Page 2 of Starlight & Dark Nights

“Where is my mother?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her as if she might be hiding Esther somewhere in the room. “Did she leave?”

Judith was afraid to answer and afraid not to. She toyed with the idea of getting up and running past Chester, opening the door, and fleeing into the long hallway of the ship. She also toyed with the idea of telling him she hated him and hoped he fell over the side of the ship and drowned. But she did neither. Instead, she sighed.

“She went to play cards,” Judith said, unable to meet Chester’s gaze. “With the women.”

“The women,” he parroted, using an annoying voice. He stood there, blocking the doorway as a look came over his face. “How old are you again?”

“Seven,” Judith whispered. “I turned seven in October.”

Chester eyed her appraisingly. “You know, for a half-breed, you’re not completely ugly. I bet you could even be pretty when you grow up. As long as you take after your dad and not your mom.”

Judith could feel an insult in there somewhere—what she did not yet know was the abrasive grind of a racist remark—and her heart seized up in her chest. She wanted to defend her mother to this boy, but she wasn’t sure how. Or why she needed to.

“Stand up,” he said, glaring at Judith. She stood. A strange look came over Chester’s face and his neck flushed bright pink. The color crept up to his cheeks and he turned to lock the stateroom door. “You want to see something?” he asked her.

Judith did not really want to see something, but for some reason this felt like an olive branch; perhaps an offer of friendship. She nodded.

“Go into the bathroom,” Chester said, checking the lock on the door again. “Hurry. I have something you’ll really want to see.”

Judith felt a prickle of fear as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she understood later in life that this is the warning sign an alert animal gets when they are in some sort of danger. But at the tender age of seven, she did not yet know this, and she walked into the bathroom with an innocent heart.

Chester came in behind her, locking the door and changing her life forever.

* * *

By the time the boat docked in Los Angeles, they’d missed Christmas, and Judith had learned far more about the anatomy of young males than she had ever wanted to know. In fact, she’d never wondered about them at all, and was therefore entirely shocked to find that beneath his clothing, Chester had an entirely different piece of equipment than what she had.

Michael Harper was there at the port, waiting for Judith under a bright, cloudless blue sky. He squinted as Esther escorted his young daughter off the boat. Esther delivered Judith to him with a fair amount of excited chatter about her husband, who had served in the Navy with Michael in San Diego and also in Hawaii.

Judith was hungry and needed to use the restroom, but instead of saying so, she hopped from foot to foot as her father talked to Esther, keeping one watchful eye on Chester as he spit over the side of the dock into the water. She would not miss him, nor would she miss Esther’s ignorance of her own son’s behavior. Overall, Esther had been kind to Judith, but Judith did not particularly like her; any woman who could have raised a son like Chester was someone she did not trust.

In the car, Michael looked at his daughter in the rearview mirror. Judith sat in the back of his station wagon, eyes trained out the window in wonder as she watched the palm trees and the Christmas decorations that were still hanging on houses and businesses.

“How was the trip?” he asked her, hoping that she might say something.

Judith shrugged. “Fine,” she said so quietly that it was almost inaudible. “It was fine.”

Michael cleared his throat and tried again. “Did you do anything for Christmas on the boat?”

Judith exhaled loudly through her nostrils. “We ate turkey on Christmas Day.”

“Anything special for the children?”

Judith was bored of this conversation already. She was tired, homesick, lonely, fearful, and she still needed to use the restroom.

“Did Santa make an appearance?” Michael Harper swung his car onto the freeway and pushed down on the gas pedal, propelling them towards some unknown place that he’d referred to as “home,” as in “let’s get you home, shall we?”

Judith finally turned her head from the window and looked at her father. “Santa?” she asked. “Yes.” There had been a Santa, just not therealone. Judith instantly recognized the man in the red suit as one of the Navy men whose family was bunking in the same hallway as her and Esther and Chester.

“And did you get any gifts?”

Judith shook her head. There had been candy, but no gifts.

“Well, lucky for you, he knew you’d be coming to my house, and he dropped off a few packages.” Michael pulled the car off at an exit and slowed to a stop, waiting for a light to change. “He left some very nice looking gifts there, and we thought we’d save Christmas dinner for when you could join us. How does that sound? Doing Christmas with us tonight?”

Judith could sense a hopefulness that bordered on desperation in her father’s voice, so she pasted a smile on her face and gave him a single nod. “Okay,” she said.

His house was completely unlike the one that Judith lived in with her mother. Instead of a minka-style house with its sliding doors and tatami floors, her father’s home was a 1920s Spanish influenced dwelling with arched doorways and windows. Inside, there were black iron railings, red-tiled floors, and stucco walls. Judith’s bedroom looked out on a sprawling green lawn that sloped down to a wide street. Los Angeles was nothing like Japan.

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