Chapter Thirty-Three Violet #3
“I’m going for you.” His voice rings with conviction.
I’m pressed against him, and his words mix with the beating of his heart.
“And for my mother and Cosette and your mother and everyone else. The sooner the war ends, the sooner we’ll go home.
I’m going to fight for us. I’m going to fight for our freedom, so we can get out of here. ”
For me. For us. For our freedom. My heart warms, but it’s painful, like drinking too fast when you’re severely dehydrated or warming too quickly when you have hypothermia, leaving you hurt by its salvation.
I hate saying goodbye to him every day when I go back to my barrack.
How can I say goodbye to him knowing he’s going to war?
“You can’t.” My voice breaks. “Why give them the satisfaction when they’ve taken everything from us?”
“Because,” he says with a shrug, “it’s how we prove them wrong. Prove we believe in the exact same things they took from us. Kinda hard to argue with someone willing to bleed for you.”
“We shouldn’t have to prove anything,” I protest. “We didn’t do anything wrong. None of us did.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Ren sighs and rests his head on my shoulder. “But maybe this will change things. They tried to make us the enemy. We won’t let them. And someday they will realize what they did.”
We don’t say anything else. We don’t need to. We stay in each other’s arms, and the time I wish to freeze rushes by in the shape of the sun traveling toward the mountains, plunging us into darkness.
The next day, I skip school. I cut through the camp, unsure where I’m going or why. I move on impulse. I’m no longer mind or heart. I’m just disembodied instinct, seeking escape.
Suddenly, the barbed wire fence appears before me, the hole waiting.
I duck down, slipping beneath it. Brush scratches my legs and claws at my skirt, but I don’t stop.
I run to the stream and sink down by the water.
It runs fast, swollen with melting snow, flotillas of white foam racing by.
I know it’s returning home, to the ocean from where it first came. I wish it would take me with it.
My heart aches. I take out my deer and hold it, tight. I think about how it guided me to Ren. I pause and lift the deer in my hands, closing my eyes. Then, almost not daring to hope, I whisper into its ear, “Otōsan?”
Fireworks burst across my vision. A symphony fills my ears, and even with my eyes closed I know where each note originates.
The stream laughs. The patches of snow let out their low, sonorous snores.
The brush tingles with the electrified senses of a cat’s whiskers.
The mountains stretch and groan in pleasure.
Everything is alive. Everything is magnificent.
Everything is balanced in perfect harmony, as though held in the palms of divine hands and watched with delighted eyes.
Nothing will fall through those fingers.
They are sure and strong. Wonder rushes through me despite my grief as I’m confronted with beauty.
It sings a song I’ll never forget, a song upon which the world turns, a song that is a sacrament. And it sings of us.
Within the song, there’s a tune.
A whistle.
Otōsan’s whistle.
I hear his voice.
“Violey-chan.”
“Where are you?” I cry.
“Here.” The breeze becomes material—it’s gold, as though created from the sun. It pours down and splashes against someone, immersing them in light. Slowly, band by band, the gold drains away.
Otōsan is there.
His hair has no gray, and the only lines on his face are from laughing and smiling. The deer is there, too. It bounds around him and comes to stand at his side before melting away. I let out a cry—pain laced with disbelief.
I try to throw my arms around him, but when I do he wavers, like heat dancing above pavement. His face is familiar and warm.
It takes me home.
“I’ve missed my girl,” Otōsan says.
“Can you come back?” I beg. “Please, come back to us.”
“I can’t,” he says. I think I see every man’s sorrow in his eyes, as though he carries the heart of every father who’s had to leave a daughter. I know it’s true that he can’t come back. I know because if there was a way, he would’ve found it. “I’m only allowed here to say goodbye.”
“No,” I say. “We need you.”
“I know,” he says. Behind him, the deer reappears.
It bounds around the desert before coming to nuzzle his hand.
He strokes its back and scratches behind its ears, as though he knows exactly what it loves.
“But you are strong, Violey-chan. You are my American-born daughter. You are your own woman and always have been.”
“I don’t want to be my own woman,” I protest. I take a step forward, my emotions rushing faster than the winter-swollen creek. “I only want to be your daughter.”
“You are both,” he says, and he lifts his hand as though he wishes to stroke my cheek. His image wavers. I cry out again and glance around in a panic, as though I might find something to bind him here. “Sit.” He gestures to the rock. “Tell me about your day.”
I settle onto it, and he sits next to me. His arm is around me. I can’t physically feel it, but seeing it there makes me think I can.
I tell him about my day.
I tell him about Mama.
I tell him about the fish pond.
And I tell him about Ren.
All the while, the deer reappears and disappears, coming and going in bounds.
Somehow, everything changes. I smell Mama’s cooking in our kitchen.
I see our shop, glowing in the setting Los Angeles sun.
The green lamps are on. The type is half put away.
The stack of the day’s orders sits on the counter.
And I hear Otōsan’s whistle, strong and clear as it harmonizes with our radio.
Then, dust, leaves, and brush rustle around us. Otōsan’s image wavers. Gold light shimmers around his feet. It’s bright at first but begins to darken, turning to burnished amber. His face is sad, but there’s peace in his eyes, peace I don’t think I’ll understand in this life.
“I must go.”
“Where?” I cry. “Where must you go?”
His smile is gentle, as gentle as his voice.
“Nowhere far,” he says. “When you were a little girl, I showed you as much about the world as I could. Years from now, when you join me, I’ll be there to show you the next one, too. I love you, Violey-chan.”
“Wait!” I scream. “Don’t leave—”
The gold rises over him and suddenly it seems to come from him, too, as though there’s a great light inside him. I don’t want to look away, but it’s too radiant. The light makes my eyes burn, sears them. It is as pure and bright as the center of the sun or a star or the divine itself.
Then Otōsan is gone.
I hear his whistle still. It’s there, woven into nature, a sound as indelible as the hum of the sea, the wind’s whisper, the beat of my own heart.
I think about Otōsan carrying me out to the waves on his shoulders so I can release my shells.
My mind re-forms my memories. He’s taken me back to the sand.
He’s set me down safely on my towel and returned to the waves.
Wading out until they are at his waist, he dives forward and surfaces, swimming.
The waves carry him away. They know him. They accept him, and they are gentle.