Chapter 22

L

ahaina was a long dream, a leisurely ramble through a landscape both new and familiar. With its wooden storefronts shaded by broad awnings from the “cruel sun” that gave the town its name, it had the charm and intimacy of Old Honolulu—Front Street could easily have been Nu'uanu Avenue in 1893, each merchant greeting Sarah by name as Mr. Tinker and Ah Leong had once greeted Mama. Sarah had grown up to be a decathlon shopper, and the first event was a stop at Gladys’s Beauty Salon, where over Rachel’s protests Sarah treated her to an expensive hair styling. After this a little browsing at Emura’s Jewelry Store, then a visit to Sarah’s dressmaker, Mrs. Nakai, where they each tried on half a dozen outfits—laughing like little girls playing dress-up—and Rachel purchased a new Sunday dress to wear at her court hearing.

After lunch at the Liberty Restaurant, they strolled down Front Street, several boarded-up shops testimony to the effects of the tidal wave two years before. Rachel asked Sarah if Lahaina got hit hard by the tsunami.

“A lot of property damage, but thank heaven only one fatality. Hna got the worst of it—twelve people died, Ben almost lost his home. We were blessed here in Lahaina. God was looking out for us.”

The shops on the makai side of the street gave way to a low sea wall; beyond it was a rocky slope of shoreline and a magnificent view of the Lahaina Roadstead, a thriving port back in whaling days but far sleepier today. A Kona wind played with Rachel’s newly cut hair, much as Kenji used to twist and turn it in idle caress, and Rachel recalled how Haleola had spoken fondly of these tradewinds off Lahaina. They had an abundance of names depending on direction and mood: the gentle Ma'a'a, the destructive Kaua'ula . . . if a soft breeze blew at night it was called the Uluoa and it was kapu to go onto the beach for fear of encountering the marchers of the night.

And now Rachel remembered something else Haleola had told her, something that made her quicken her pace as they approached the big plantationstyle Pioneer Hotel. “Sarah, over here! Let me show you something!”

“Show me what? You’ve never been here before!”

Rachel hurried past the Pioneer, found the end of the low stone wall fronting the harbor and peered down the rocky slope. A rock formation glistened blue-black in the lapping waves; it looked something like a chair, with a low shelf backing a smooth, worn hollow, even a smaller rock serving as a kind of footrest. “Do you know what this is?”

Sarah ventured, “A rock?”

“A sacred rock! Legend has it that in the old days, in order to protect a young girl named Hauola from her enemies, the gods turned her to stone.”

“Sounds awfully drastic,” Sarah said lightly. “Couldn’t they have just hidden her somewhere instead?”

“For centuries kahunas brought sick patients here, sat them down with their legs dangling in the water, and the patients were supposed to be cured of whatever ailed them.”

With a touch of the old Sarah her sister said archly, “Oh, you mean like leprosy?”

Rachel frowned. “Well I didn’t say it always worked.”

Sarah regarded her sister dubiously. “You know if Mama could hear all this pagan superstition coming out of your mouth she’d tan your hide, but good.”

Rachel suspected no amount of persuasion would convince her devout sister that this wasn’t idolatry, it was history; so she shrugged and let it go. They stopped at Kawaguchi’s Fish Market, picked up some fresh ulua for dinner, and spoke no more of kahunas and mystic stones.

When not shopping or sightseeing, Rachel was content to sit outside in the lee of the West Maui Mountains, so close they seemed almost to be in Sarah’s backyard. Though not as tall as Kalaupapa’s pali, they were their equal in beauty: jagged green peaks, graced by clouds, rising above sloping cane fields. Rachel heard the distant whistle of the Pioneer Mill’s locomotive and breathed in the bittersweet scent of a cane fire. There was something serenely comforting about these mountains; Rachel couldn’t imagine ever growing tired of the view. In the old days, according to Haleola, Lahaina had been a “city of refuge,” a place where those who’d broken kapus could come to find sanctuary. Now Rachel found refuge as well, the corruptions and kapus of her disease seeming to melt away, dissolved by the “cruel sun” that was actually quite kind.

Then the serene silence was broken by a burst of tinny music and a voice announcing the start of Sarah’s favorite radio show, Queen for a Day, and Rachel had to plug her ears to keep from hearing the bathetic life stories of contestants vying for a new washing machine or Frigidaire. Had these haoles no shame?

She stayed on Maui for ten days, long enough to meet Sarah’s grown children and to make the long twisting drive to Hna to see Ben—forty pounds heavier and as happy and amazed to see his baby sister as Sarah had been. Staying overnight in Hna, Rachel saw in Ben’s children and grandchildren not merely the faces of their parents but those of their grandparents as well: a ten-year-old’s smile that seemed an echo of Henry’s; a toddler’s scowl that for all the world looked like Dorothy in a bad mood. And gazing at cranky, two-year-old Betty, Rachel felt the loss of Mama a little less.

The next day, on the long drive back along the Hna Road, Sarah broke a comfortable silence. “Rachel? Why don’t you stay?”

“Oh, I don’t want to wear out my welcome. You know what they say, ulua and visitors stink after a week.”

“No,” Sarah laughed, “what I mean is, why don’t you move here, to Maui? Move in with me?”

Rachel was surprised—and touched. “That’s a lovely offer, Sarah, thank you,” she said wonderingly.

“It’s a selfish offer. I could use the company; so could you. Two widowed sisters sharing a house and bickering over religion, doesn’t that sound grand?”

They both laughed.

“I don’t know what to say,” Rachel said. “Everything’s happened so fast. And I have this hearing coming up—”

“Yes, of course. Just something to think about.” She paused, then added, “I’m only sorry I wasn’t a better sister to you when we were little.”

“Well, I did ruin your yellow felt hat.”

“Will you stop about the hat?” Rachel laughed, but Sarah went on soberly, “I was always a little jealous of you. I wanted Papa to love me like he loved you.”

“Sarah, Papa loved you! He loved all of us.”

“I know. He just loved you in a different way . . . maybe because you two were so alike, because you both loved the same things . . . and I was jealous of that. I’m sorry.”

She slipped her free hand over Rachel’s gnarled fingers and gave them a tender squeeze. “Go back to Honolulu. Find your daughter. Just as long as you know . . . you’ll always have a home here.”

