Her room was classic cheap motel: two anemic chairs at a Formica table, coffeemaker on the mini-fridge, TV dominating the fake Colonial-style dresser, the toxic tang of bug spray, thick enough to taste. The bedspread, a quilted floral monstrosity, crackled when Kira flopped onto the bed.
Her phone chirped, a text from Dan. You ok? She’d forgotten about his message that morning.
Yes, ankle is better. Sorry about this morning. Sleep well. xx
She turned off the phone. No one knew she was here. She was alone in a way she hadn’t been in years, completely free.
The next morning at eight Kira texted Dan an all-okay and stepped outside. Warm air caressed her arms, and the sky radiated promise. She stretched, breathing deeply. The day opened before her, a new path through the maze. At the thought, a current of nausea swept through her.
In the motel office Mike was sweeping dust from the tiny foyer while Dustin emptied a coffee pot into a thermos. “Morning. Where to?” Dustin said. “You want to go fishing? I know all the best spots.”
“I got plenty of gear, you need anything,” Mike said.
“No, I’m doing research.” Kira handed Mike a printout of the newspaper article about Akira’s murder. “Do you know anything about this? It was big news back in the ’40s. The girl, Maddalena Moretti, was my grandmother.”
“No kidding? I remember my dad talking about this,” Mike said, tapping on the paper. “Biggest news around here besides all the movie folks who come to town. People want to shoot the Wild West, they come here; there’s a movie museum down the street if you’re interested. Anyway, there’s never been many Italians here in the valley. Back then, just the Rossis up in Bishop and your folks. Everybody knew who they were.”
“I’m looking for my family’s ranch. Would that information be in the town records?”
“That’s easy,” Mike said, smiling. “It’s the Marshall place now.”
“You know it?”
“Pretty much everybody does; your grandma’s family was downright famous—or infamous, I guess,” Mike said. “Good luck. You change your mind about fishing, let me know. I got rods, reels, the works.”
Kira followed Dustin to his truck and waited while he tossed McDonald’s boxes, Subway wrappers, and Styrofoam cups behind the duct-taped seat. “Sorry about the mess,” he said.
“No problem.” Kira gazed at the mountains, so sharply etched in the thin air that they seemed steps away. She felt light, alive, but her nerves kept firing. She’d see Maddalena’s house today. What else would she find?
As they drove north the Sierra kept pace, steely gray granite slopes and white-topped peaks that reined in the high country of Yosemite. To the east, the Inyos marched in waves, pixilated with rusts and piney greens. In between, a forlorn expanse of scrub brush, sandy earth, stunted trees, and a pencil-thin highway racing north and south.
Just past Lone Pine, Dustin swung west into a warren of skimpy dirt tracks. The truck hit a pothole and Kira yelped, grabbing the door handle.
“Sorry.” Dustin glanced at her, his hair a brilliant pale orange in the sun. “You don’t drive, huh?”
“What?”
“I was wondering why you didn’t drive here if you wanted to explore the valley. Most of the people who come by bus are climbers. There’s a Whitney shuttle from Vegas.”
“I can drive, but I’ve got a bum ankle, and, well, kind of a medical condition. I was in an accident. Thus the black eyes.”
Ten minutes later, at the end of a long, straight road that turned out to be a driveway, the truck stopped in front of a drab two-story house fronting the Sierra. A gravel track curved past the house to a barn, and flowers made a drought-defiant stand in lilacs and blues on either side of the porch.
“This is it?” Kira said. “My grandmother’s house? We’re here?” She fought back tears, a tightening in her throat. “I can’t believe it.”
She’d had no idea the place would be so isolated. She pictured Maddalena as a child, sitting on the front porch swing with a book or combing a ragdoll’s hair. Jumping rope, playing tag. Who would she have played with? As far as she knew, Maddalena had never talked about her childhood, had never come back here. Not surprising, considering what had happened to her. Why would she want to return to the place where her father had murdered the boy she loved?
