She stood slowly. Bess followed her through the kitchen and up the stairs to her room. As Bess undid the buttons at the back of her dress, Hanna began weeping again. The last person to help her undress had been Mama, during her illness, when Hanna was about seven years old.

“You’re hurt,” Bess said. Her voice was still quiet, but now it was tight with anger.

Livid finger marks and an ugly scrape marred the skin on Hanna’s shoulder. Bess dabbed at the scrape with the damp rag. Hanna shuddered and cringed at the memory of Swenson’s touch.

“Who did this?” Bess asked.

“Mr. Swenson,” Hanna whispered. “He was with someone I didn’t know. Collins, maybe. No, Conners.”

“You need to tell my pa.”

“No,” Hanna said again. “They’ll say it was my fault.”

“How could it have been your fault? You’re the one who’s hurt. And a girl, against two grown men—”

Hanna interrupted her. “A half-Chinese girl,” she said. “Against two white men. Everyone will side with them, not me.”

She thought of the court trials that had followed the terrible Los Angeles riots. The evidence against the white men who had lynched as many as twenty Chinese people was overwhelming. Yet every one of the murderers had been released on appeal—not because they were innocent, but because the all-white juries and judges would not punish white men for killing Chinese.

“My pa will believe you,” Bess said stoutly.

Hanna was so weary that she didn’t think her bones would hold her up much longer. “You and your pa,” she said, her head drooping.“You might be the only ones.”

24

HANNA SOMEHOW MANAGED to get through the rest of the afternoon without encountering Papa. Bess fairly flew about the place. She moved the prairie roses from the washtub to the lard cans, emptied out the tub and cleaned it, did more hemming work. Hanna was supposed to be edging one of the dress’s sleeves with piping, but she was so distracted that she kept having to undo stitches. She hardly even noticed Bess’s departure at day’s end.

She put out some supper for Papa, then called to him that she was going to have her bath and go to bed. He was still busy organizing the shop for the opening and worked late into the evening.

Her night was filled with terrors. In the worst of her dreams, a giant-size Swenson grabbed her shoulder with his gargantuan paw and dragged her toward him. She could not get away no matter how much she fought, but she tried so hard that she woke herself, flailing, gasping, sweating.

The next morning she did not get up as usual. She told Papa that she wasn’t feeling well, and he went to church without her.