Rachel held back tears. “Thank you, Sarah,” she said softly. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

Home. She thought of her vanished home in Honolulu, all the years and memories razed for an apartment building. But now she had new homes, around which new memories could be forged: Sarah’s cottage in Lahaina; Ben’s house in Hna. Her old family made new, except for . . .

She found herself thinking of another home, one she had never seen. She turned to Sarah and asked, “Isn’t Kula somewhere around here?”

Her sister glanced at her, seeming to know at once what Rachel was thinking. “About twelve miles upcountry.”

“You know the way?”

Sarah nodded tightly. “I know the way.”

They turned off the Hna Road and onto a narrow mountain lane twisting through thick woods and small upcountry towns: Ha'ik, Makawao, Waiakoa. A mile north of Kula, Sarah turned onto an unpaved road. A jolting five minute ride brought them to a tumbledown old house, surrounded by thickets and edging a forest pungent with the smell of ripe guava. It was little more than a shack—one room, two windows—no running water but a clear stream meandering through the trees and past a wide meadow of pili grass, tall enough for a child to lose himself in.

Sarah paced off a hundred feet as Mama had told her, leading Rachel to a mound of grass and weeds. They knelt and weeded the plot until the rich red earth could be seen, as well as a small wooden cross with a name carved neatly into the lateral beam: not James Kalama, surprisingly, but Kimo.

“Mama did this?” Rachel said, and Sarah nodded. “She was reading Ecclesiastes when she came across: ‘A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death better than the day of one’s birth.’ She said she thought about all the love Kimo, as Kimo, had received, and decided that was the name God should know him by, on that day ‘better than the day of his birth.’ ”

A bird, perhaps a Maui parrotbill, warbled from somewhere deep in the forest. The stream chuckled to itself; the wind rustled the pili grass. It was a good place for a boy to play.

U

nited States District Court Judge Walter Birch—a stern-looking haole in his fifties—slipped on a pair of spectacles and scanned the documents in front of him. Rachel, in her new Sunday dress, stood nervously before the bench. This courtroom was several degrees of magnitude more intimidating than the one at Kalaupapa. Despite the summer heat, the room felt cold and formal, and not warmed any by the judge, who seemed to have a permanent scowl engraved on his face. In a flat voice he asked Rachel, “You gave up your daughter for adoption in—1916, Mrs. Utagawa?”

“Yes, sir,” Rachel said. “Though not willingly.”

He glanced up. “You were given the option, weren’t you, of having your family on O'ahu hnai her?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t locate them at the time. And my husband’s family wouldn’t consider it.”

The judge made a grunt of acknowledgment and glanced at another document. “So your daughter would be . . . thirty-two years old now?” He rolled his tongue around inside his cheek as he read, then asked without looking up, “And what exactly do you hope to accomplish by establishing contact with her at this late date?”

“I . . . don’t know what to expect from it, Your Honor.”

He looked up, a bit sharply. “Not expect—hope. What is it you hope to gain? A daughter? A place in her home?”

“No, that’s not why I’m doing this.”

“Because you can’t assume, you know, that she’ll have the same interest in you as you do in her. Adopted children are often quite content with the number and quality of parents they already have.”

Now the courtroom felt very warm indeed, and Rachel was acutely aware of the perspiration trickling down her neck and under her arms.

“I just want to see her,” Rachel said. “The woman she’s become. I want to hear her story, know that she’s happy. And if I have to walk away from her . . .” She was wilting under the heat and the cold of the judge’s stare but managed to finish, “If I have to walk away, I want to do it because of what we are, or aren’t, to each other . . . and not because I have leprosy.”

The judge took that in, removed his spectacles. “Do you have anything else to add?” he asked.

“No, Your Honor.”

Judge Birch nodded and lifted his gavel.

“The court will take the matter under advisement.” He rapped the gavel and the hearing was over. Rachel stumbled out into bright sunlight with no idea how the court might rule or how long it might take.

To occupy herself in the interim, she renewed her efforts to find work, applying for jobs—bank clerk, maid, flower shop girl, nanny—all along the bus route and as far east as Kahala. After a month she was finally offered a position, as a cashier at a gift shop on the corner of King Street and Ward Avenue. The store offered the usual miscellany of snacks and souvenirs: macadamia nuts, guava jelly, pineapples, flower and feather leis. It was easy work, and if the owner suspected that Rachel was a Hansen’s disease patient, he neither acknowledged it nor seemed to care. Then, a day into Rachel’s third week, as she gave a quarter’s change with her left hand to a man buying some Kona coffee, the customer caught a glimpse of her other hand. She saw his blink of surprise, his chill of recognition. He gripped the quarter by the edge—as though it had just turned hotter than the sun—and dropped it into a wastebasket on his way out. No doubt he would seek out the nearest washroom and scrub his hands raw.

A few days later Rachel was let go with no explanation from her employer other than, “I’m sorry, this isn’t working out.” He at least gave her a week’s severance pay.

David and Helen were among the new parolees who’d followed Rachel to Honolulu; over dinner one night David complained of how old friends and former employers seemed reticent to offer him work. “We may have to move out of town, maybe a neighbor isle—someplace where no one knows us, and people don’t look at you as if you’re—”

“Dirty,” Rachel said.

“Unclean,” Helen agreed. She told of getting back her old job as a bank clerk only to be informed a week later that her fellow employees had gone to the branch manager and threatened to resign en masse if “that leper girl” continued to work there. “At least in Kalaupapa you had your dignity,” she said, “and you could work an honest job like anyone else.” The territorial legislature was considering changing the official designation of leprosy to Hansen’s disease, but they couldn’t legislate the fear and ignorance from people’s hearts.

That week Rachel was notified that Judge Birch would rule on her petition the following Monday. When Rachel appeared on the appointed day the judge’s stern gaze swept over her as he announced, “In the matter of the adoption of Ruth Dorothy Utagawa, the court finds that petitioner has demonstrated good cause to unseal the court records in case number 45601.” He rapped his gavel, dust motes flying up from the bench as if startled. “Next case.”

A dazed Rachel was taken by a court clerk to the records division, where he brought out a musty sheaf of documents stamped with the case number and smelling of the past. “You may inspect these as long as you wish,” he told her, giving her pencil and paper to make notes, and Rachel slowly began sorting through the file.