A lean woman wearing a plaid shirt and khaki pants answered the door, listening with narrowed eyes while Dustin explained the reason for their visit. Her hair was several shades past black, pulled back and knotted in a way that denied any hint of softness. She let them in with a look that said she was onto their plan to ransack the place, easing slightly when Dustin called her Mrs. Marshall. Kira introduced herself and the woman surveyed her as if Kira’s eyes, hair, or clothes might prove she was kin to a murderer. Then she said they should call her Evie and opened the door.
In the living room, a 1970s nightmare remodel had ruined the house’s Victorian bones. Avocado greens and mustard yellows adorned the walls and floors, and the couch wore an ugly brown-and-black plaid. A few antiques stood out among what looked like Ethan Allen furniture, but any evidence of the ’40s had been obliterated. Placing Maddalena here was impossible.
“I really appreciate this,“ Kira said. “Do you mind if I take pictures?”
Evie hesitated. “I guess not.”
Kira snapped a few shots and moved into the dining room. A slap of recognition—those windows, the western light. She knew this place. The birthday fragment had happened here, Hiroshima too. The table, the cake, Maddalena’s legs stuck to her chair, the radio shouting news of the end of the war—all of it right here. She turned her back on Evie and Dustin, touched a windowsill, quelled another rise of tears. After a few moments she went into the kitchen. Cabinets and countertops in lime green, sunflowers on the tiled backsplash, a fake Tiffany light overhead. Unrecognizable.
“Can we go upstairs?” she said.
“I suppose so.” Evie led the way, stopping at the top of the stairs where a hallway branched. On the right, two doors; on the left, one. “My granddaughter sleeps in that room when she comes to visit,” Evie said, pointing to the single door on the left. “She’s eight.”
Kira ducked into the small bedroom. Instantly the floor buckled and her blood pooled in her feet. Maddalena’s room, she was sure of it. Lightheaded, Kira braced herself on the dresser. Plain white walls, a plank floor worn down the middle, a lone window, a white iron bed dressed with a gaudy quilted coverlet. The wedding-dress fragment had happened here.
“Is something wrong?” Evie said.
“No, I—I’m just wondering if this could have been my grandmother’s bedroom. It’s lovely, perfect for a little girl. Your granddaughter, I mean.” Kira touched the polished surface of the heavy dresser, the boards rippled and cupped with age. “What a beautiful piece. Do you know how old it is?”
“No,” Evie said. “Late 1800s, I’d guess. It was here when we moved in, the bed too, and a highboy downstairs. The man who lived here before us said the house was full of furniture when he moved in. I guess the previous owners couldn’t be bothered to move it all. Your grandma’s family.” A stern look, as if Kira were to blame for her relatives’ poor behavior.
Kira faced the mirror atop the dresser, set into a graceful arch of wood. Maddalena would have stood here like she was now, in a white nightgown perhaps, brushing her long hair. A teenager in love, glowing at the vision of her ripening body. An unwilling bride, miserable in a cheap, shapeless dress. The daughter of a murderer.
“Nice view,” Dustin said, looking out the window.
Kira stood next to him. In the yard, a dozen chickens scratched at the pancaked earth. The massive barn, dwarfed by the mountain backdrop, looked weathered but eternal, its boards a velvety gray. Standing by the window on a summer evening, Maddalena would have looked out on that barn, those m
ountains. Kira crossed to the bed, lay down and closed her eyes. Maddalena had slept here, a young woman dreaming of her lover, skin damp, hair pulled off her neck. How quiet her world would have been. How lonely.
Evie cleared her throat. “You’ll want to see the barn, I suppose?”
“Yes.” Kira didn’t move. The footboard was almost as high as the headboard, with onion-shaped finials. She touched the white paint, glossy but crackled over layers scarred with age. Maddalena’s bed, where she’d dreamed of Akira. Mourned him.
“Come on, Kira.” Dustin took her hand and pulled her upright.
“I need pictures,” she said.
“I’ll do it.” He took the camera from her.
Kira followed Evie downstairs. The barn door yawned from across the yard and Kira’s stomach lurched, an elevator in freefall. A speckled gray dog materialized beside her, cold nose nudging her fingers. When she stroked the dog’s silky head, the elevator inside her gut slowed and steadied.
