on the sugar-beet harvest in Idaho.”
Sister Jeanne’s eyes widened.
“Wait, don’t say no yet,” Lucy said quickly. “I’ve got it all figured out. We can change the papers so they say I’m eighteen. No one will ever know. I heard the nurses talking, they’re taking almost anyone who will go. They’re going to lose the crop if they don’t get enough volunteers. And I work hard, they wouldn’t regret it. I’m well, I hardly have any pain at all.” This was a lie, but Lucy told it gamely. “In the field, no one will have to look at me, no one except the other workers. And everyone keeps saying that I’ll heal more as time goes on, so when everyone comes back after the harvest I’ll look better.”
“Lucy, that’s preposterous, you can’t possibly—”
“Please.” Lucy looked directly into Sister Jeanne’s kind eyes and willed her to understand. “There is nothing for me here. I can’t— My mother is gone, and every day here is a reminder. Let me go and do something useful. Let me start over.”
For a long moment, Sister Jeanne regarded her thoughtfully. Then she shook her head and sighed.
“Lucy, I need to think about this. I cannot promise you anything. I will absolutely not be a part of a plan to send you a thousand miles away to do hard labor after you’ve suffered so much. But let me see what I can come up with.”
“Oh, Sister, thank you!”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jeanne said crisply, standing to leave, “because it’s entirely likely that I won’t be able to help.”
* * *
Sister Jeanne did not return for two days. Lucy tried to pass the time with reading and walking laps in the ward, trying to restore some strength to her muscles, but as time went by with no word, she began to lose hope. She struggled not to think about what waited for her in Los Angeles if she couldn’t escape her fate, but at night she tossed and turned, unable to shut off the memories of vacant-eyed patients staring out from inside the sanitarium’s fence back home.
After dinner the second night, Sister Jeanne arrived, her face full of misgivings.
“I am afraid I am going to regret this,” she said in lieu of a greeting, “but there is...an opportunity which has come to my attention. One with a lot of problems, I must be honest.”
“What is it?” Lucy demanded. “What kind of opportunity?”
“Certainly better than working in the fields,” Jeanne said. “And not far from here either. I might even be able to look in on you now and then.”
“Is it working for a family?” Lucy asked. She’d heard that men out east were working as houseboys for wealthy families—maybe there were opportunities for young women too. “Is it taking care of children?”
“Hush, before I change my mind,” Jeanne said. “This is far from a sure thing, and I’m not even sure it’s legal.”
“But there’ve been dozens of people who’ve left for jobs,” Lucy protested. “Hundreds. They say the camps will be half-empty by fall.”
This was only a slight exaggeration. Public outcry against internment had increased, especially after Roosevelt reversed himself and started letting Japanese Americans enlist. What began as a slow trickle of people leaving the camps was turning into a steady stream. Young men and couples who could prove they had a job and a place to live were heading for Chicago and New York.
“That’s enough, Lucy. You know as well as I do that nothing’s a sure thing until the WRA says it is.” Jeanne sighed. “Give me a little time, and I will see what I can do. All right?”
“Yes,” Lucy said, and for the first time in a long time a tiny ray of hope pierced the dark specter of her future.
* * *
Two weeks later, Lucy was sitting in the dusty parlor of the Mountainview Motel in Lone Pine, wearing a dress Sister Jeanne had found for her and a thick layer of foundation that made her scars itch. One of the younger nurses had applied the makeup with a soft brush, adding more and more until the sheen and redness almost disappeared. Unfortunately, nothing could be done about the pocked and bumpy landscape of the scars, or the malformation of her eye and mouth, which continued to worsen as the scars matured and tightened.
“She’s eighteen,” Mrs. Sloat said, scrutinizing Lucy. “If Sister Jeanne says she’s eighteen, then she’s eighteen. I would think you’d trust a nun to give it to you straight.”
Mary Sloat