On top was a sheet bearing her own signature as well as Kenji’s: the form they’d signed legally relinquishing “custody and control” of their daughter. It hurt to look at it. This was followed by pages and pages of medical records from Kapi'olani Home; and when at last Rachel came to the adoption papers her hands began to tremble.

TAIZO AND ETSUKO WATANABE

216 S. KUKUI ST.

HONOLULU, T.H.

In pro per

UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT—
TENTH DISTRICT
COUNTY OF HONOLULU

Petition of:

PETITION FOR ADOPTION

TAIZO AND ETSUKO WATANABE

Adopting Parents

According to the petition and adoption application, dated June 7, 1921, Mr. and Mrs. Taizo Watanabe of Honolulu—a former plantation worker at Waimnalo, now a general contractor, and his wife—were Japanese nationals who had resided in the islands for eight years, presently with three sons. The application listed questions about the Watanabes’ religious background, their economic status, their family health history; all answered innocuously enough. In addition to the petition there were other court papers, pleadings and court transcripts, that Rachel read in their entirety, as engrossed as if she were reading Jack London or Conan Doyle. At the end of which she saw:

WHEREFORE, petitioner prays that the Court adjudge the adoption of the child by the petitioners, declaring that the petitioners and child shall henceforth sustain toward each other the legal relation of parents and child, and have all rights and be subject to all the duties of that relation; and that the child shall be known as RUTH DAI WATANABE.

Rachel’s sadness at the words “shall henceforth sustain . . . legal relation of parents and child” was mitigated by her pleasure that her daughter’s name was still Ruth.

Finally there was a new birth certificate, asserting that Ruth Dai Watanabe had been born in Honolulu on January 8, 1916, thus sparing her the stigma of having Kalaupapa as a birthplace.

The current telephone book had no listing for a Taizo or Etsuko Watanabe on O'ahu, or any of the other islands. Nor was there a listing for a Ruth Watanabe, though surely she would have married by now. The clerk helped Rachel search voter registration files, but this just confirmed the bad news. “Sometimes, you know,” the clerk told her, “Japanese plantation workers would fulfill their contracts, then take the money they’d made and move back to Japan.” The thought was a dull ache in her heart; if they had taken Ruth to a foreign country there was virtually no chance of Rachel, with her limited resources, locating them.

She took a bus to 216 E. Kukui Street and went door to door, inquiring of the neighbors whether anyone had known a Japanese family named Watanabe who’d lived here in the Twenties. Most hadn’t; a few recalled the name but had little else to offer. There were, however, a number of Japanese families still in the neighborhood, and remembering something Kenji had once told her, Rachel asked about the Yakuba, the neighborhood archive of family histories. It was from this she learned that the Watanabes had moved out of the neighborhood in 1923. But there the trail ended, with no record of a new address.

In desperation Rachel called Sister Catherine, who, she hoped, might know someone who had worked at Kapi'olani Home at the time, someone who might be of help. Catherine in turn called Sister Mary Augusta, now retired after years of service at both Kalaupapa and Kapi'olani Home.

Sister Augusta knew nothing of the Watanabes, but did recall that Ruthie had been a favorite of Sister Mary Louisa’s, now also retired and living in Honolulu. This eventually yielded a letter, in a woman’s flowing cursive, addressed to Sister Louisa and dated September 12, 1923:

Dear Sister,

This is to let you know that we have all arrived safely and are settled comfortably into our new home. Horace and Ralph got seasick on the voyage over but Stanley and Ruth were fine. It took Mr. Watanabe a few months to find an appropriate lease but we are now settled on a hundred acres raising strawberries and Tokay grapes. It is very beautiful here, we are very happy.

Thank you again for the kindness you have shown for our Ruth. She still talks of her “Sister Lu.” Please know how grateful we are to have her, and for everything you have done for us.

With warmest regards,
Etsuko Watanabe
R.R. #2, Box 12
Florin, California

Rachel’s hopes sank on reading of the “voyage over,” but rose again at the return address: California! If her daughter was on the mainland at least Rachel had a fighting chance to locate her. The long-distance operator informed her that Florin was in Sacramento County, but there was no telephone listing anywhere in the county for a Taizo, Etsuko, or Ruth Watanabe. Rachel was under no illusions: Ruth could be living in Idaho or New York or Timbuktu by now. But if her adoptive parents had owned a farm, it was possible they were still there—maybe they just didn’t own a telephone. Lacking a better idea, Rachel sat down to write a letter which would take her two full days to compose.

August 13, 1948

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Kalama Utagawa. You may recognize my name. I am Ruth’s mother by birth.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Kalama Utagawa. I gave Ruth up for adoption.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

I am living in Honolulu again and would like to contact Ruth. I mean no disrespect to you. I just want to talk to her.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My late husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

I am living in Honolulu now and would very much like to contact her. I intend no disrespect to you. I would just like the opportunity to talk with the little girl I

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My late husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

A day has not gone by since that I haven’t thought of her. I wonder how she is. Is she married? Does she have children of her own?

Sister Mary Louisa Hughes has told me what good people you are, and how much you love Ruth. I’m happy to know she had such good parents.

I would give anything in the world to hear her voice or see her face, even once. It is a longing, a setsub which has never gone away.

I intend no disrespect to you. I am her mother by blood, but you are her parents by law and by love. I hope you will look kindly on this request. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Rachel Utagawa
1726 S. King St.
Honolulu, T.H.
ph. HON 68412

She read it over at least a hundred times, then stamped an envelope and placed the letter inside. It sat like that on her kitchen table for another day before she scraped together the courage to seal the envelope, walk it to the end of the block, and drop it in the mailbox.

She told herself it would probably be returned as undeliverable, but at least she’d tried; at least she’d honored the memory of those who had never been able to try.

She wrote a thank-you to Sister Catherine, and a week later received a letter back—smelling as usual of formaldehyde from the fumigation to which all mail was subjected before leaving the settlement.

Dearest Rachel,

I’m happy to have been of help. I hope it bears some fruit. But even if it doesn’t, you can be comforted by the knowledge that our Ruth was raised by loving parents. Not every child in this world is lucky enough to say that.

