doesn’t change what happened. The only thing that would have made a difference is if I had been there. And I wasn’t.’
As the ground crew armed his Spitfire, Gordie performed a set of jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. Between breaths and bounces he said, ‘It might have ended in the same result even if you had been there. There’s no way of knowing.’
Annoyed that he was probably right, I forced the buckle on my flotation vest too abruptly and it broke off in my hand. ‘Hey!’ I hollered over to a gangly crewman speeding by on a bicycle. ‘Grab me another Mae West, would you? This one failed.’ The kid thrust his thumb in the air and pedalled harder to fetch a new vest from the supply tent. Gordie transitioned his calisthenics into side bends and hamstring stretches and waited patiently to finish the conversation. A conversation I wanted nothing to do with.
‘You can’t blame yourself, Hayden. There isn’t anything you could have done.’
That was the whole point. It was infuriating that I was powerless to change the outcome from overseas. ‘If I’d had a chance to talk to her—’
Gordie shook his head to disagree and loosened his necktie an extra finger-width. ‘It doesn’t work that way.’
‘No? How does it work then?’
He shrugged and arched to look at the sky to stretch his lower back. ‘All I know is there are certain things nobody can do anything about, and this is one of them.’
More and more it felt like fighting a war was one of those futile things too. What if all my efforts were pointless? And all for nothing? I stretched my leather helmet and goggles over my ears and swallowed back the helplessness of being unable to fix anything. ‘What if everything back home changes so much while we’re here that we don’t recognize it when we get back?’
Gordie thought about it seriously as he forced his beefy hands into his leather gloves. ‘I’m more worried they’ll all be the same and expect me to be the same. The war has changed me. I can’t go back to my old life the way it was.’
‘Yeah, well.’ I exhaled as much useless tension as I could, but an entire war’s worth of fury had taken up a hefty residence inside my chest. ‘I enjoyed my old life. I want it back.’
Gordie cuffed the back of my head in an unsuccessful attempt to bolster my morale. ‘Let’s just worry about getting home alive first. We can decide what we want to do with that life later.’
I nodded in reluctant agreement. The Royal Air Force petrol refuellers linked the hose to my tank and the vapours mixed with the fumes of the freshly painted yellow, blue, white, and red rings of the side roundel of the seven-crew Lancaster heavy night bomber next to us. Gordie headed over to inspect his machine as the crewman on the bike returned with my new flotation device. I squeezed my head through, rearranged the parachute seat pack straps and climbed back up onto the wing of my Spitfire, attempting to push away all thoughts from my mind, except the mission.
High cloud, pleasant spring temperatures – a perfect day to fly.
As I waited for the signal to fire up, I slid out the photo that I kept hidden in the lining of my breast pocket. Some days it felt as if Chidori was glancing back at me with encouragement or adoration, but not this time. Her eyes pleaded with me, trying to tell me something. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what, and the frustration forced tears to well up and blur my vision, so I tucked the photo away next to my father’s letter. I would have given anything to forget the anguishing news from home and focus instead on better thoughts, but it felt as if all the pleasant memories of Mayne Island before the war – Chidori, my family, my Border collie, Patch, and even pleasures as simple as the sticky buns at the fall fair – were eroding, fading farther and farther into the past with every year I was gone. I feared it wouldn’t be long before all of the good memories were lost forever, replaced one by one with increasingly painful memories.
Holding position on the airstrip when the anticipation of a mission was already hammering through my system had always been aggravating. The delays were even more torturous in the irritable state I was in. The mercury rose under the cockpit shield as I was forced to wait. Every single thing that could possibly go wrong on a flight over enemy-occupied territory inched into my awareness and collided with all the other turmoil that was already holding court in my thoughts. The wool collar of my uniform scratched almost unbearably at my neck.
When the green lantern finally flashed, my engine choked, like a kid trying a cigarette for the first time. The tower signalled for the spare Spitfire but after a stutter, my machine roared to life. I should have taken the falter as an omen. Instead, I waved off the spare and taxied out onto the flare path for takeoff.
23 August 1941
Dear Diary,
A moment worthy of contemplation occurred this morning over fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits and homemade strawberry preserves. As Obaasan basked in the sunbeam that angled through our kitchen window, she sipped her matcha tea and then uttered a phrase under her breath in Japanese. It loosely translates into, ‘every encounter happens but once in a lifetime and every meeting ends with a parting’. Concerned that it meant her health was failing, I asked her what she had meant. She seemed surprised I had heard her, as if perhaps she hadn’t intended to voice her reflections aloud.
Kenji chuckled because he believes Grandmother’s ramblings have become confused due to her old age. My brothers don’t make as much concerted effort as I do to be attentive and patient with Grandmother. Surely they appreciate the value of learning as much from her as possible before she is gone and all of her traditional Japanese wisdom is lost on the wind forever, but perhaps they take for granted that she will always be here. I am uneasy about why she is pondering the topic of parting. She seems in good health, though, so hopefully we have nothing to fear. Nevertheless, I will take notice of each encounter I have today and be grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that it presents.
I have to rush off now to complete my chores before the fall fair. (Chores certainly don’t feel like once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to be treasured, more like never-ending, tedious monotony!) I guess I still have much to learn about unconditional acceptance.
Chi
Mayne Island, British Columbia, August 1941
Chidori’s polished black shoes poked out from beneath the crisp white bed sheets that billowed in the ocean breeze as she meticulously pegged the corners to the clothesline in front of her family’s farmhouse. Full of eager anticipation, I snuck out of the forest of ancient evergreens that bordered their homestead, then crept in stealth through the long grass behind her. When I was close enough to catch a hint of the cherry blossom fragrance of her hair, I reached between the cotton sheets and tickled her waist.
She squealed in delight, unravelled us from the fabric, and slapped my chest. ‘Good golly. Hayden! You startled me half to death. I expected you to be out on the boat. What are you doing here?’
My mouth opened, about to produce a jaunty answer, but the long strands of her hair shimmered in the sun like raven feathers. The loveliness of it distracted me from the dashing quip I had intended to say next.
With delicate precision, Chidori tucked the wisps behind her ears and studied my expression with curiosity. If she knew the reason for my tongue-tied silence, she didn’t acknowledge it with more than a smile before making a second attempt to encourage my participation in the conversation. ‘Did you forget today is Saturday? Why aren’t you out fishing with Uncle Massey and your father?’
I swiped my hand across my mouth so my wily grin wouldn’t prematurely reveal my true ambition. ‘I volunteered to help my ma and the committee ladies set up the craft fair.’
Chidori stepped back to put a distance more fitting for a friendship between us, then glanced over her shoulder and peeked