picked her up and twirled her about the room. Then he put her down and staggered about. “You weigh a ton,” he said, clutching at his heart. “How old are you now, fourteen?”
“Oh, Uncle Ted, you are so silly,” Michiko giggled. “I’m nine. I just had my birthday.”
Ted walked to Geechan and bowed. Geechan returned the bow with a nod of his head. Then Ted kneeled in front of Hiro, who was sitting on his grandfather’s lap.
“Be careful,” warned Sadie. “He’s not a happy baby today.”
Ted tickled his nephew under his tiny pointed chin. “Hello, Hiro,” he said, “hello.”
Hiro looked at his uncle and gave a shy smile. Then he turned and buried his face in his grandfather’s coat.
“Good boy,” Michiko’s mother said.
“Yeah, you didn’t howl,” said Sadie.
“Have you got all of your luggage?” Ted asked.
“We weren’t allowed to bring much,” Eiko responded. “Bedding, pots and pans, the few dishes and clothes that we could carry. I could only ship two things.”
Ted turned to Michiko. “Did you bring me a present?” he asked.
“Your present is our safe arrival,” Sadie scoffed.
But Michiko had an idea. She dashed over to her carpetbag, took out her orange and put it behind her back. “Close your eyes,” she told her uncle as she walked towards him, “and put out your hands.”
Michiko placed the bright lopsided ball in them. “Now you can open your eyes.”
For a moment, Michiko didn’t understand the look on her uncle’s face. She thought, at first, that he was going to cry. Then he lifted the orange to his nose and drank in the pungent aroma of the peel. “Thank you, Michiko,” he said, giving her a hug. “I can’t remember the last time I had an orange.”
Over his shoulder, Michiko could see her mother’s face. She was smiling, and Michiko knew that she would be yasashi with her again.
“So what have you been eating lately?” Sadie asked Ted.
Ted bent his arms upward to flex his muscles. “Potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes,” he said. “I’m desperate for a bowl of miso soup.”
“We all are,” retorted Sadie. “Goodness knows where we’ll get Japanese food out here.”
Six
Houses in the Orchard
Michiko hauled off her cotton nightgown. Yesterday’s clothes lay on the floor in a pile. Her mother hadn’t put clean ones out for her. She pulled on her long-sleeved blouse and buttoned it up before stepping through the elastic waist of her wool skirt. This is what she usually wore to school. It felt odd wearing school clothes on a summer vacation.
Michiko wiped the fine dry dust of the road from the toes of her shoes. She slapped her socks against the foot of the metal bed to rid them of the brown rings before putting them on. Hiro stirred. She picked up her shoes and tiptoed downstairs.
The rough wooden surface of the kitchen table lay bare. Where was their embroidered cloth? Two small red enamel bowls sat alone with a pair of chopsticks across them. One bowl was half-full of rice, the other of green tea.
Michiko lifted the bowl of snowy white rice to her face to breathe in the sweet aroma. It was cold. She looked around. Where was the bowl that held her egg? There wasn’t even shoyu on the table. Michiko always dribbled the dark soy sauce on top of the thick yellow yolk. Then she stirred the large staring eye with her chopsticks and poured it over the hot steamy rice. This is a very plain breakfast, she thought. She poured some of the cold green tea over her rice and gave it a stir.
“Ohayo,” her grandfather called out, hearing her move in the kitchen. He sat on the verandah in a wooden chair facing the sun, whittling. “You slept a long time, my little cherry blossom.”
“Good morning,” Michiko said as she moved to the steps to put on her shoes. The sun was bright, but the air was cool. She was glad of her long-sleeved blouse and warm skirt.
She walked to one end of the verandah and leaned on the railing, facing the field of crumpled grey grass. The other side of the dirt road was dense with trees.
“We should be grateful,” Geechan said.
Now Geechan is saying it, Michiko thought as she turned to him.
Geechan gestured to the right with his knife. “We have an orchard,” he told her. “Next spring, we will have a grand hanami.”
Michiko glanced at the rows of short, gnarled trees sprouting small green leaves and shrugged. Geechan doesn’t understand we are only on vacation, she thought. But he often didn’t understand things about their life. He lived the same way he used to live in Japan, and Sadie complained about it a lot.
She heard her mother’s and aunt’s voices coming from the side of the house and went to investigate.
Sadie was busy tying a rope between two of the small, stunted trees. A large white apron covered her denim overalls and red plaid shirt. A red silk kerchief kept her shiny black hair in place. Only her short straight bangs showed. Michiko was used to seeing her mother in an apron, but not her aunt.
The two women stared down at the large galvanized tub in front of them with their hands on their hips.
As Michiko approached, she stepped on a branch, hidden by pine needles. It made a loud crack, and both women looked up.
“Ahh, the princess is awake,” Sadie said. “But you are not Princess Minnehaha, a true daughter of the forest.” She lifted a finger to her lips. “You make too much noise when you walk.”
“What are you doing?” Michiko asked, ignoring her aunt’s attempt at humour. She stared into the tub.
“Diapers,” her mother responded as she picked up the tin bucket at her feet and dribbled water down the side of the washboard. “We are washing Hiro’s diapers.”
Sadie threw in a large yellow brick of soap, but it did not sink to the bottom as Michiko expected. “The water is still cold,” Sadie complained as she swirled it around in the water. “We should have heated it longer.”
“We can do that tomorrow,” Eiko said. “Let’s get these done, or Hiro won’t have any diapers at all.”
Sadie took one of the diapers from the small basket on the ground. She plunged it in and out. Holding the yellow brick, she rubbed the two together. “Too bad you didn’t ship the washing machine,” she said as she plunged the diaper in again, “instead of the sewing machine.” She rubbed the diaper up and down the washboard, plunged it in once again and gave it a hard wring. Then she handed the white twist to Eiko.
Eiko plunged the diaper up and down in the bucket. She too gave it a hard wring. Then she walked to the rope and draped the diaper over it.
“Is
