in kerchiefs, some of them wearing trousers. Lucy could see the huge nets hanging from the ceiling, waiting for camouflage material to be woven through the knotted hemp before the nets were shipped to the front lines.
“Excuse me,” she said to a pair of middle-aged women walking up to the entrance together. “I am looking for Aiko Narita. She works here... Can you help me?”
The pair conferred a moment before deciding that they might know Aiko, and when Lucy followed them inside, she could see the reason for their confusion: there had to be more than a hundred workers on the line already, many of whose faces were obscured by the masks they wore to keep the hemp fibers out of their lungs.
“Wait here,” they told Lucy, and she watched the workers while she waited, trying to imagine the faraway regiments of American soldiers who the nets would help to protect.
“Lucy!” Aiko rushed toward her, her mask hanging from the elastic around her neck. “Is everything all right?”
Lucy nodded, but when Aiko put her hands on Lucy’s shoulders, she realized she was crying. “I’m sorry.” She sniffled, ashamed.
Aiko put her arm around Lucy’s shoulder and led her outside, away from the din and the crowds. Across the street were the warehouses, and at this hour of the morning they buzzed with activity, trucks making deliveries and carrying away finished goods.
“Not here,” Aiko said. “We won’t be able to hear ourselves think.”
They walked down D Street to Block Three, where the residents had built a pair of benches facing each other over a tiny gazing pond. A young mother dandled a baby on one bench, but the other was empty, and Aiko led Lucy there and patted the seat.
“Now sit and tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s my mother,” Lucy said miserably. She managed to stay dry-eyed as she confessed her fears, describing Miyako’s strange behavior, the sickness, her refusal to get up that morning.
“Oh, Lucy, your mother is going to be fine,” Aiko said when Lucy finished speaking, brushing the hair off her brow.
“No, she isn’t.” Lucy couldn’t bear to be lied to. “Please, Auntie, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Your mother...” Aiko began, and then she stalled, searching for the right words. “She has not had a lucky life. She tries hard, though, Lucy. You know that, right? There is nothing in this world that she loves more than you.”
Lucy tried to control her impatience. Of course she knew these things already, but they did nothing to clarify what was wrong with Miyako. “She is sick a lot, Auntie. She doesn’t eat. She sleeps all the time. Does she have what Mrs. Miatake had? Is she going to die?”
It was only because Aiko looked genuinely startled that Lucy believed her. “Your mother is dealing with some things, but she is going to be all right. I’ll talk to her, Lucy. I’ll come see her tomorrow. Okay?”
Lucy was reassured, but it wasn’t enough. “You have to tell me what’s wrong with her,” she pleaded.
Aiko sighed and squeezed Lucy’s hand harder. Up close like this, Lucy saw that Aiko’s face was lined with a web of fine wrinkles that she didn’t remember from before. Her lipstick was smudged and there were flakes of dust in her hair.
“There is nothing wrong with your mother that she won’t recover from,” Aiko finally said. “The important thing is that it isn’t her fault. Nothing is her fault.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lucy, I can’t tell you everything. You just have to trust me. I’m going to do what I can. There are good people here. All you need to do is look after yourself. That’s your job right now, Lucy, to take care of yourself. And let us do the rest.”
“But, Auntie Aiko, what’s going to happen?” Lucy asked in a very small voice.
Though Aiko said all the right things, Lucy knew that she was lying. There was nothing Aiko could do. In the end, Miyako would continue to wither.
Eventually they got up from the bench, and Aiko patted Lucy’s hands. “I will come visit tomorrow. It will all be okay.”
Lucy walked slowly back through camp toward Block Fourteen, not realizing until she was nearly there that her feet had carried her by force of habit. She had already missed the start of the school day, and for a moment she considered going into her barrack and checking on her mother.
But in the end, she didn’t go inside. She turned around and walked in the direction of the school, too afraid