Kalaupapa seems so lonely without you and the others who have been released. But it’s a loneliness I celebrate; each empty house represents another life regained. Superintendent Judd continues his reforms. His latest brainstorm: he’s going to allow patients to take sightseeing flights of the neighbor islands on one of the little planes that service Kalaupapa. Maybe even meet with family members at airports on Maui or Kaua'i. Who would ever have dreamed of such a thing, when you and I first saw that little biplane over Kalaupapa forty years ago?

As for me, I had a nasty bout with influenza a few weeks ago, but Dr. Sloan pulled me through. Still, when you come that close to an unexpected reunion with the Lord you think of everything you never did, everything you never said but should have.

I have no regrets, Rachel, about the life I chose. The one thing I lacked, you have in part given me. Thanks to you I know a little of the joy a mother must, the pride in a child well grown. I pray you shall know it too. God bless you and keep you, Rachel.

All my love,
Catherine

L

ate in August and early on a Sunday morning, Rachel’s phone rang, jolting her out of lazy dreams. She answered it groggily and a little out of sorts, no friendly “Hello,” just an irritated “Yes?”

In someone’s hesitation she heard the hiss of long distance and then a woman’s voice.

“Is this—Rachel Utagawa?”

The voice sounded so much like Rachel’s own, she was momentarily disoriented—was this real or was she dreaming?

“Hello?” came the voice.

“Yes,” Rachel said quickly, “this is she.”

Another moment of hesitation, then, “My name is Ruth Watanabe Harada.”

Rachel tried to pull a sound up out of her throat, but found that she couldn’t.

The voice, so eerily similar to her own, seemed to float suspended in space, like something out of a radio drama, tinny and faintly unreal. “It’s three hours earlier in Hawai'i, isn’t it? I must’ve woken you up.”

“That—that’s all right,” Rachel said finally. “I’m sorry, I . . . wasn’t quite . . . prepared for this.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“Are you calling from—California?”

“Yes. San José. Your letter went to my parents’ old farm,” the voice explained, as if eager to fill any anxious lull with words, “and the current tenants sent it back. But a girl at the local post office went to high school with me, and—”

“I named you Ruth,” Rachel suddenly exclaimed—to her own surprise, and a startled pause on the other end of the line.

“Did you?” Ruth said at last.

Rachel couldn’t tell whether she sounded intrigued or alarmed. “Did you speak with your . . . parents before you called me today?”

“My father passed away several years ago. My mother’s very frail, I didn’t want to possibly upset her.” A small note of annoyance crept into her tone. “Anyway, it was me you wanted to talk to, wasn’t it? Though isn’t it a little late to decide you want to get to know me?”

Rachel sighed.

“Ruth . . .” Despite what she had to say, she thrilled to speak the name. “I gave you up for adoption because I had to. Because I was forced to . . . by the government.”

Ruth seemed completely nonplussed by that. “What?”

“Have you ever heard of—Kalaupapa?”

“Kala . . . no.”

“It’s on Moloka'i. Where Father Damien died.”

There was a stunned silence on the line; all Rachel could hear was the static of Ruth’s breath as it traveled across the transpacific cable.

Finally, in a small, shocked voice: “You’re a leper?”

Rachel flinched.

“They call it Hansen’s disease now. And I’ve been paroled.” She instantly regretted the choice of words; it made her sound like an exconvict. “They found a cure. A treatment. I’ve been released, I’m no danger to anybody.”

This was followed by another silence, almost as long as the last. “Hansen’s disease?”

“It’s not hereditary. It doesn’t pass from mother to child unless the baby remains with the parents for an extended time. That’s why we had to give you up.”

Rachel hung on the silence that followed; then in a strained voice her daughter said, “I . . . think I’d better have a talk with my mother.”

Of course that’s not what you’re having now, is it, Rachel thought with a trace of bitterness. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”

“I’ll call back tomorrow. Or the next day.”

Rachel’s stomach knotted. She said, “Ruth—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’ll call back, I promise.”

The connection was severed, and Rachel couldn’t help wondering if this would be the closest she would ever come to her daughter—a disembodied voice without face or form, a phantom child she would never see nor hold.

There had been so many days in her life when she had told herself, Nothing could ever be worse than this. The day she was sent to Moloka'i; the day Ruth was taken from her; the day Kenji died. And now this. The waiting, and wondering, and hearing again and again the horror in her daughter’s voice. You’re a leper? She prayed that from this day forward no more parents would live to hear that word spoken by their own children.

She called Sarah, who reassured her and counseled patience. That night she saw David and Helen, who were sure Ruth would call back. “She just needs time to digest it all,” Helen said. For days Rachel never left her room for fear of missing Ruth’s call; but it didn’t come on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday she was going stir-crazy and took herself out to dinner at Tomo’s, a little neighborhood eatery—then regretted it, staying home all of Friday in case Ruth had tried to reach her the night before. But by Saturday she could no longer keep her hopes up, and consoled herself with the memory of that one brief conversation with the girl whose name was still Ruth.

On Sunday morning, as it had the previous Sunday, the phone rang early.

Rachel snapped it up before the first ring had faded, hearing again the hiss and pop of long distance.

“Hi. It’s me again.”

Rachel’s heart pounded in her chest like the sea heard in a conch shell. She shut her eyes and thanked whatever God, god, or 'aumakua had granted her this.

Simultaneously they said, “I’m sorry—”

Simultaneously they laughed.

“You first,” Ruth said.

“I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I’m sure it was enough of a shock, hearing from me, much less the rest of it.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to call back,” Ruth apologized. “I guess I panicked a little. My first thought was for my children; what it might mean to them.”

Rachel thrilled to know she was a grandmother. “How many children do you have?”

“Two. Peggy’s eight and Donald is ten.”

“That’s wonderful,” Rachel said, tears coming to her.

“My doctor says you’re right, leprosy isn’t hereditary. But that children are more susceptible to it.”

Rachel asked, “Did he also tell you that you don’t get it from casual contact? From touching someone, or breathing the same air they do?”

Her daughter hesitated. “Yes. But he did say that children are more susceptible.”

Rachel weighed her words carefully: “Ruth, it’s you I want to see. I’m willing to do it under any conditions you name. If you don’t want me near your children, I won’t go near them.”

After a moment: “How . . . bad . . . is your leprosy?”

