We have no idea what he means and just stand there as if we’ve suddenly lost our tongues. We shyly watch Franklin walk over to the girls, full of bravado and confidence as he talks and laughs with them. Frank can talk himself into, or out of, anything, something Koji and I can’t help but admire.

When we return to the plantation later that afternoon, Koji can’t stop talking about each of the girls—Nori, the protective one; Leia, the tall, quiet one; and Mariko, the one with the beautiful smile and a small dark mole near her left jawline. It’s like a period at the end of a sentence, Koji says. He has stopped right there. My best friend is already so mesmerized he can’t see straight, yeah, and I don’t have the heart to tell him that while he was standing there watching Mariko’s every move, her gaze never left Franklin.

The Past, the Present: November 25–26, 1935

The Past, the Present

November 25–26, 1935

15. Island Boys

15

Island Boys

The little girl lay on the hospital bed and opened her eyes, staring at Daniel accusingly. She never said a word as her body began to shake in violent spasms. He tried to get the attention of the other doctors in the room, but they continued to ignore him, even when he began screaming that the girl had gone into cardiac arrest, only to realize that it was his heart pounding erratically followed by a painful explosion in his chest.

Daniel sat up from bed, sweating, clutching his chest. Switching on the light, he glanced at the clock to see that he was late. He’d fallen back to sleep and into the unsettling dream. He pushed aside his sheet and scrambled out of bed. Wilson and Mano were waiting for him at the wharf. If he hurried, he could still make it down to the dock before the Okawa & Sons fishing boat left its berth at 3:00 a.m.

Daniel was winded by the time he arrived at the dock, the troubling dream far away, just as Wilson started the boat’s engine and it roared to life. The stink of gasoline along with the briny ocean brought back his last trip out on the Okawa fishing boat with Wilson and Mano more than fifteen years earlier. That morning, however, they had endured rough waters for just over half an hour when Daniel began to feel seasick, his stomach roiling and his breakfast rising as he rushed to vomit over the side of the boat and into the choppy sea.

“Best kind of fish bait, braddah,” Wilson had said, slipping into pidgin, and laughed, almost choking on the sandwich he was eating.