Hildemara waited another month before making an appointment. The doctor confirmed she was pregnant. Proud to be carrying Trip’s child, she sat with her hand resting on her abdomen during the long bus ride back to the apartment.
She would go home to Murietta. She didn’t want to add to Trip’s worries, and her husband wouldn’t want her living alone with a baby on the way.
Rikka had gone home to see Melvin before he headed off to Marine Corps boot camp and then gone back to San Francisco. She had quit full-time classes at the California School of Fine Arts, preferring to pick and choose what she studied. She had found a job as a waitress in a fancy restaurant and loved everything about living in San Francisco. She claimed she loved Melvin, but she had no intention of becoming a farmer’s wife in Murietta. It remained to be seen whether romance or a lust for life would win out. With Rikka’s eyes fixed on city life, Hildemara assumed there would be plenty of room for her and a new baby.
Only a fool assumes.
38
1942
Hildie left her trunk and suitcase at the train station and walked home. Thinking to surprise Mama, she knocked at the front door. She didn’t know the woman who opened it.
She stood gaping. “Who are you?”
“I’d be asking you the same question.”
“I’m Hildemara Arundel.”
“I don’t know no Arundels.”
“Waltert. My mother is Marta Waltert.”
“Oh.” Her face cleared and she pushed the screen door open. “Come in, please. Your mama don’t live here no more. She lives out back in the cottage.” She put her hand under Hildie’s arm. “Here. You set yourself down. You look a little peaked.”
“Who are you?”
“Donna Martin.” She patted Hildie’s shoulder, poured her a glass of lemonade, and said she’d go get her mother.
A moment later, Mama raced in the back door. “What are you doing here, Hildemara?”
“Trip’s gone to OCS. He said I couldn’t go with him. I wanted to come home!” She burst into tears.
“Come on.” Mama hauled her up, apologized to Donna Martin for the intrusion, and pushed Hildie out the back door, down the steps, and along the path to the cottage. She opened the side door into the kitchen. “It’s too bad you didn’t think to write first, instead of just showing up on the front doorstep.”
“I thought I’d be welcome.” Hildemara wiped her face. “I should’ve known better.” She looked around. “You’re living here? Where are Bernie and Elizabeth?”
Mama poured another glass of lemonade and plunked it in front of Hildie on the small kitchen table. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
“Mama!”
Mama sat and folded her hands on the table. “Hitch and Donna Martin are sharecropping the place. They’ve got four children. I don’t need much room, so I gave them the big house. They’ll be more comfortable there, room to spread instead of living in a tent-house like we did.”
“And Bernie and Elizabeth?”
“The government came and took the Musashis away. Bernie and Elizabeth moved over to their place.”
“Took them away? Where?”
“To an assembly center in Pomona. We’ve heard rumors they’re going to be sent to some internment camp in Wyoming, of all places. We sent blankets and coats a week back. Hope they get them. The government seems to think every Jap is a spy these days. I’m surprised a bus hasn’t come after me and the rest of the Jerries and Wops around here, sending us all to some godforsaken camp in Death Valley.” She raised her hands and shook her head. “People go crazy when a war starts. They let fear run wild. Anyway, Hitch and Donna are good, hardworking people. Papa spoke highly of Hitch. They came out when Oklahoma turned to dust, and they’ve had a hard time ever since they arrived in California. I know how that feels. Hitch knows farming and ranching, so I hired him to run the place. That’s how Papa and I started when we came to California. Sharecroppers. Do you remember those days living by the irrigation ditch and in that tent-house Papa built? I’ll treat the Martins better than we were treated, I can promise you that.”
“So you’re living here.”
“Yes. It suits me. The Martins will have the place looking as neat and tended as Papa did when he was well.”
Hildie bristled. “Bernie did a good job.”
“Yes. Bernie did a good job; I’m not saying he didn’t. He’ll do a good job across the street, too.”
“I could help.”
“Not here, you can’t. What, now that you’ve come home you think I’ll put the Martins out so you can move in and play farmer? No. The cottage has only one bedroom, Hildemara, and I’m not sharing it. I don’t need you down here on the farm.”
Hildemara’s mouth trembled. “Did you ever think I might need you?”
Mama put her hands over Hildie’s and held them tightly. “No, you don’t. You’ve been standing on your own two feet for a while now.” She took her hands away. “Go on back to Merritt, back to work, back to your friends! Time will pass faster that way.”
So much for being welcomed home. “I can’t go back to work.”
“Why not?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Mama sat back in her chair. “Oh. Well, that changes things.” She smiled, her eyes glowing softly. “You and Elizabeth will have a lot to talk about. Go on over. They’ll be glad to see you. And there’s plenty of room at the Musashis’. He built a dormitory for the girls, remember?”
Mama went with her. “Look what the cat dragged in!”
How like Mama to say it that way.
Bernie strode across the yard, grabbed Hildie, and flung her around, her feet swinging. She laughed for the first time in weeks. “Put me down, Bernie!”
“Careful, Bernhard. Your sister’s expecting a baby.”
Bernie set Hildie down. “Holy cow! How far along?”
“Three months.” She watched Mama head back across the street. Hildie could almost imagine her brushing off her hands, having settled things so quickly.
“Elizabeth’s six months along. She’s still sick as a dog every morning. I thought she wrote to you. Letter probably got lost with all your moving hither and yon, following that man of yours.” He put his arm around her and steered her toward the Musashis’ house. “She’s going to be over the moon when she sees you. She’s been lonely.”
Bernie stopped, looking grim. “I’d better warn you now, in case you might want to change your mind about staying here. We’ve had rocks thrown through the windows. Old Man Hutchinson called me a Jap lover yesterday. I can understand, I guess. His son was killed at Pearl Harbor, but try telling him the Musashis had nothing to do with it. People see Jap spies behind every bush, and a few Germans ones, too. Do you understand what I’m saying, Hildie?”
“Yes.” Fear made fools of some people.
Elizabeth turned from the kitchen sink as Bernie and Hildie came in the door. Hildemara gave her a long, considering look.
