Evalina
As Mr. Medina and I pick up shards of glass from the ground, Daddy pulls up in the Espositos’ car, Mama in the seat beside him. Their faces are unreadable as they get out, as though they agreed beforehand that they would reveal no emotion when they arrived.
What had Mrs. Medina told them, anyway?
Mama immediately comes to me, her hands cupping my face. “You okay?”
I lean into her touch. To my surprise, my eyes pool. “Yes.” I choke on the word.
Daddy’s arm slips around my shoulders, and when he rests it there, it feels like the weight of guilt.
“I really am fine.” I wipe at my eyes with the sleeve of my coat. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Could you please tell us what happened?” Mama asks. “Mrs. Medina told us you stopped some boys from vandalizing the Hamasakis’ house, that the sheriff was here, and we should come too.”
“I only kind of stopped them.” I gesture to the house. “They broke a window.”
“The damage would’ve been much worse without you, Miss Cassano.” Mr. Medina dumps a handful of broken glass into the trashcan we borrowed from under the Hamasakis’ sink. It wasn’t exactly the way I imagined seeing inside Taichi’s house for the first time.
Mr. Medina rests his hands on his hips. “Brave girl you’ve got here, Alessandro. I was getting washed up when I saw a group of boys from town pull up. I knew there was going to be trouble when I saw who one of the boys was. Before the evacuation, his whole family had been pretty outspoken about their dislike for the Hamasakis.” Mr. Medina makes a sour face. “I knew I could run the boys off on my own, but I called the sheriff right away. I hoped maybe he could catch them in the act. Of course, had I realized Miss Cassano was sitting up in the tree, I would’ve gone over right away.”
Mama and Daddy both turn their gazes to me. I swallow and stare at my oxfords.
Mr. Medina goes on in agonizing detail about Danny making a grab for me, and how I shocked everyone by leaping out of the tree and running “like a deer.”
“You should’ve seen her,” Mr. Medina says with a gruff laugh. “She looked like she swings out of trees every day, she was so graceful. And boy, am I glad that Danny kid is slow. He was chasing her with a baseball bat, but one of his friends caught up quickly and tackled him. The boys high-tailed it out of here after that.”
A beat of silence falls.
Daddy recovers first. “Well, that’s our Evalina. A unique mix of fire and grace.”
I keep my gaze directed down while the adults finish up their conversation, and then we load my bicycle into the back of the Espositos’ car. I tell Mr. Medina thank you, and with trepidation, climb into the back seat.
I should speak first.
It would be the responsible thing to do.
Daddy backs out of Taichi’s driveway. “Is heading back through town the fastest way to Berkeley?”
“Or you can just take me to the train station.”
“I think we could use the extra time to talk, don’t you?”
Fear digs into my heart.
Daddy looks at me in the rearview mirror. “It sounds like you were very brave this evening.”
“I was just too angry to stay quiet.”
“That counts as bravery, I think.”
Even without seeing Daddy’s face, I can tell he’s smiling.
Another silence falls. I swallow and smooth my skirt over my dusty knees. I should just open my mouth and say it. I’ve been keeping something from you for a long time now.
“How fortunate that you were there to stop those boys.” Mama’s statement asks an unspoken question: Why were you there, Evalina?
I look at my lap. “I’ve been keeping something from you both. Something rather important. Taichi and I . . .” What are we now? What is the truth? “We’re not just friends.”
The car is quiet. I make myself look up. Mama has turned to look at me over the passenger seat. “Honey, we know.”
“You do? Since when?”
Mama looks at Daddy. “When did you first figure it out, Alessandro?”
Daddy shrugs. “Well, I first suspected when suddenly she was at the restaurant for every produce delivery.” He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You were so snappy if you missed one. And on the few occasions that happened, Taichi would be looking all around the kitchen for you.”
“You were well before me, then,” Mama says. “I didn’t really know until Taichi showed up at the house to tell you he was being evacuated. Oh, Evalina, the look of fear on your face when you saw him. If it hadn’t been such a terrible cause for a visit, it would have been funny.”
I swallow. “But when I say we’re not just friends, I don’t mean that we just like each other. I mean . . . we’ve been seeing each other. For a while now.”
Mama looks at me, her face soft. “We know what you mean, Evalina.”
“But neither of you said anything.”
“Well, neither did you.”
“I thought you would be mad.”
Mama and Daddy exchange looks. Mama is the one who speaks. “We certainly hoped that it was more of a passing fancy than anything else. I think I said that to you when we left Manzanar. But that has nothing to do with Taichi, and everything to do with how challenging marriage is even when you’ve been raised in the same neighborhood with the same values.”
Mama doesn’t want to say it, but I will: “And when you’re the same skin color.”
“Yes.” Mama draws out the word. “There are uniquely hard times ahead of you and Taichi if you marry. You know that.”
I’m quiet. “Yes, I do. But I also don’t know how to not love him.”
Mama and Daddy look at each other again. I thought I might feel awkward saying love, but instead I feel freer. Lighter.
Daddy speaks this time. “If anyone I know is brave enough to handle what lies ahead, it’s you, my Evalina. Though, I don’t understand how you can be brave enough to choose political science as your major or challenge ignorant strangers at Yosemite, yet be too scared to tell us the truth about Taichi.”
“Because she would be fighting for herself.” Mama turns to face me again. “You have always excelled at fighting for others. But if you want to have the strength to continue to do so, you must value yourself enough to fight your own battles too.”