“You mean, am I disfigured?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“My right hand is deformed. And my feet. Other than that, my main complaint is neuritis.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—tactless—”

“It’s all right. Not many people know much about leprosy. Even in Hawai'i it’s something most people would prefer not to think about.”

There was a long silence, and then Ruth said, “I used to wonder about you. Who you were. Why you . . .” She paused. “I think it’s only fair to tell you. I love my oksan, my mother. I loved my father.”

Rachel felt a pang of loss at the words, but said, “Of course you do. They raised you. Raised you well, to judge by what I’ve heard. I’m not trying to replace anyone in your affections, Ruth.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“Just what I said in the letter. To see you.” Her voice broke. “You were the only baby I ever had, and you were taken from me after less than a day. If someone had taken Peggy or Donald from you right after they were born—if you hadn’t seen them in thirty years—what would you want?”

The distance between them crackled in Rachel’s ear, then Ruth said, “This is so strange. Listening to you, it’s almost like listening to my own voice.” There was a hint of pleasure in her tone. “I never looked or sounded like anybody in my family.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “We’re not rich. I can’t afford to come to Honolulu.”

And at that, Rachel smiled.

“I don’t expect you to,” she said.

S

he was going through her savings at an alarming pace, but couldn’t think of anything she would rather spend it on than this. Round-trip airfare from Honolulu to San Francisco was a bracing $270 plus tax, but a cabin-class steamer ticket ran about the same price. And in the end she couldn’t resist the lure of the majestic Lurline—the prospect of finally being one of those boarding a ship bound for distant ports, and not just one of the crowd seeing them off. Now, as she and some seven hundred other passengers crowded onto the bow of the luxury liner, stewards handed out gaudy streamers which the passengers let fall in a blizzard of color, to be caught by friends or family on the pier. Rachel threw hers to strangers, even waved at them, and laughed when they waved back. The Royal Hawaiian Band bid them sweet farewell with “Aloha 'Oe,” the ship’s horn returning the sentiment in a deep basso—three long blasts as the ship pulled anchor. The Lurline slipped its berth and was soon heading for open sea, the band’s music becoming faint as a fading radio signal. As O'ahu receded from view, Rachel felt a rush of excitement headier even than her flight out of Kalaupapa. San Francisco! The name resonated with memories of her father, the rag doll he’d bought for her back when California had been a place in another country, an exotic land called America. And as the last of the Hawaiian archipelago disappeared from sight Rachel realized that she had gone over the horizon, just as Papa had. The salt air tasted strangely sweet.

She had booked the cheapest cabin available—a tiny room with a couch that converted into a bed—but spent most of the next five days outside anyway, lounging in a deck chair while reading a book, strolling the promenade deck, sunning herself at the pool. She didn’t go into the water for fear of revealing her deformed feet, but perhaps no one would have cared if she had; the other passengers seemed far too intent on their own recreation.

After dinner she liked to linger in the aft lounge on “A” deck, listening to music and watching couples swing dancing. She would have given all the rest of her life to be on that dance floor with Kenji, feeling his arms around her as he held her close, followed by a long walk in the moonlight with nothing but ocean and freedom in every direction. As the orchestra played “Autumn Serenade” Rachel shut her eyes and could almost imagine Kenji was here, and for a moment she could feel his strong fingers entwined with those of her good hand.

On the fifth day the California coastline crept up from below the horizon, the red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge appearing like devil’s horns on the forehead of the sea. It was the largest man-made creation Rachel had ever seen: a flaming necklace strung between brown hills and a city of towering concrete pali. She couldn’t have been more excited if she’d been transported by whirlwind to the outskirts of Oz.

She would have loved to take in the sights, but instead caught a train that carried her south to San José, which was closer to her conception of a mainland American city—modern and a bit nondescript. From the Cahill Street Station she took a taxi to the Hotel Sainte Claire, a six-story brick colossus that occupied the better part of an entire block. She had considered getting a room at the YWCA, or at a less pricy hotel like the unfortunately named Letcher House, but chose the Saint Claire because she didn’t want her daughter to think her indigent; that Rachel had any financial motives in contacting her.

Her comfortable room looked out on Plaza Park across the street. Shaped somewhat like a lopsided arrowhead, the park was an island of California redwoods, date palms, and oak trees surrounding the Victorian spires of City Hall. She freshened up, then lay down on the bed, noting the time: a little after three in the afternoon. Ruth would be here in less than an hour and Rachel found herself growing anxious, restive. The person dearest to her in the world was also, she knew, a total stranger; Rachel reminded herself that the need here was hers, not Ruth’s.

As she seemed to do whenever she checked into a hotel she promptly fell into a doze, only to be startled awake by a knock on the door. She sat up, disoriented to see the hands of the clock now poised just after four. My God, she thought, she’s here, Ruth’s here! “Coming!” she called, terrified the knocking would stop and her daughter somehow vanish like smoke; she smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt, took the brass doorknob in her left hand, twisted and pulled.

A tall, pretty young woman with amber skin and almond eyes stood in the doorway. Her face was as round as Rachel’s, but her features were finer, like Kenji’s. She wore a yellow dress and her hair fell to her shoulders.

“Hello,” she said, smiling nervously. “I’m Ruth.”

Something sang inside Rachel, and everything she had endured paled in the bright light of this moment.

“Ruth,” she said, less a greeting than a confirmation. She felt tears in her eyes, didn’t try to check them. “Oh my baby, you’re so beautiful.” Ruth blushed, as her mother once had at similar words.

Rachel embraced her, unable to do anything else. For the first time in thirty years she felt her daughter’s skin against hers; rejoiced to feel her heartbeat, and each nervous breath she took.

But she also became aware of the tension in Ruth’s body, the unease she was probably feeling, and reluctantly Rachel let go of her. She took a step back, wiped at her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a smile. “I’m a blubbering old woman. Take me out and shoot me.”

But this did not elicit the expected laugh. Rachel realized that Ruth was staring at her right hand—the wrist that ended so suddenly, the harrowed flesh pulled tight over a stump of bone. The young woman appeared shocked and queasy, suddenly unsteady on her feet.

“May I—sit down?” she asked. Rachel stepped aside to admit her. Ruth teetered a bit on her high heels as she hurried to the bed and sat.

