When Lili and Puna decided to stay behind, we asked if we could take the children to live with us. We would find work for them. This was a relief to the old couple, who had known no other life than one on the land and in the forests, where they wanted to stay and continue making their medicines and doing their healing work. They could see no future for their grandchildren on the land, as their old way of life had been pulled from under them.

As we prepared to leave, Chappy set about finding a house for us. This brightened him. He’d had tears pouring down through his insides ever since Paa’s death. In an attempt to drive through this inner cloud, he’d put his head down and worked every hour of every day. He’d travelled, finding more and more outlets for goods, widening his networks. Though his heart wasn’t in it, his business was thriving as never before.

I, like Oriwia, doubted whether Chappy should move from Hawai‘i. On the other hand, I thought he’d die of regret if he remained. I kept my mouth shut on that subject, remembering that he was a survivor.

Every so often, I’d go and get Chappy and take him with me to stay for a night, and he’d talk of his sorrow at not getting home before Paa died. After the war, he believed that his wife and daughters would be better off without him, and it was only when he thought he was dying in Tokyo that he wanted to make contact to tell us what had happened. He never thought he’d see his wife and daughters, his parents, his family again, but wanted us to know he hadn’t forgotten. As for the land, and the old life, he hadn’t considered being part of it again.

Convinced that he was soon to die and would never return to Aotearoa, he went along in a languid way with Ishy’s proposals for him to come to Hawai‘i as a first step to going home. He was disbelieving. But Hawai‘i gave him the opportunity to see his wife, his children and his father again, which was more than he had dreamed of. And Hawai‘i made him well.

It wasn’t until Binnie’s wedding, despite hands around his throat, that he began to realise that returning permanently might be possible. Back in Hawai‘i, he completed his application to become a resident of the United States as a first step. At the same time, he legalised his name as Chappy Star – not a problem, because many Japanese in Hawai‘i were changing their names at the time.

After the wedding of his second daughter, when Paa expressed his strong desire for the return of this ‘true son’, Chappy knew that he must come home no matter what the consequences might be.