Page 32 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

The night after I’d spent another full day at Camp Amache, Ray came up beside me as I was washing the dinner dishes.

I was tired. At the camp, I’d stood on my feet watching Rose help out in one of the junior high school English classes.

She was so proud to finally be able to teach English, as had always been her dream.

For two hours, I had listened and watched as she taught a segment on grammar and then led her pupils through an exercise.

I was hoping she’d have time to break away and talk to me, to tell me what she had been so worried about the last time I’d seen her.

But she was so enjoying herself, proud of every rule of grammar she knew so well.

I didn’t want to ruin her day, and besides, she never left the classroom anyway.

Later I’d found Itsu, who taught me another lesson in ikebana.

Ray searched out a cup towel and started drying off the dishes one by one. I knew he wanted to speak to me about something that was bothering him, so I waited until he built up the words to say it.

“You were gone a long time today.”

“I’m learning how to arrange flowers, Japanese-style.”

“What for?”

I smiled. “Just to learn something new.”

He looked back at the plate he was drying. “I still don’t know why”

“Ray, I like to do new things, to go to different places.”

“So you were at the camp all day?”

“Yes.”

He looked damaged.

I turned off the faucet. “Ray, there isn’t enough for me to do around here.

” I sighed. “No, that’s not exactly true.

I’m sure other farm wives are very busy.

I just don’t know what else to do, how to help around here.

At the camp, it seems there’s so much going on, and I’m learning new things. It makes me feel useful again.”

“You’re useful here.”

I turned back to the sink, wiped a circle of suds around on a plate, rinsed it, and passed it over to Ray. “Not very.”

He dried the plate. “You could do more on the farm.”

“Like what?”

He waited for a minute. “Let me think on it a bit.”

By the next morning, he had come up with something. Ray found me on the porch, where I was standing around sipping on my coffee. “Come along with me today,” he said.

“For what?”

“I got to get the dead branches that’s come off the elm trees.”

“Am I helping?”

He nodded, and a few minutes later we were heading out in the truck, driving toward the tall elm trees, now standing silently, bare branches making a spiderweb against the sky.

At the grove, we piled out of the truck.

Since the last snowfall, the ground and everything above it had dried out during sunny afternoons.

The land was again spiked with crackling weeds, and the dead leaves beneath our feet were as stiff as hairbrush bristles, snapping as we walked over them.

Ray retrieved a large handsaw from the truck bed, walked to the trees, then started lifting dead branches off the ground and sawing off smaller limbs so he could fit them into the bed of the truck.

Ray told me I could pick up the smaller branches and stems and carry them to the truck.

And even though my abdomen now stuck out before me as a hard mound, I could still easily enough reach over and pick up small tree limbs off the ground.

As I gathered and carried my collected stacks back to the truck, I felt my heart and breathing speed up a bit, felt the brisk air down deep inside my lungs.

Ray and I piled the bed high, and when it was full, we took a load back toward the house, where we stored the wood in a stack Ray would later burn for mulch.

We made several trips back and forth from the woodpile to the elm grove.

The sun traveled overhead across cloudless blue sky without a hint of wind.

Moving about and working alongside Ray felt much as it had felt to work outside in the garden with my mother.

After a few hours, the ground between trees was no longer tangled with branches, but instead was a dry carpet of curling leaves.

These we raked up and pitched into the truck bed, too, as Ray said they posed a fire hazard.

To my amazement, I found that close to the ground, having been sheltered by the layer of leaves, some patches of green grass still grew.

After we finished, Ray parked the truck back out in the sunlight at the edge of the grove, facing it.

I rolled down my window and breathed in the smells of fall, the crispness in the air, sweet as cider on your tongue.

“This was a great idea, Ray.”

“Thought you might like it.”

“But why is the grove so far from the house?”

“My grandfather started this orchard. I don’t rightly know for sure why he put it so far away, but probably this was the worst soil he could find. Once you figure out the right trees, you can plant a grove like this one on the poorest soil of the farm, in land that isn’t good for anything else.”