In the barn, the scent of hay-sweet manure thickened the air. Sunlight sliced through air vents, carrying whirls of dust, and the wooden floor, carpeted with spilled oats and hay, swallowed every footstep. Kira’s body hummed. The dog leaned into her and she ruffled a feathery ear. A sense of churchlike peace, of belonging.
Kira turned to Evie, standing by the door with her arms crossed. “Would you mind if I stayed here alone? Just for a minute or two.”
“I suppose not,” Evie said. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Alone with the dog, Kira let the barn swallow her. Dizzy, drunk on animal smells, she leaned against an old feed bin, its boards soft and gapped with time. Men’s voices drifted in from the fields. A hayloft loomed overhead; on her right, an open door led to dozens of cattle stalls. Kira followed the dog into another part of the barn, which held a wall of tack, two large wooden grain bins, and three stalls, one holding a swaybacked white horse. The dog looked at Kira expectantly.
“There’s something about this place, huh, pooch?” Kira touched a bridle, the leather seasoned with oil and sweat, the silver bit scored with teeth marks. A Western saddle sat on a two-by-four rack, topped with a few smelly-looking pads. Kira sat in one of the empty stalls and breathed it all in, leather and sweat and horse and hay, the almost-taste of dung. She wanted to sleep cocooned in the thick air, wake with hay dust and the scent of horse embedded in her skin. The dog settled next to her, sighing. Nothing moved but the horse’s tail, a restless swish and fall. Kira closed her eyes. Maddalena must have had a horse; that was why the barn seemed important. If any place would trigger a fragment, it was here.
She dozed off, then startled when the dog worried her hand. Evie would be waiting.
The dog padded to the door and looked back. Kira followed it around the barn to the paddock, where the dog sat and gazed at the open land. The emptiness was dizzying, vast beyond measure, the sky a sweeping infinity. Far ahead to the north, the gleam of a metal roof, what must be the remains of Manzanar. Not that far away. Give a girl a horse and she could get there. But in the 1940s, would a rancher’s daughter have been allowed to ride alone in the desert, dangerous with heat and dust storms and rattlesnakes? During the war, the Japanese people at Manzanar were feared; surely Maddalena would have been told to stay away from them. But then, if she’d had a love affair at sixteen, and with a Japanese boy, she must not have been the type to let rules get in her way. How strong-willed she must have been, how fearless.
Kira ruffled the dog’s ears. “I had a spunky grandma,” she said. Brown eyes gazed up at her. Nothing moved except a hawk drifting overhead.
Find it. The ground tilted and Kira bent over, hands on her knees. Find what? She was here.
“Hello there, can I help you?”
Kira spun around. “Oh my God, you scared me!” she said to the man who approached.
“Are you lost?” he asked. His voice was kind, his face open and friendly, the opposite of Evie.
“No, Evie—your wife? She said I could look around.” The dog’s weight against her leg. “My grandmother lived here in the ’40s.”
“That right?” The man squinted, small, bright blue eyes, sharp as a bird’s. “During the war, then.” Kira nodded. “Hang on,” the man said, and went to the barn.
The dog’s nose again, insistent. Kira stroked the soft head, warm as a baby’s, and thought of Baby Kendall for the first time since she’d left Martinez. How quickly the world had shrunk to the length and width of Owens Valley.
The rancher came back with a cigar box. “This was in the horse barn, under a floorboard that rotted out. Gave way right under me or I never would have found it. Couldn’t bring myself to throw it out; figured it was important to someone. It’s yours if you want it.”
Kira took the box, her hands trembling. It was heavier than she expected. Inside, seven stones like flattened baseballs, one discolored tortoiseshell hair comb, and an envelope. Inside the envelope, a folded piece of paper and a photo, the same one as in the newspaper article. Kira turned it over. “For M, all my love. A.” She couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes off that face. Her grandfather’s face. The dog licked her hand and Kira started to cry.
“Hey now—oh, lordy.” The rancher rubbed his stubbly beard. “I’ll get Evie.”
