ROSEMARIE ROBOTHAM
Literary Alchemy

Necessary Fire

 

Excerpt from Heart of Fire:
An Immigrant Daughter's Story
Mazie Hirono with Rosemarie Robotham
Viking Press © 2021

 

 

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n one of my most vivid childhood memories, I am sitting on the curb next to the bus stop with my older brother, Roy, waiting for our mother to get home. Three nights a week, after she leaves her day job as a typesetter at a Japanese‐language newspaper, she goesto work as a server for a caterer downtown. Roy is eleven and I am nine. On the nights our mother works late, we play in the street and climb trees with boys from the neighborhood, and then we wait at the bus stop. A soft evening breeze cools our flushed faces as we sit chewing wads of wax candy, pleasantly tired from our games. In the tree branches above us, roosting sparrows ruffle their wings, their chatter mingling with the occasional rumble of passing cars. I think how different the night noises are here in Hawaii, compared to the stillness of evenings in rural Japan, where I was born. 

            Roy and I jump to our feet at the sight of our mother’s bus turning onto Kewalo Street. We crowd around the door as it opens, knowing Mom will be the only passenger getting off at this hour. On this night, when Mom steps off the bus, she stumbles and steadies herself with a hand on Roy’s shoulder. She pauses, closes her eyes, and sucks in a deep breath. She looks pale and worn, and I realize she’s not feeling well. I watch her face closely as Roy and I walk beside her to the white clapboard boardinghouse where we live together in a single small room. 

            As soon as we are inside, Mom changes out of her white server’s uniform and climbs under the sheets. She lies sideways across the mattress the three of us share, feet hanging off the side, careful to leave space for Roy and me. She refuses the bowl of rice that I have saved for her dinner and turns to the wall, a tiny moan escaping her. I touch her face. Her skin is on fire. I gather her clothes from the top of the dresser, where she has neatly placed them, and find that the cloth is soaked through. I try to appear calm, but I’m frightened. Roy stretches out next to our mother, watching her sleep, his forehead creased. I can tell he’s worrying, too. Not knowing what else to do, I walk to the communal washbasin at the end of the hall, carrying Mom’s uniform. Barely tall enough to reach the sink, I stand on a small step and drape the white cloth over the wooden washboard. I set about scrubbing the sweat stains from her clothes, working to distract myself from the fear that makes me feel hollow at the center. Mom has only one white server’s uniform and will need to wear it again for her next shift, later in the week. 

            I know how hard my mother works to keep us afloat, and I have already begun looking for ways to help her. Every day during the school year, Mom leaves two quarters on the table for Roy and me to buy lunch. A couple of times a month, she adds a dime for each of us. Roy always spends his dime, but I drop mine into the slot of a metal baseball piggy bank that Mom gave me. It is a cheap thing she picked up, but I treasure it. In the evening before bed, I shake it, pleased by the jingle of coins. Some nights, I open the piggy bank and arrange the dimes in ever‐lengthening rows on the floor, enjoying the simple fact of them. 

            One evening a few weeks before, I shook my piggy bank, anticipating its jingle. But it made no sound. “I had to buy food,” Mom explained when she arrived home later that night. Where my saved coins had been, there was now only the heaviness of her regret. It chased my own disappointment away instantly. It had taken me many months to save those coins, but I understood that Mom had needed them. A few days later, she pressed a new coin in my palm. She folded my fist around it, smiling at me ruefully. The cool metal in my hand felt like a kind of promise as I pulled my piggy bank from under the bed and dropped the dime into its slot. Hearing its lonely clink, I knew there was nothing else to do but to begin saving again. 

            Now, I rinse Mom’s uniform and hang it to dry on a communal line in the yard. By the time I get back to our room, Mom and Roy are both snoring softly. I sleep fitfully that night, alert to Mom’s every movement and sigh. I’m half‐awake when she rises before daybreak as usual, dresses quietly so as not to disturb us, and leaves for her day job at the newspaper. After she’s gone, I lie there, staring into the darkness. Beside me, Roy rolls onto his back and softly exhales.