“Now it’s lovely”

“Thanks.”

“And thank you for bringing me here and letting me help.”

“You’re sure welcome.”

The next day, I wanted to catch up with Abby or Bea, but when I drove to the pay telephone in Wilson, I kept on driving past it.

I went to Camp Amache instead, uninvited, yet Rose and Lorelei looked pleased to see me.

They were working again in the silkscreen shop, however, and therefore I spent more time with Itsu learning to arrange flowers than I spent with either of them.

They did manage to get away for lunch, which we ate together in the mess hall.

It was typical mass-produced food, not even as good as the stuff that had been served in the hospital cafeteria the last time Mother was kept as an inpatient, and not nearly as good as the food served on campus.

I remembered the last time I’d seen them together, the tension between them, and Rose’s worried face.

Even though they seemed better now, I wanted to ask Lorelei about it, to reassure myself that whatever the trouble was, it was over.

I wanted to know what was happening between her and Rose and the men with whom they’d been corresponding.

If only I could get her off to herself, Lorelei would talk to me, I knew it.

Instead, Itsu and Masaji joined us at the table, so we couldn’t talk about anything personal for the rest of the meal.

I ate quickly and hoped Rose and Lorelei would, too.

Then I followed them out. We walked full face into a wind blowing cold air straight through our clothes.

Their short hair was whipping about their heads like ribbons caught in a fan.

Rose wrapped herself in her sweater and hugged her arms around her body as she ducked into the door of their quarters.

Rose’s ability to read ideas off my face continued to amaze me.

Lorelei and I followed her through the door.

We stood inside, rubbing our hands together and shivering.

Lorelei fluffed her hair with her fingers. “It’s dreadful out there.”

Rose checked her watch. “We’ve only a few minutes left.”

I was still shaking despite the relative warmth inside their room. “I just want to know.” I looked directly at Lorelei. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes.” She beamed.

“Between you and the soldiers?”

Rose and Lorelei smiled at each other and then at me. “We’re happy,” said Lorelei.

But how serious were these relationships?

I almost asked. But then I could see it, clearly.

Just as long ago I’d seen Ray’s love for me, even when he still didn’t want me to, I could see theirs.

People in love, especially a new love, have a certain look—of pain and joy all wrapped up in one inexplicable yearning few find in return.

In both of their eyes I saw that restlessness, that vulnerable energy that could be nothing other than an early love.

They smiled and laughed so easily. The world seemed so obvious; the future alive on their faces.

But they also looked to me like delicate flowers that could so easily be crushed.

Rose and Lorelei reminded me of the way I’d felt while I was seeing Edward, full of all those emotions that are fresh and exhilarating in one minute, intense and frightening the next.

Lorelei fingered something underneath her clothing. The cameo, of course.

Rose looked at the wall as if it weren’t there, as if instead it were a face she loved, one that could be seen only by her mind’s eye.

“Do you meet them?”

Rose answered, “We’re writing to them, and occasionally they’re able to call.”

They looked at each other and smiled as though remembering.

“Do your parents know?”

Their faces fell at exactly the same moment, just after the words came out of my mouth.

“No,” Lorelei said swiftly.

Of course not. Had I told Father about Edward?

Lorelei said, “They would never approve. Back in Long Beach, we weren’t even allowed to date yet.”

Rose said, “Our parents might not understand.”

“Might not?” said Lorelei. “They never would.”

Rose sighed. “But even if they did, our grandparents wouldn’t. They would never approve of any men unlike us. Not only must our suitors be of Japanese descent, but from similar families, too.”

Of course, I said to myself again. Then I realized something else, too.

I couldn’t save them from whatever was going to happen, good or bad.

They were trying to find some joy despite their terrible circumstances in this camp.

Just a bit of some happiness. They were taking a chance, and I could only hope they realized the risks.

Yet how it worked out in the end, no one could know.