The sister hoisted them both to their feet. “Now you young ladies are going to have to learn how to share,” she scolded. A long speech followed about how Jesus would want them to share and share alike.
The sister took the cow block away from Opal, handed it back to Ruth. “Now, Ruth,” she said, “I want you to give the cow to Opal.”
“Why? You just gave it to me!”
“You’re going to give it back like a good Christian.”
“No! It was mine first!”
“Give it to her, Ruth,” the sister said, rapidly losing her patience.
Ruth thought for a moment then said angrily, “Here!”
She lobbed the block directly at Opal. The wooden cube caromed off the side of her head like a foul ball. Opal wailed.
Ruth was yanked away by Sister Augusta, who then swatted her repeatedly in her backside, hard: “This—will teach you—not to hit people!”
The swats stung, but Ruth stubbornly refused to show her pain.
She was sent to her room for the rest of the day, where she proceeded to energetically punch the pillows on her bed, imagining them to be Opal’s head. Or Sister Augusta’s.
Not long after, Sister Lu entered the room. Ruth stopped punching and rolled over onto her stomach on the bed. The sister sat down beside her.
“How are you feeling, Ruth?” she asked quietly.
“I hate kindergarten! I hate it here!”
“Sister Augusta told me what happened,” Louisa continued calmly. “I wish I’d been there. I could have explained to her why you did what you did.”
Ruth rolled over on her back, looking at Sister Lu with confusion and anger. “Everything I want gets taken away!”
“I know it seems unfair. I know you loved Only.”
Hearing the dog’s name, Ruth burst into tears. Louisa wrapped her arms around her, rocked and comforted her as she had when Ruth was barely more than a baby. “It’s all right, Ruth. Someday you’ll have everything you want. I promise.” An empty promise, Louisa knew. Ruth kept sobbing.
Louisa suddenly recalled the words of a Jesuit priest who, years before, had counseled the young nursing sister: “While administering to these little ones, your charges, under God’s care, your hands are His hands; your eyes, His eyes; and your heart, His Sacred Heart, working by, in, and through your very being…”
Louisa prayed for God’s love and succor to travel from her body, her arms, into Ruth’s. The sobs finally ceased and, mercifully, Ruth fell asleep. Louisa looked at her and remembered other children, in Joliet, who had borne even worse pain—the violent abuse of parents—and whom to this day Louisa regretted not being able to save from their own rage and bitterness. But Ruth was different. She had to be different, Louisa told herself. I am God’s instrument, and I will not fail this child.
* * *
The following week, Louisa and three other sisters assembled every girl old enough to walk and marched them two miles down the hill to King Street, where the keiki awaited the arrival of the eastbound streetcar from Fort Shafter. Within fifteen minutes Car No. 55 rattled into view, its exterior painted fire-engine red, its destination sign identifying it as traveling between KALIHI AND WAIKIKI. The girls (all but Ruth) cheered as it braked to a stop. It was empty this early in the morning, which was provident since the fifty girls and four nuns filled the entire car.
Ruth’s anger had cooled to indifference; even the prospect of a trip to Waikīkī Beach could not arouse her interest. Glumly she followed the older girls onto the car and down the aisle. On either side were wooden benches that each sat two—three, if they were small—girls. Ruth started to seat herself up front—until she felt Sister Lu’s hand on her shoulder. “We can find you a better seat than that, Ruth,” the sister said. “Here, why don’t you sit with Mara.” Louisa gently steered Ruth into a seat next to a twelve-year-old Hawaiian girl. “Mara, this is Ruth.” Mara said “Hi,” but Ruth just sat in sullen silence.
The trip to Waikīkī was long and rough at times—the car’s wheels clattering over the track-joints, the bumps and jolts when it hit uneven terrain, the clanging of the bell at every cross street. But the girls loved every minute of it.
“Some fancy ride, ’ey?” Mara said to Ruth over the clangor.
Ruth shrugged.
“Oh, you seen it all, huh?” Mara smiled. “You one cool cucumber.”
“I’m not a cucumber.” Ruth had yet to embrace metaphor.
“You like Waikīkī?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What place you like best?”
“The zoo.”
Mara smiled again. “I like that too. My mama used to take me an’ my brothers there. I liked the pikake—the peacocks. Struttin’ around with their tail feathers stickin’ outta their 'ōkole.”
She laughed, but Ruth was focused on something else Mara had said: “Your mama took you there?”
“Uh huh.”
“What happened to her?”
“Nothin’ happened. She lives in Kaimukī.”
Ruth didn’t understand this at all. “Then why don’t you live with her?”
Mara shrugged casually, but her smile had faded. “My papa, he got leprosy. Got sent Kalaupapa. Mama, she couldn’t afford to keep us anymore, so—I come here, and my brothers go to St. Anthony’s orphanage.”
“She … couldn’t keep you?” Ruth said, not quite grasping it.
“Papa made alla money. Mama took a job in a factory, but it still wasn’t enough, not with four mouths to feed. She told me, ‘You be better off with the sisters, they feed you an’ take care of you.’” Seeing the sadness in Ruth’s eyes, Mara added brightly, “It’s not so bad. Mama comes visit me when she can. The sisters even let her take me to St. Anthony’s to see my brothers.”
Mara told her about Kaimukī—playing in the red volcanic dirt, beneath a ceiling of sheltering kiawe trees—and about her brothers, how they all used to take the trolley to Waikīkī to go body-surfing. Ruth could tell how much she loved them and missed them. She talked about her papa, how the bounty hunter had arrested him and sent him to Moloka'i just before Mara’s birthday. And as she listened, Ruth began to understand that maybe there were even worse things in the world than not being able to keep a dog you loved.
Soon the streetcar was rattling across the McCully Street Bridge, as the girls all groaned at the rotten-egg stink floating up from the duck ponds and hog farms that still made up a large part of Waikīkī. A bulldozer roared nearby, dredging one of the three streams that emptied into Waikīkī, working to build a new canal that would one day drain all the duck ponds and rice paddies. Then Car No. 55 headed down Kalākaua Avenue, driving past the stands of tall coconut palms that lined the street, and excitement bubbled among the girls as the car approached the end of the line at Kapi'olani Park.
Sister Louisa and the other nuns led the girls out of the car, but instead of turning toward Waikīkī Beach, Louisa stepped off the curb as if to cross the street. “Before we go swimming, what do you say to a visit to the zoo?”
A chorus of cheers greeted this suggestion. At the entrance to the Honolulu Zoo, Sister Louisa paused to take a head count. Ruth had already entered at record speed, but Louisa saw Mara standing a few feet away and gave her a small smile of thanks—a smile that faded once she saw the girl’s face.
Mara stood gazing up at the entrance to the zoo, tears in her eyes.
* * *
Louisa was helping Sister Bonaventure clear away the Sunday breakfast dishes when Sister Praxedes breathlessly appeared in the doorway to the dining hall. “Sister Louisa, I thought you should know. There’s a couple here—a Japanese couple. They’re Issei—first-generation Japanese nationals, born in Japan—and they’re looking for a Japanese girl to adopt.”
Sister Bonaventure raised an eyebrow at this.
“And unless I’m mistaken,” Sister Praxedes went on, “the only girl here with any Japanese blood is—”
“Ruth Utagawa,” Louisa finished for her.
“Perhaps you might like to join me in taking Ruth to meet them?”
Louisa looked to Sister Bonaventure, who nodded her assent. “Go ahead, Sister. I’ll be … interested to hear what comes of it.”