M
ama, is it time to go?” I hadn’t
planned to cry, but the tears
came suddenly, and I wiped
them away with the back of my hand. I
didn’t want my older sister to see me crying.
“It’s almost time, Ruri,” my mother said
gently. Her face was fi
lled with a kind of
sadness I had never seen before.
I looked around at my empty room. Th
e
clothes that Mama always told me to hang up
in the closet, the junk piled on my dresser, the
old rag doll I could never bear to part with—
they were all gone. Th
ere was nothing left
in
my room, and there was nothing left
in the
rest of the house. Th
e rugs and furniture were
gone, the pictures and drapes were down, and
the closets and cupboards were empty. Th
e
house was like a gift
box aft
er the nice thing
inside was gone; just a lot of nothingness.
It was almost time to leave our home,
but we weren’t moving to a nicer house or
to a new town. It was April 21, 1942. Th
e
United States and Japan were at war, and