After the funeral, Evelyn Wilson held herself apart from her neighbors. Hiro and Kimiko and Homer and the children still sometimes picnicked in the orchard or on the banks of the irrigation canal or sometimes drove down to the confluence of the American River in Auburn, a moment of relief from the heat and labor of the summer, but Evelyn Wilson did not join them. She was hardly a recluse, of course, for she still went to town on occasion—to Auburn for church and to Newcastle as well—and was cordial and quietly talkative to her casual friends. But were Homer to ask her to come with him and the children and the Takahashis—to the river or for a walk through the trees—she would demur and complain of a headache and Homer would give up and wander away to meet his friends and he and the children and the Takahashis and theirs would spend a Sunday afternoon or evening together. Sometimes their outings would be as simple as driving down the ridge to the low Japantown that stood with its series of ramshackle buildings under the shade of the cottonwoods in the draw at the base of Chantry Hill, pulling the truck to a stop and the children piling out of the back and Homer treating everyone to an ice cream from Yoshida’s store. He would thank the shopkeeper in Japanese, an exchange which always brought a loud peal of laughter, not only from Mr. Yoshida himself but from his wife and children too and even from Hiro and Kimiko.

And so, at least for the children, there was still a kind of gold to the place, the summer rivers clear and cold with meltwater and the oaks crackling with dry heat over days that seemed long enough to encompass lifetimes. And who is to say it would not have gone on like that forever had not history itself come to intervene, the president’s voice on the radio offering a monotony of Japanese aggression? They attacked Malaya. Attacked Hong Kong. Attacked Guam. Attacked the Philippine Islands. Attacked Wake Island. Attacked Midway Island. The family listened to it huddled around their little radio in the lamplight, the speaker hissing and the woodstove ticking with heat.

“Why did they do that?” Raymond asked.

“I don’t know,” his father told him.

“This is bad,” Kimiko said in Japanese.

“It’ll be all right,” Hiro said in English.

Kimiko only said her Japanese sentence again.