Koji poured himself some cold green tea like his mother used to make and sat down on the steps outside of his front porch. There was still a warm, muted light. All the cane workers were back at their villages getting ready for the New Year. It was the most important day of the year for all the workers, and Koji looked forward to seeing his old friends. From the villages scattered across the plantation, the warm wind carried a fragrant aroma of cooking as they prepared for tomorrow’s celebration. Koji’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the village fires brought back those boyhood days when he ate platefuls of his mother’s kiri kinton, the plump dumplings made of mashed sweet potatoes and chestnuts, which represented good fortune in the year to come. He later felt the same gratifying New Year’s spirit when he was down in Hilo with Mariko frying mochi to be dipped in soy sauce and sugar, Daniel watching, excited, and impatient to eat and begin celebrating. He smiled to think his two worlds weren’t so far apart after all.

Koji turned when the old cat Hula stole around the corner of the cottage, leaped up the steps, and waited in front of the screen door to be let in. “Nine lives,” he said, smiling.

He stood up to let the cat in.

* * *

New Year’s morning was cool and clear and rainless. It was still early when Koji cut across the fields. The sky slowly brightened, bringing everything into focus as he walked down the rutted dirt road that led to Kazoku village. Over the years, not much had changed since his family moved from the cane straw shacks and into one of the tin-roofed cottages. The village was its own community, crowded with families, dogs, cats, and chickens. Every empty patch of dirt in front or back of the cottages became small vegetable gardens, brimming with sweet potatoes, taro, turnips, beans, and pumpkins. Koji had walked down the same dirt road hundreds of times over the years. There were the faint sounds of the villagers just rising, but it was still quiet except for Mrs. Takahashi grating carrots on her front stoop. He knew she’d be up and cooking before dawn.

“Koji-chan, that you!”

He smiled to see Razor’s mother. Thin and gray-haired, her face was a myriad of wrinkles and furrows as she smiled to see him. Next to her was a bowl piled high with grated daikon in which she would add the carrots, along with sweetened vinegar, to make namasu, a New Year’s salad that Razor had loved. After he died, she continued to make namasu every year, leaving a generous bowl for him at the table where he sat as a boy.

“I’m hungry,” Koji teased, patting his stomach. She always loved to cook for all the children of Kazoku village.