“Can I get you some water?” Rachel asked. Ruth shook her head. She sat there a long moment, taking deep breaths, then finally looked up at Rachel. When she did her face showed less fear than amazement.

“You—really do have leprosy,” she said softly.

Rachel was puzzled, to say the least. “Well, yes.”

Strangely, Ruth started to laugh.

“I know how weird this sounds,” she said, “but . . . part of me didn’t quite believe you.” Her laughter was so much like Kenji’s that Rachel found she almost didn’t care what had prompted it, she just enjoyed hearing it.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, but . . .” Sobering, Ruth explained, “When my parents first told me I was adopted, I asked them why you’d given me up. All my mother said was, ‘Don’t judge her, Ruth. She had no choice.’ Later I took that to mean you were . . . unmarried, underage. But I couldn’t help it, I’d still wonder . . . how you could have given me up. Why you didn’t . . . love me enough . . . to keep me.”

“Oh, Ruth,” Rachel said, sitting down beside her.

“Please don’t be offended by this,” Ruth said, “but in a strange way . . . it’s almost a relief to learn that you have leprosy. To know that you gave me away because you had to, because you really didn’t have any other choice.”

Rachel assured her, “Nothing else in this world could have made me give you up.”

Ruth looked pleased, but also a little embarrassed at having shared this much, this soon. She stood up, smiling self-consciously. “Why don’t we go downstairs to the restaurant and get some coffee,” she suggested. “Or maybe something stronger.”

Within the hotel was an atrium restaurant roofed by palm trees that made Rachel feel more at home. She and Ruth took a table beneath a large umbrella where Rachel ordered coffee and a Danish pastry and Ruth—she wasn’t kidding—a vodka tonic. A stray shaft of California sunlight fell across the tawny skin of Ruth’s arm and Rachel couldn’t help touching her, her fingers grazing her daughter’s wrist, affirming that she was real.

“So your parents”—Rachel wanted to show she wasn’t afraid of the word—“adopted you when you were five?”

Ruth nodded. “Mama always wanted a daughter, but after my brother Ralph was born she learned she couldn’t have any more children. So they decided to adopt a girl.”

“Do you recall anything of Hawai'i?”

Ruth shook her head. “I’m afraid not. My earliest memories are of Florin, our farm there.”

“What brought your parents to California?” Rachel was quite proud of herself, calmly asking questions like a quizmaster on a radio show.

“Well, Papa always wanted his own farm. And in Hawai'i, I guess, there weren’t many opportunities of that kind for an Issei. You know what that is?”

Rachel smiled and nodded. “My husband was Japanese.”

Mortified, Ruth shaded her eyes with her hands. “Yes, of course he was. You had no idea you’d given birth to such an idiot, did you?”

Rachel laughed. “No, you’ve just either had too much to drink or not enough.” She sliced off a piece of pastry with her fork. “You were talking about your father?”

Still chagrined, Ruth said, “Yes, well . . . I’m told we left Hawai'i in ’23. Papa got a three-year lease on a thousand acres in Florin, which was predominantly Japanese. Lots of towns had nihonmachi—Japantowns—but all of Florin was one big nihonmachi! I lived on our farm ’till I was eighteen, when I met Frank.”

She opened her purse and in moments had spread a fan of photographs on the table. Pointing to a smiling young Nisei she said, “That’s Frank.”

“He’s very handsome.”

“And this is Donald, and Peggy.” A ten-year-old boy in a cowboy hat straddled a sawhorse and twirled a lariat, and an eight-year-old girl posed shyly in a candy-striped blouse. Their complexions were fairer than Ruth’s, closer to their father’s. “As you can see, Donald wants to be Roy Rogers when he grows up. Peggy wants to grow up, period.”

Rachel asked, “May I—?” At Ruth’s nod she picked up the photos and smiled as she examined them. Even if this was the closest she would ever come to her grandchildren, it was worth the trip to see these faces . . . to be sitting here like any grandmother listening to any daughter go on about her children. “They’re beautiful,” she told Ruth.

“Thank you. I think so too, when they’re not driving me to drink.” And then Ruth surprised Rachel by asking, “Your husband. What was his name?”

Rachel looked up. “Kenji. Charles Kenji Utagawa.”

“Do you have a picture?”

Pleased, Rachel took a snapshot from her purse and handed it to Ruth, who studied it with some fascination. “He loved you so much, Ruth. He called you his akachan. The day you left Moloka'i he told you, ‘Papa loves you. He’ll always love you, and he’ll always be your papa.’ ”

Her voice broke a little as she said it. All at once she was afraid that her use of the word “papa” could have offended Ruth; but Ruth’s gaze as she stared at Kenji’s seemed almost tender. “He looks . . . very kind.”

“He was. A very kind, sweet man.”

Ruth glanced up. “So he’s not—”

Rachel shook her head and reluctantly told her the circumstances of Kenji’s death. Ruth winced a little and said softly, “That makes two fathers I lost to the war.”

“What do you mean?”

“My papa died at Tule Lake.” When she saw the blank look on Rachel’s face, she added, “The relocation camp.”

Rachel felt a chill, cutting as a winter wind at Kalawao.

“Relocation?” she repeated, only dimly comprehending.

Ruth stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know? Where have you—” She stopped, realizing too well where Rachel had been. “But—you had them, too, didn’t you?”

You’re an old fool, Rachel told herself. You’re a blithering idiot, not to have realized! She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not in Hawai'i.” She thought back to newspaper accounts of relocation she had read during the war, which had seemed to scarcely concern her at the time. “I . . . believe the Japanese made up too large a part of the workforce.”

Now Ruth was flabbergasted. “That sure didn’t stop them here! All those farms, no one to work them—”

Dreading the reply, Rachel said, “You went, too?”

Ruth’s black eyes flared at what to her must have been an annoyingly dense question.

“Of course I went!” It was perhaps louder than she intended. At adjacent tables heads turned, diners glared. Ruth flushed in embarrassment or anger or both.

“We all went,” she said, lowering her voice. “The signs went up on May 2, and we were evacuated on May 9.”

Her anger still seemed freshly minted. Rachel said, “One week? They gave you one week?”

