Strawberry Yellow (29 page)

“Well,” Billy rose, brushing dirt from his hands to his jeans. “I have to go. I have a long day tomorrow.”

“Me and Genessee leavin’ in the morning.”

“You’ll probably be glad to be getting out of here. I’m sure you feel that you’ve been cursed here. Anyway, I’ll be at Mom’s first thing to see you off.”

Billy got into his pickup and pulled out into the dirt road.

Mas stood alone while darkness fell over the hushed fields. The outline of the Stem House strangely comforted him, as if it were the center of a compass. Everything that had traveled away from it would still be connected to its magnetic force.

In spite of everything that happened, Watsonville was not a curse. It could never be one. When Shug’s mother, Satoko, passed away, Mas came to her funeral with Chizuko and Mari. In the Impala, in fact. Chizuko had packed an old Broadway department-store box with lines of
onigiri
with pickled plums in their centers. As Mas drove along the 101 highway, Chizuko carefully handed him a rice ball in a moistened paper towel, which blew out the window, leaving him with sticky fingers around the steering wheel.

From the seaside they traveled through the green hills to the flatness of farmland. The two-lane highway cut into acres of ranches, lines of green crops stretching out forever.

Normally Chizuko was the master of facts and knowledge, but not in the country. Here it was Mas who knew all.

“Dad, what’s this?” asked Mari.

“Spinach.”

“What’s that?”

“Cauliflower.”

“What’s this?”

“Broccoli.”

Mari would press her small nose against the window as the green rows blurred into one another.

The crops bore no obvious signs of identification, but Mas knew what to look for. The shape, color, and size of leaves. The direction the plant was growing. The time of the year.

This had been his world for two years—his education, in fact. An education that had been better than any junior college degree.

He’d learned much from Shug’s father, Wataru Arai. For
all the time Mas had known him, Wataru was pretty much bald, except for a little fuzz on top of his head that resembled algae on a rock in a tidepool.

After dinner on warm summer days, they’d sit on the steps of the Stem House, speaking in Japanese.

“This is my house,” Wataru said proudly. “But it all can disappear. In a fire. Or in a war.”

He stretched out his legs and rubbed his knees. “If it’s taken away, I’m
orai. Honto
, really. Because my children are all grown. Making their own mistakes. Making their own lives.”

Mas knew that Wataru liked to talk with him because he was among the few young men who actually could speak and understand Japanese. “Nothing’s better than this country. A Number Two, Number Three son can make his life here, a new life. That’s why when they open up for Issei like me to get naturalized, I will.”

It was 1950, and for a Japanese immigrant to talk about becoming a citizen meant he had an active imagination.

Mas didn’t want to be a wet blanket. “Maybe,
Ojisan
,” he said. “Maybe someday.”

As it turned out, Wataru had been a bit of a prophet, because what he predicted came true. In 1952, Issei could become naturalized. But he, unfortunately, had died a few months earlier.

What would
Ojisan
have thought of all of this? Mas wondered. Would he have been ashamed of what Shug had tried to do, of how Billy lost the Stem House, of his granddaughter killing Laila? Would he yell out in pain or hide his face from his neighbors?

No,
Ojisan
was not that kind of man. Mas imagined
Wataru Arai standing straight, lifting his head high. For him, Watsonville was a place of second chances, or maybe third or fourth chances.

“Ready?” Mas asked.

“Ready,” Genessee replied.

Mas felt a bit odd carrying Genessee’s bags to the Impala, as if they were off on a honeymoon trip. They weren’t going on a trip, after all. They were going home.

He closed the trunk and looked at the line of people assembled in the driveway. Minnie, Oily, Evelyn, Billy. Even Victor had brought Miguel out in a wheelchair. At his age and some of their ages, Mas wasn’t sure if he would see some of them again alive. He held each face in his embattled brain, hoping that he wouldn’t forget any of them.

Genessee opened the passenger door and got in. Mas lingered for a moment, inhaling the wet, soil-tinged air one last time. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he started the engine, wiping the window with the edge of his sweatshirt. Through the smeared glass, he saw a flurry of hands waving, lips mouthing soundless goodbyes, sending them off down the street and beyond.

N
AOMI
H
IRAHARA
is the Edgar-winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including
Gasa Gasa Girl, Summer of the Big Bachi, Snakeskin Shamisen,
and
Blood Hina,
as well as the children’s novel
1001 Cranes
. She lives in Southern California.