Kira wiped her eyes and put the photo back in the envelope. On the folded paper, written in pencil, was a song. “Girl on a Horse” was written at the top in neat lettering, and below it, “For Maddalena.” A perfect G clef, staff lines carefully drawn, notes neatly blacked in.
The dog held up a paw. Kira took it, followed the animal’s gaze into the desert again. “What are you looking at, pup? Is she out there?” The question ticked past, spoken before she could censor it. She didn’t think that, did she? Did she? Jesus.
Shading her eyes, she imagined a small figure on a horse, headed across that wasteland toward Manzanar, toward the impossible. No, not impossible. Fuck the barbed wire and the guard towers, the men with guns—Maddalena and Akira had defied all of it, broken the rules. There, in that dismal prison, a teenage boy had written a song for her grandmother, loved her enough, apparently, to die for her. And she’d loved him back. As much as he did? Would Maddalena have died for him?
The voice again. Find it.
Thirty
August 4, 1945
Maddalena sat up, shivering in her cardigan and socks. It was chilly for August, but that was the desert, changeable and unpredictable. They needed to find a more sheltered place before autumn set in, if the war went on that long. God forbid it lasted into the winter, a terrible thought made worse because snowfall would make it impossible to meet Akira. They would freeze, or worse, be caught, their tracks in the snow a dead giveaway.
She gave Akira a quick hug, then dressed, thinking how strange it was that she could do this thing that her mother would call ugly, a sin, and believe it was beautiful and right. But why should she believe making love was spiritually wrong when her mother had lied to her about the physical act itself? If her mother believed what she’d told her daughter—the man’s pleasure, the woman’s burden—Maddalena felt sorry for her. Who wouldn’t want the glorious oblivion of desire, of being desired?
“Have you gone back to the Wilkins’ shed?” Maddalena said. The empty shed Akira had found the night he went looking for her seemed the best alternative to the orchard. Besides lending shelter, it seemed safe enough, since Henry Wilkins would have no reason to go there at night.
“Yes, and it’ll do fine, though the floor is hard. I’ll swipe a couple more blankets from the hospital and make you a nest.”
“At least we’ll be out of the wind. I suppose I can’t ride Scout there, though. The Wilkins’ dogs might smell him and raise a ruckus.”
“It’s not too far a walk. It’ll work out fine.”
“Yes, but I like it here.” This precious place. She would never be able to look at these
trees without thinking of Akira, not if she lived to be a hundred.
“Me too. We’ll go there when you’re cold enough to want a roof over your head.” Akira pulled her to her feet. “Come on, there’s something we need to do.”
“What is it?”
“Stake our claim on this place.”
They found a tree with a broad trunk and a smooth, flat patch of bark. Akira pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and began to carve an A. A romantic gesture, Maddalena thought, done by millions of lovers. But the way he did it, working the knife with solemnity and a sense of importance, touched her.
It was an odd feeling, this sense of loving and being loved. When Akira was nearby, close enough for her to touch, there was nothing wrong with the world. It was like being a child tucked into bed at night with the stars visible through the window and a quilt under her chin and music drifting up the stairs, only a thousand times better.
AS + MM
The lines and curves stood out against the dark wood, pale and moist. Maddalena touched the A and brought her finger to her tongue. It tasted sweet.
“I thought about carving ‘loves’ instead of a plus sign,” Akira said, “but it seemed like it would be saying I love you but you don’t love me.”
“You love me?” she said, scarcely able to breathe.
“Of course. Don’t you know that?”
“You’ve never said it.”
“Well, I’m saying it now. I love you, Maddalena.” Akira turned, arms outstretched, shouting, “Listen up, world! I love Maddalena Moretti!” Then he grabbed her hands. “Do you love me?”
“Yes! With all my heart, forever.” She would live behind barbed wire with him now if she could, and she’d live through whatever they’d face when he got out. The thought brought as much fear as happiness. So much could go wrong.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me.” Akira held her in silence for a moment. “Maddalena, I need to tell you something. When I met you, there was someone else.”
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