Ruth nodded. “Seven days to sell everything you owned or put it in storage. We owned a restaurant—ten thousand dollars in inventory. We had to sell it all for a tenth of that. My parents,” and her voice still trembled to speak of it, “were evicted from the farm they’d spent twenty years building. Ownership was ‘transferred’ to a Caucasian—one of the local farmers who’d lobbied for internment, because the Japanese were giving them too much competition. Worked out nicely for him.” She sighed heavily. “You don’t really want to hear all this, do you?”

Rachel didn’t, not really, but had to. “Where did they take you?” she asked.

Ruth took a swallow of her vodka tonic. “Tanforan Racetrack outside San Francisco had been turned into a temporary Assembly Center. Our ‘apartment’ was an old horse stall, ten feet by twenty feet. The dirt floor was covered with linoleum but it still stank of horse manure, no matter how much you cleaned it. We were given old Army cots and told to stuff burlap bags with hay for mattresses. We had to use communal latrines, with commodes side by side, no stalls—you’d sit there trying to relieve yourself with someone right next to you straining to do the same. The horses had had more privacy!

“We were there a year before we were transferred to a permanent relocation camp. In Oakland they put us on a train, the windows blacked out, I guess to spare the populace from seeing so many Japanese. Two soldiers in each car, armed with rifles and bayonets. We got off at a train station in Lone Pine, in Inyo County.

“The first thing I remember seeing was the mountains—the eastern wall of the Sierra Nevadas. Mount Whitney rising almost two miles from the desert floor. We were put on buses and taken to our new home. Manzanar.”

She stared into space and frowned, as if seeing it again in a mirage. “Barbed wire fence, guard towers along the perimeter. Machine-gun nests pointed inside, not out. Seeing those guns pointed at us as we entered the camp was when even the Nisei—who thought of ourselves as Americans, not Japanese—realized we weren’t ‘evacuees,’ we were prisoners. Criminals who’d committed no crime.

“The Sierras were like bulwarks between Manzanar and the rest of California,” Ruth remembered. “Every day you’d look up at them and be reminded of how the world needed to be shielded from the likes of us.”

Rachel asked numbly, “What happened to your father?”

Ruth sighed.

“Question 28 happened to him.” She looked as if she’d rather not elaborate, but did. “At Tanforan the authorities circulated a questionnaire to determine whether you were a loyal American who might be eligible for ‘parole’—to work farms in the Midwest or go to school back East. Question 27 asked, ‘Are you willing to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States?’ Question 28 asked, ‘Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government?’

“Now, my father was a foreign national—legally prohibited from ever becoming a naturalized American! This question seemed to ask him to renounce his Japanese citizenship, but without becoming an American, either. Papa feared he’d be a man without a country. And he was almost sixty years old; he couldn’t possibly have served in the Army. So he answered ‘no’ to both questions.

“But to the War Relocation Authority, anyone who answered ‘no-no’ to those two questions was disloyal, a potential threat. So they were segregated—sent to a high-security camp at Tule Lake, California.”

Ruth glanced down, as if the sunlight were too bright or too hot and she couldn’t bear to look into it. “My father was sent there in ’43. Conditions were bad—overcrowding, poor food, virtually no health care. No antibiotics. Papa caught pneumonia. He died without ever seeing any of us again.”

When after a moment Ruth looked up again, Rachel was in tears.

She could no longer stop them, the emotions that had been building up inside her finally venting: pain, horror, despair, anger, all fused into one terrible alloy. She tried to hold it in but found she was little more than a broken vessel, ruptured by sorrow, released of grief.

Ruth instinctively reached out and took Rachel’s hand, her right hand, trying to stem her tears:

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have told you all this—it’s okay, we’re okay, really—”

“It’s not right,” her mother said, the words almost lost in between sobs. “It’s not fair.”

“It wasn’t right. But it’s over.”

Rachel shook her head. “No. No.” She reached deep inside and found the words:

“You were supposed to be free,” she said in a whisper. “You were never supposed to know what it was like to be taken from your home—separated from your family—to be shunned and feared.” Then, so softly Ruth could barely hear, “That was all I had to give you.”

She wept even more fiercely. Ruth went to her without hesitation. She folded her arms around her, holding her as she would a frightened child, rocking her like the baby Rachel had not been able to cradle. And in cooing, consoling tones she told her, It’s all right. Everything’s all right. It’s all over, she said. I’m free. You’re free. It’s all right, Mother. Everything’s all right.

R

uth called her Mother, but didn’t mean it; not yet. As she took the shaken Rachel back to her room, her mind was a jumble of emotions: pity for this woman’s tragic life; pleasure at seeing herself in Rachel’s face and voice and complexion; and guilt that by taking any pleasure at all in Rachel’s presence she was somehow betraying her real parents, the ones who’d raised her. Unable to reconcile her love for them with her growing, traitorous affection for this woman, Ruth invented somewhere she had to be. After reassuring herself that Rachel was all right she made her apologies, started to say her goodbyes . . .

“Wait,” Rachel interrupted her, a bit desperately, “just a minute. Please. I . . . have something for you.”

She took a suitcase from the closet, lifted it up onto the bed, and asked Ruth to open it.

With some trepidation—as if she were opening an inverted Pandora’s Box that might suck her and her love for her parents forever inside—Ruth opened the suitcase.

Whatever it was she expected to see, it wasn’t this. The suitcase was filled with gift boxes—dozens of them, in a diversity of shapes and colors. There was one the size of a pillbox, wrapped in pink and crowned by a bright red bow almost bigger than the box itself; a rectangular package, in lavender wrap, ornamented with a yellow ribbon teased and curled into something resembling a flower; and a large box wrapped in light blue foil that shimmered like the sky on a hot August day. Too many to take in all at once. Christmas had never been celebrated in her parents’ home, but Ruth imagined this must be what it would have felt like, sneaking downstairs on Christmas morning to be overwhelmed by a glittering pile of gifts under the tree.

Rachel seemed to take great pleasure in saying, “Happy birthday,” and when Ruth could manage no coherent reply she prompted, “Open them, if you like.”

One by one Ruth opened them. How could she not? Each gift, she discovered, was modest yet chosen with impeccable taste: a baby’s rattle that might have captivated her attention as an infant; a Raggedy Ann doll she would surely have loved when she was three; an elegant fashion doll that a six-year-old Ruth would have proudly shown off to her friends; a set of combs and hair brushes for a thirteen-year-old’s vanity table; and more. Thirty-two years, thirty-two presents.

