Page 89 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“Stupid boy. It’s best for her. We must do what’s best for her and for us. She can go live a happy life and won’t think twice about it.”

“Mama…” I come to a stop. I think Mama might keep charging on. That she’ll leave me standing here.

Everything is upended. Mr. Nomura and Kai are gone. Mama wants to give Cosette away, and I don’t understand why, and I’ve never understood anything. My head hurts. My thoughts are agitated. We’re both upset. I take a breath. Might be bizarre reasoning, but if I’m ever going to ask her about Papa, I might as well do it now, when she’s already pissed off. “Mama?”

“Nani?” she stops but her eyes are stony, like they only see a blank wall, nothing more.

“Papa is dead, isn’t he?”

“Hai.” There’s no hesitation or guilt in her response. Her voice is as stony as her eyes. My stomach tangles in knots and there’s a lump in my throat.

“Why didn’t you tell Emi and me? We thought he might come back.” I thought he might come back. My mind created a million scenarios where he did, and every time I left the scenarios it hurt. I’m not shocked Mama kept it a secret. Hell, she wants to pack Cosette off without knowledge of who she is or where she came from. Mama buries her hurts, hides her scars, swallows her secrets.

“It wouldn’t help.” She gathers her coat around herself and raises her chin. One hand dips into her pocket and she pulls out the Lucky Strike box. Her bracelet slips in and out of her sleeve as she knocks one out, puts the box back, lights it. Takes a long drag. Lifting her head, her eyes are no longer stony but bright, as bright as the fake glass jewels she wears. Kai calls me a dragon but she’s the true dragon. Breathing smoke, covered in jewels, fearless no matter what. I don’t know if she’s the strongest person I’ve ever known or the most hurt—or if there’s not much difference between the two.

“It’s all right, Mama,” I say. “And it’s going to be all right. We aren’t going to give up Cosette. We’re her family. She needs us.”

There’s a sudden break in Mama’s face, the sort you see when the rare Los Angeles rain clouds crack open like eggs to mist the streets. I think she might cry. She takes another long drag on the cigarette.

“I’m not a good mother,” she says. Her eyes flash with brilliant defiance. Like Kai at the doomed uprising. Like Emi when Mama told her to get rid of the baby. Like Violet finding her way through every defense I put up to find me under all the layers of bullshit.

“Hey, I’m proud to be your son.” I mean it. We Hamadas are a mess. We always have been. But we’re stubborn and can handle getting kicked while we’re down. Not many can say that. We do what we can, in the ways we know how. “All you have to do is try. If you can’t always try, it’s all right. But just try sometimes.”

Mama is still. Then she gives a nod, the cigarette perched between her dry, lipstick-stained lips.

“As long as she doesn’t call me Obāsan,” she says. “I look too young to be a grandmother. I don’t want people knowing. We will say I’m her aunt.”

I let out a laugh. Mama smiles.

We walk on, and she doesn’t rush anymore.

Canned milk arrives a few days later, sent from Mrs. Ross. We write back. Tell her we aren’t letting her take Cosette. I imagine she’ll stop sending the milk. But, despite what I assume, packages of canned milk postmarked from Pasadena continue to arrive.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Violet

Dear Miss Violet Aratani,

I’m Nurse Mary Beth Wilson and have been caring for your father. He’s too unwell to write today, but he made me promise that when this time came, I would write on his behalf. Miss Aratani, not a day has gone by when he hasn’t talked about you and your mother. Truly, he is the most dedicated family man I’ve ever met. I’m sure he’d want me to tell you that he loves you—but I have a feeling that you already know that.

I oversee the library in the wake of Mrs. Hata’s departure. I spend the week reviewing our inventory, seeing which books are checked out the most, and making lists of which ones we still need. I find beauty in each book, enjoying the designs on the covers, the way the spines crack, and the different fonts, which remind me of Otōsan’s collection of movable type. As I organize the books, Emi’s always cross my path, somehow finding their way from shelf to shelf. I wonder if her spirit lingers. If it does, it’s warm and friendly, like a cat padding around a shop. I hope she’s able to enjoy the books. Sometimes, when I’m certain I’m alone, I talk to her. I think she hears me.

I step out of the library to go home and reach to pull the door shut.

Then I stop.

In chemistry, I remember learning about absolute zero cold and critical point hot, temperatures that go far beyond the conventional properties of hot or cold. I think that must be what I’m feeling now, as I touch the vibrating deer in my pocket. It’s indescribable. It seems like touching the deer should liquify or incinerate me, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t hurt me at all.

I stumble against the doorframe. All around me, the world transforms. The mountains smile at me like wise elders, the howling wind knows my name, and the dust waits sweetly for my bones. Everything seems to crash around me, not in destruction but in revelry, the world rising and falling in dancing waves. I collapse to my knees, gasping. I let go of the relic, and it falls from my fingers to the dirt. The world returns to normal with the severity of a flipped light switch.

I stagger to my feet. Horror presses upon me. Everything shifts. The ground isn’t steady beneath my feet any longer. A sound comes from my throat, half a gasp, half a cry.

Otōsan is dead.

Everything is a blur. I go to my barrack, but there’s only a note from Mama that we’ve been summoned to the administration offices. I don’t know if I walk or run or stagger, but somehow I get there. Mama waits, sitting in a chair, holding her Bible. She says, “They told me to come here. They told me to come here.”

If I want, I can touch the deer and see straight to Mama’s soul, but I don’t. I already know. Mama knows. Her heart is filled with tears, ones that haven’t been shed since we arrived. They’ve risen to the very top of her heart, but she won’t release them. Not until she’s heard.