“Of course, stay with her if you must,” she’d said. But her eyes had been pleading. The food shortages were intense, and she’d lost the last rice harvest to a raid by desperate refugees from the mainland. This season’s crop was ready and the typhoons were early this year. Tanaka, Horace, and Duffy would have helped, had they remained at Chek Keng, but guided by one of the village boys, they’d gone straight on to Tai Kang to be with Isadore Davis Wong and the mountain guerrillas.

“Why don’t you spend the day in the chapel?” Auntie Siu-Wai had said to Emily. “It’s the nicest building in the town, and Padre Arcuri might come by later, if you want to have the baby baptized.” Most of the villagers at Chek Keng were Catholic, converted by the Italian missionaries who first came in the 1860s.

“Poor Raymond,” Emily said. “He’s had such a rough start. Maybe the protection of the One God would give him a little advantage?”

“Macy was baptized by Padre Arcuri two weeks after she was born,” Ting-Yan said, stroking the thick hair of the little girl who clung to her leg, her daughter with Tak-Tam. “I’m not devout and I don’t really care about it one way or the other but Mother and Father wanted it done. I’m glad now that I could give that to Old Lee.” Her eyes brimmed. She sucked back a wad of snot.

“May he rest in peace,” I said. It was obvious what a loss Captain Lee’s death was to this little fishing village.

So Courchene followed us into the fields, though he looked back over his shoulder more times than I could count. I’d like to think I was as worried about my sister as he was, but in all honesty, I was happy to follow Ting-Yan and watch the autumn sun fall on her strong back as she walked the worn path to the rice paddies, as she’d done since she was a child. Macy walked with her, clutching her hand. She was nearly five, and full of beans.

This is how I imagine them.

Tak-Wing motors up the coast in a hired launch boat. The Japanese patrol boats could interfere, but they don’t. He makes good time and arrives at Chek Keng in the early afternoon. The Holy Family Chapel is the most obvious building in the village, and Tak-Wing makes straight for it.

Tak-Wing finds her sitting with her back toward the alcove in the second chamber. The altar behind her houses a large porcelain statue of Mary with a Chinese face, who looks quite unambiguously like Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea. Emily is breastfeeding Raymond, who gurgles contentedly. They’ve already been through so much. Why can’t Tak-Wing leave her in peace?