Ruth unwrapped the last one—a copy of Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener—and held it in hands that were suddenly trembling.

On every birthday since she had learned, at the age of eight, that she was adopted, Ruth would find herself wondering whether there was someone, somewhere, thinking of her. Now she was presented with proof that there had been, and she was speechless with emotion. She told herself not to cry, and her eyes filled with tears.

She did not leave for home. She stayed with Rachel in her room, listening to a life’s story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad. She heard of her birth father, Kenji; her grandfather, Henry, and grandmother, Dorothy; learned of Rachel’s hnai aunt, Haleola; Uncle Pono and Catherine and Sarah and Leilani and the rest of Rachel’s cherished 'ohana. She learned what 'ohana meant, and that she was part of it. She began to understand that none of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.

T

he next day, after consultation with Frank and an explanation to Donald and Peggy, Ruth brought Rachel home to their two-story house on Fifth Street, where Rachel met two bright, lively youngsters delighted at the notion of having a third grandmother—and one from faroff Hawai'i, no less. Frank Harada was affable and easy-going, but most gracious of all was Ruth’s oksan, Etsuko, a woman of great charm who put Rachel immediately at ease with her questions about Hawai'i and what it was like these days. She reminisced about her days in Waimnalo and Honolulu in the early years of the century, and turned what could have been an awkward afternoon into a delightful one. It was Etsuko who solved a nagging problem of nomenclature by inquiring of Rachel, “What is Hawaiian for Mother?”—and henceforth as Etsuko was Oksan, Rachel was Makuahine. This pleased Rachel for many reasons.

She stayed in California for two weeks, playing Go and other games with her grandchildren; Ruth, watching them play, caught hints of the mother she might have had, even as Rachel glimpsed, not without some pain, the mother she might have been. One day Ruth packed everyone up and drove to San Francisco for some sightseeing: they corkscrewed down Lombard Street, strolled along the Embarcadero, ate fish and chips on the Wharf, and rode cable cars not so different than the trolleys of Old Honolulu. It was a grand day, one of the grandest in Rachel’s long life.

Soon Donald and Peggy were asking their parents when they could go to Hawai'i to visit their new grandma. Frank smiled and said, “Several thousand dollars from now,” and as quickly as Rachel’s hopes fell they were kindled again by Ruth, who told the children, “If we can’t get to Hawai'i, maybe Grandma Rachel can come visit us again.” Rachel happily assured her grandchildren that she would.

At the end of the two weeks Ruth helped her makuahine aboard the Lurline, tipping the porters and making sure she was properly settled in her tiny cabin. They walked the length of the ship together until fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time of four o’clock, when the ship’s horn sounded two blasts—final call for all visitors. Ruth hugged Rachel, kissed her, and said, “Thank you. For giving me life, and health, and freedom.”

Rachel cried and held onto her for as long as she could. She watched as Ruth walked down the gangway and onto the dock, waved to her as the Lurline backed away from the pier and into the bay, and kept on watching until long after the pier had disappeared from sight and the Golden Gate was only a red gleam on the horizon.

On the return voyage Rachel had ample time to consider her future, and what shape it might take; and as she neared Hawai'i she now discovered something else that her father must have felt on his many voyages. As the green palisades with their white skirts of sand appeared in the distance, Rachel could not imagine there was any place on earth more beautiful, any sight more welcoming, than these magnificent islands. And like Henry she knew that no matter how far she might roam, she would always come back to them.

In Honolulu she gave notice to her landlord and began boxing up the belongings she had only just unpacked; and within the week was setting to sea again, this time aboard the interisland steamer Huallai. She watched O'ahu recede again into the distance, saw the angry waters of the Kaiwi Channel off the port side . . . and watched with satisfaction as they too receded from her view. The western flank of Moloka'i was visible but never close, and soon it was joined on the horizon by the tall Norfolk pines of Lna'i, and then by the terraced slopes of the West Maui Mountains.

At Lahaina Harbor, Sarah happily embraced her sister and arranged for a stevedore to load her belongings into Sarah’s old Ford. Together they wrestled the bags and boxes out of the car and into Sarah’s driveway, from which they would be unloaded, piecemeal, over several days. In celebration they dined that evening at the Midnite Inn; and then, exhausted, Rachel fell into bed by nine o’clock, her books already neatly shelved around her in the bedroom once shared by Sarah’s daughters, including Rachel’s namesake.

Sometime after midnight she woke to the touch of a gentle breeze billowing the curtains and knew at once that it was the Ulola. And blown in on the wind was a sweet floral scent unlike any she had ever known. On an impulse she pulled on a robe, slipped into a pair of shoes and out of the house—making her way makai down Dickensen Street, the sweet fragrance growing still stronger. Front Street was empty at this hour and now she stood alone at the sea wall, looking out at dark waters stippled by starlight. In the harbor boats slept rocking on gentle swells, waves lapping at the wharves with a rhythm like drumbeats.

Some bold, reckless voice impelled her to climb over the sea wall and down the rocky slope to the water’s edge. Maybe this was kapu, but she no longer cared what was kapu. She kicked off her shoes, cast off her robe, and as she’d done so long ago in Kapi'olani Park, waded into the water. She had not been swimming in the ocean for many years but it felt as if she had never left. Her feet were fairly useless so she relied on her hands to backstroke out some ten or twenty feet from shore. Here she bobbed and floated and laughed with delight as the swells rolled gently under her, a tender reminder from Namakaokaha'i of the way Rachel once exuberantly rode the waves. It all came back in a rush, a floodtide of exhilaration.

As she floated like a leaf on the water she looked down the coast toward Mala Wharf, and saw lights which seemed to hover along the shore before moving out to sea. Fishermen? Torch-fishing, did they still do that? Or perhaps they were the marchers of the night, even as the sweet fragrance might have been the rare bloom of the silversword her makuahine, Haleola, had often spoken of. She smiled: if Ruth had two mothers, so did Rachel, and they were both here with her on Maui. She drew in a breath, holding the sweet scent of the silversword in her chest as she held Haleola in her heart; weightless with joy, home at last.