Chapter 4
Aya
As they were leaving, they came across a young family. A woman with a sleek brown bob was shepherding two boys and a husband, all in polo shirts, along Main Street.
“We should get Chinese,” her husband said. “I’d love some egg foo young.”
Emi smiled at the family. “They’re closed today,” she said.
The man stared at her. “All day?” he said.
Aya nodded. “Yes.”
One of the boys scowled at them. “But you were just in there,” he said.
Aya’s eyes narrowed, but Emi interrupted. “Friends of the family,” she said smoothly.
The other young boy pulled out his phone. “There’s nothing to do in this town,” he grumbled.
“Actually,” said Emi, “if you’re here for a bit, my friend runs the Zion Creek Memorial Museum. You should check it out. Closed at the moment, but it’ll be open tomorrow.”
“Is it in Zion Creek, though?” asked the woman, looking into the Changs’ restaurant as if she didn’t believe Emi’s assertion. “Is that far from here?”
That gave Aya the opportunity to launch into her pitch. She hated doing a hard sell to random tourists, but with everything that had happened in the town, she had to get the word out about the museum.
“This used to be a town called Zion Creek,” she said. “After the war, the town decided that the name was too deeply tied to Japanese American internment. So they decided to rename and rebrand, basically. The name Love Hollow was born, and with it, lots of slogans and merchandise.”
“Love Happens in Love Hollow,” said the father a bit too cheerfully.
“Exactly,” said Aya forcefully.
“What war?” asked the older of the two boys. He looked as if he were at least fifteen. Aya guessed they weren’t from Idaho and wondered what history curriculum had failed them.
“Word War II,” she said, trying to inject patience into her voice.
“After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese American families were considered a security threat. Over a hundred thousand people were forced to live in so-called ‘relocation centers’ like the one here in Zion Creek. In most cases, they lost everything. Their homes, their farms, their property.”
“That’s crazy,” said the boy, looking up from his phone. “Then what happened?”
“They had to do the best they could after the war,” said Aya. “Many moved away. A couple of families stayed in the area, as there was one particular farmer who offered them work so they would have some kind of compensation.”
“Well, there was formal compensation,” said the father of the boys as his wife started steering the younger one toward the diner down the street. “The government provided compensation.”
“Twenty thousand dollars per person, issued a few decades later,” said Emi with a smile. “After a lot of the people were dead. Pretty cheap price for freedom, huh?”
The dad only shrugged, but his son pulled out his phone. Aya couldn’t see if he was fact-checking or just getting back to social media.
“I don’t think they’ll come,” muttered Aya. “Thanks for trying.”
Emi shrugged. “I thought I could be diplomatic,” she said. “I guess I still can’t.”
“Nope. Neither can I. And that’s why I’ve ruined the museum.”
“Don’t say that,” said Emi as they watched the family go into Dottie’s Diner.
They were probably relieved to be entering an establishment where they wouldn’t have to encounter any more opinionated young women, even if it meant missing out on egg foo young.
Aya hoped they hadn’t driven paying customers away from the Changs.
“It’s only the truth,” said Aya, turning away. “But whatever. Let’s go back to my mom’s. I need to get a few things done before this crazy meeting.”
Her grumbled response made Emi smile.
“Yes, crazy meeting Noah Kato after all these years, isn’t it?”
“Emi,” said Aya, “don’t even start.”