Back at my dormitory, feeling like I’ve been gone for days instead of hours, the room of silver mailboxes beckons me. I bite my lower lip. I haven’t checked mine the last few days because I had grown so tired of being disappointed. But given the evening I’ve had, it’s not like an empty mailbox is going to bring me much lower.
I pull out the key and open the door. My breath catches at the sight of a thick envelope. Of my name printed in Taichi’s neat script.
I open it right there.
Taichi
Monday, December 7, 1942
Dark is the night at this hour. The searchlights don’t reach this corner of the hospital. Or maybe the lights are turned off, or focused on a different part of camp. Even the moon has hidden its face tonight.
The at-capacity hospital room is finally quiet now that everyone has been sewn up or bandaged and is resting. I’m the only one awake in here. The only one waiting for the sunrise to come, for the dawn of December seventh.
Last year, it seemed impossible to think that another day could feel as dark as that Sunday. But now I struggle to imagine how I could ever feel light or happy again.
Words swirl in my head, but they’re the same words that have been swirling since last night.
James is dead. He was just trying to go to work. He was just trying to do the right thing. They shot him. James is dead. One of those shots I heard, it killed James. He was just trying to do what was right. He wasn’t even part of the angry mob, and he got shot.
It’s just me here with Aiko. Everyone else in our family is in the administration building with the other families on the death list, waiting to find out what will happen now. Fred Tayama is there too, having survived by hiding underneath an orthopedic bed while the mob was searching for him.
According to the nurse’s gossip, Joe Kurihara, Raymond Yamishi, and many of the others trying to get Harry released have all been rounded up. Nobody seems to know where they are now.
Manzanar is quiet. But at too high a cost.
All day yesterday the hospital had been fairly empty, but now every bed is full of both those who were beaten up by the mob and those who were part of the mob. All of whom are being treated within feet of each other.
But not James. Because James is dead.
I rest my head on the edge of Aiko’s bed, dizzy with fatigue and homesickness and sadness. I want to sleep in my own bed, walk land that belongs to us, eat a home-cooked meal, and see Evalina again. I put my hand inside my pocket and rest it on Evalina’s photograph.
I snap up when Aiko’s hand brushes against my hair. My neck is tight and aching from the way I had slept.
“I think I fell asleep for a minute.”
My sister takes one of her pillows and moves it to the edge of her bed, where it’s easier for me to rest my head. “I think that would be good for you.”
Out the hospital window, Mount Williamson turns a becoming shade of gold as the rising sun reflects on its peak. The day has dawned, and it has done so without James.
I lie there, think about James, and cry silently.
But not silently enough, because Aiko’s hand rests on my head. “When I lost the baby,” her voice is graveled from disuse, “I never thought I was going to feel happy ever again. Which is strange because it’s not like I had even wanted to be pregnant or wanted to marry Dennis. He had broken up with me when I said I was going to have it. I felt like I had done the right thing, and then . . .”
She smooths my hair the same way Mother does when she’s comforting me. I can feel Aiko’s tears damp on the pillow alongside mine. “Taichi, sometimes we do the right thing, and life kicks us in the teeth just as hard as if we’d done the wrong.”
Evalina
Tuesday, December 8, 1942
I run for the dormitory, not caring who thinks I look unladylike or strange. Grace’s words, the ones she’d greeted me with at breakfast, reverberate with each footfall. “Father says to call him right away. He says it’s about Taichi.”
I keep telling myself it could be good news about Taichi. Maybe Mr. Bishop has finally worked out details for their release. Though would he have gone to the trouble of telephoning Grace and asking her to have me call him right away if it was good news?
My fingers tremble so much that I pinch the tips of them when trying to close the door. I fumble the dime into the slot and spin the dial.
After being transferred by Mr. Bishop’s secretary and waiting for what feels like endless minutes—though it can’t be too long because I haven’t even put in a second dime—Mr. Bishop comes on the line.
“What’s happened? Is Taichi okay?”
“As far as I know, yes. But when I spoke to Mr. Heath, the man in charge of relocations, he told me there was a riot at Manzanar on Sunday.”
I gasp, my head a mess of all those stories about death lists and garbage trucks from Taichi’s letter. “A riot?”
“Yes. He told me it was stirred up by a small group of men who were pro-Japan, and they targeted those who are vocally pro-America or for cooperating with the administration. The families who were in danger in camp are being moved to a facility in Death Valley. The Hamasakis are one of the families on that list.”
I realize I’m squeezing the telephone, as if this will cause more details to pour out. “I don’t understand how Taichi could have been in such danger.”
“I know. I don’t understand the details yet either, but I knew you would want to know. The Manzanar administration isn’t quite sure what to do from here. If they should release the families from Death Valley, just not to locations within the military zone, or if they should send them to another camp until they get this figured out. There’s a lot still up in the air.”
Poor Taichi. He had already been destroyed by the news of Diego being presumed MIA, and now this.
“Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Bishop. I appreciate it.”
“For whatever its worth, Mr. Heath thinks getting the Hamasakis released to Stafford—where my son lives—could eventually work. He just isn’t sure if it will be days or weeks or months.”
“I hope it’s days.”
“I hope so too, Evalina. And you’ll need to talk this over with your parents, of course, but my family is going to Stafford over Christmas this year. You are welcome to come with us if there’s a reason to. Again, if it’s okay with your parents.”
“Thank you. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Mr. Bishop sighs. “Yes. I guess so.”