The Red Kimono: A Novel

5. Terrence

Leave him alone leave him alone please leave him alone. The words pounded in Sachi’s head even faster than she ran. The boys stepped away and slapped each other on the back, the way Nobu’s teammates did when they’d won a game. Almost there. Almost there. They turned and glared at her—the big, blond bully, cigarette hanging from his mouth, and the fat, ugly one with stringy, brown hair and freckles all over his face. Someone was screaming. She turned to see through a blur of tears. He was running from across the street. Nobu! “What have you done?” her brother cried. “Joe? Terrence? How could you do this to my father?” The colored boy looked back as he ran, stopped for a moment, then took off again, stumbling in his haste. The two hakujin boys dashed away, like cockroaches at the flick of a light. Sachi dropped to Papa’s side before Nobu reached them. She held his head in her lap and wiped the blood from his face. “Papa, wake up. Papa!” CHAPTER 5 Terrence BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 23, 1941 Early that day, signs of morning stirred Terrence from sleep. Sunlight through the blinds. The smell of bacon. Coffee. Momma humming in the kitchen. He yawned and stretched his arms over his head, feeling his body wake. He smiled, remembering the dream he’d had about that cute girl in biology. Momma’s slippers swished down the hall. “Time to get up,” she called. “Y’all come eat breakfast, then we gonna go and get us a Christmas tree.” The door hinges creaked as Momma poked her head inside his The Red Kimono 23 room, her pink curlers sticking out all over her hair. “Morning, son. Do me a favor and get your sisters up. I got to finish cooking.” Momma sure couldn’t wait to get a Christmas tree. She’d been talking about it forever, and now it was only two days left ’til Christmas. He guessed they’d waited long enough, but he couldn’t get excited. It wasn’t gonna be any fun without Daddy home. And there hadn’t been any news from him since the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. Momma kept reminding them, several times a day, matter fact. “You got to have faith.” She said God would look out for Daddy and bring him home safe, especially with the whole congregation of St. Paul’s AME Church praying for him. He figured Momma reminding him that God would watch over Daddy was just one way of her comforting herself. No matter. Couldn’t hurt none to think the way Momma thought. Any. Couldn’t hurt any. How many times had Momma told him she’d have none of his talking like she did? “I was born and raised in Mississippi,” she always said, waving her finger at him. “You was born and raised here in California. Maybe I ain’t got no education, but you educated.” Momma might not know the right way to talk, but she darn well knew the wrong way. He’d lost count of all the times she’d waved that finger at him, “You ain’t gonna make nothing outta yourself if you don’t learn to speak right.” Momma would never say it, but Terrence was pretty sure she wanted him to “get educated” so he wouldn’t have to join the military the way Daddy did. No way could she handle worrying about both her men. He’d seen pictures of what was left of Pearl Harbor after those Jap cowards attacked, but blinked them away and tried to think of something else. Like the Christmas tree. It was just one of the ways Momma tried to keep their lives normal, as if keeping things normal would make Daddy walk through the front door. He groaned and stretched again. Dang. Wasn’t he supposed to get to sleep-in over Christmas break? He dragged himself out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt and jeans, then shuffled to the bathroom. “Missy. Patty. Get up,” he called. 24 JAN MORRILL “Just let us sleep a little longer,” Patty mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “Nope. Momma said it was time to get up.” Little Missy sat up with a sleepy grin. “We gonna get a tree today?” He smiled at his baby sister. “Only if you two get yourselves out...