted, I lay back down and stared at the ceiling.
‘Will you teach me how to play it?’
‘No.’
All out of ways to engage me in conversation, she stood at the foot of my bed and watched me for a good while before eventually leaving.
The following week I received correspondence. The eldest son in the Teramura family sent me a letter informing me that their father had been initially taken away to Petawawa, which was essentially a POW work camp on Canadian soil. And although the rest of the Teramuras had been at Hastings Park with Chidori’s family, his family was sent to Lemon Creek Internment camp, which was a shanty-town of cabins built in the Slocan Valley to house them. Chidori’s family didn’t go to Lemon Creek, and he hadn’t heard where they ended up. There were other internment camps in British Columbia – Greenwood, Sandon, Kaslo, New Denver Tashme, and more. He also wondered if maybe they had decided, like the Koyama family, to move east of the protected area on their own dime to become a self-supporting family. If the Setoguchis had done that, they could be in any number of communities – Minto, Bridge River, Lillooet, Christina Lake, Chase, Taylor Lake or Salmon Arm. Or anywhere east of the Rockies, realistically. It would be nearly impossible to track them down if they hadn’t sent word to anyone. And that was the part I simply couldn’t comprehend. Why hadn’t they sent word? Even if something tragic had befallen Chidori, her parents or brothers would have attempted to notify me … wouldn’t they?
My mother was in the living room, crying to Pop about how watching me suffer was too much and how she couldn’t survive losing both her children to suicide. After almost an hour of her sobbing about what she had done wrong to raise two morose children, I got up, went downstairs, and told them I was going for a walk so she wouldn’t worry. Or maybe so I didn’t have to listen to her any more. I didn’t actually go for a walk. I sat with my back up against the barn, drinking from a bottle of vodka that I had picked up when I was in town collecting the post. The golden retriever moseyed over and flopped down next to me. The sun had started to set when little footsteps approached. I hid the bottle behind my back as Marguerite walked towards me wearing a grey wool pleated jumper and blazer that was embroidered with London Junior Collegiate Preparatory. And yellow rubber boots, even though the dirt was dry as stone.
‘Hi,’ she said quietly, and sat down beside the dog to stroke her palm across the fluffy fur.
‘When are you going to take the hint that I don’t want you coming around here?’
Ignoring my question, she asked, ‘How long do you think it will take before you hear where Chidori lives?’
‘I don’t know, why?’
Her eyebrows rose in an adult-type concern. ‘I’m just wondering if you’ll die before that happens.’
I chuckled, lifted the bottle that I’d been hiding behind my back, and tilted it in a gesture of cheers before I took a swig. ‘You and my ma both.’
She sighed and was quiet for a spell. ‘You can talk to me about your sad if you want.’
‘What’s there to talk about? I want Chidori to come home and, even in the unlikely event that she also wants that, she can’t.’
‘Not that sad.’
Taken back by her forwardness once again, I swallowed back more alcohol. ‘I don’t want to talk about the other sad.’
‘It might help if you aren’t carrying the burden of all that rubbish by yourself.’
‘It’s horrible enough that my mind has to know what it knows. Sharing it with you would only spread the evil to both our minds.’
She braided strands of long grass together. ‘My foster parents sent me to a doctor who helps folks who are haunted by the horrible things they witnessed in the war.’
‘A doctor can’t fix what’s in my mind. I just need to make better memories to replace the bad ones.’
Her gaze met mine and she peered right into my thoughts. ‘Promise you aren’t going to give up on Chidori.’
I blinked hard and braced myself for what was about to come out of my mouth. ‘It’s been three and a half years. Chances are she’s moved on.’ I winced and reached over to rest my hand on the dog’s shoulder. ‘Maybe I should too.’
‘No. You can’t. She’s your one true love.’
I shook my head and forced back the tears that threatened to surface. ‘She didn’t even write.’
‘The Chidori from the journals would have written if she could have, and the Hayden from the journals would have never given up until he found her.’
‘Yeah, well, neither one of us are those people any more. And one thing I learned in the war is that sometimes the only way to win is to give in.’
‘More often you have to fight to win. You came this far. You can’t quit now.’ Marguerite bit at her lower lip and gazed off into the fields for a short while before standing. ‘Let me know when the Hayden from the journals gets home from the war.’ She turned and walked away.
My head throbbed and the drink did nothing to numb the pain. The dog moved to rest her head on my thigh and fell asleep. I slept right there in the dirt too.