Cynthia Kadohata - Kira Kira

"Take all you want, young lady."

I took a lemon drop, even though I didn't like them. "Thank you," I said.

"Take more!" he bellowed.

I took two more. "Go on, eat them!"

I put all three of them into my mouth. That seemed to satisfy Mr. Lyndon, who turned to my father and waited.

"I'm the man who wrecked your car," said my father. "I wanted to apologize. My daughter died that day, and I wasn't myself"

"Are you one of my sexers, Mr. . . . ?"

I could see the question annoyed my father, but I didn't know why. "I'm one of the sexers," said my father. "I'm Masao Takeshima."

"I'm very sorry about your daughter. Another of my sexers lost a child once, and he didn't wreck my car. You won't be returning to work in my hatchery."

I wondered if the worker he referred to was my uncle.

If my father was surprised, he didn't show it. He said, "I'm going to reimburse you."

Mr. Lyndon stood up. "Of course you are. You'll hear from my attorney."

I started to stand up but remained seated because my father did. The backs of my legs were already sweaty from sitting on the plastic covering the couch. The lemon drops made me thirsty. Then when my father stood up, I did too. I saw my father was not intimidated by Mr. Lyndon. And that was how I learned that even when you're very, very wrong, if you apologize, you can still hold yourself with dignity "Good-bye, Mr. Lyndon," my father said. We walked out.

When we got into our car, I saw the maid peeking out the front window. She waved slightly, and I waved slightly back. Before he started the car, my father said, "I don't ever want you to be afraid to apologize."

I said, "Dad, you don't have a job!"

"I still have the other hatchery," he said. He thought a moment. "I've heard there's an opening at a hatchery in Missouri. If it's time to move on, it's time to move on."

Missouri! We didn't speak again. I saw that my father was a little shaken up over being fired, but at the same time he didn't seem to regret apologizing.

He ended up getting a job at one of the few hatcheries in the state that wasn't owned by Mr. Lyndon. He had to drive a little farther, unfortunately. But he never complained. I think that summer, when my father moved Lynnie's bed, and when he went to apologize to Mr. Lyndon, he'd realized that we had a choice: Either we could be an unhappy family forever, or not.

At the end of the summer Silly's mother held a pro-union meeting at her house. Surprisingly, my parents let me go to her house to help out. Mrs. Kilgore came and picked me up. Silly and I made snacks for everyone. We cut up carrots and celery and made onion dip with sour cream and Lipton soup mix. About a hundred people showed up. They didn't fit into the house, so the meeting was held outside and the snacks were inside.

About halfway through the meeting I was shocked when my parents arrived. They must have left Sammy with Mrs. Kanagawa. They barely acknowledged me. They listened quietly to the last few speakers.

My parents left before me. I wondered whether I'd imagined they were there. When I got home later, my mother said nothing about the union. She was dusting Lynn's altar, even though the forty-nine days had passed and Lynn had already left the earth. My mother didn't look up as she dusted. "What was wrong with that little girl in the blue dress?" she said.

"The one with no hair?"

"Yes." She opened the window slightly.

"Mrs. Kilgore says she has cancer." My mother didn't answer. "Mom?"

'Yes, dear."

"The union wants to give the factory workers three days off with pay for grief leave, like if a family member dies."

She pursed her lips and looked at me severely "It's a little late for that," she said.

My mother didn't say anything more. But when the union vote was held the next week, the union won by one vote. That was a surprise, because everyone had expected it to lose by one vote. My mother seemed pleased that the union had won, so I knew how she'd voted. I don't think it was any of the speeches she'd heard that made her vote for the union.

Before Lynn died, my mother would have done anything for her own family, but she would not have done much for another family. I think it was a combination of Lynn dying and seeing the little girl in the blue dress that changed my mother's vote. It was a little late for my mother, but if she voted yes, she knew it would not be too late for the next family suffering grief.

At the local recreation center Silly and I performed as the Shirondas in the annual fall talent show. We came in twelfth out of twenty, which of course I thought was a tremendous injustice. Every afternoon we practiced for the next year's show. Every night at home I cooked for my family, and every day at school I got more B's and sometimes even an A. Sometimes the thought of Lynn and how smart she was made us proud and even happy instead of unhappy. Sometimes seeing a picture of her could fill us with joyful memories instead of only sad ones. We were still paying medical bills, but we were making progress.

When the holidays came around, the house grew glum. Whenever I felt glum, I started to wonder why it mattered whether I got an A, a B, or a C. My father felt bad for me and asked whether I wanted to take a vacation.

"Yeah!" I said. "I mean, yes, yes, yes!"

"Would you like to go see the Okefenokee Swamp?"

"How about California? That's what Lynnie would have wanted."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because that's where the sea she loved is. That's where she wanted to live when she got older."

He said he would think about it.

After Christmas he announced that he was going to take us to California for vacation.

Before we left, my father and I stopped by my sister's grave. My mother did not come because she could not bear to.

My father had taken off only two days of work when Lynn died. We were trying to survive back then. He needed to buy food for me and Sammy, so he could not spend all his time crying. I know that sounds coldhearted, but it was not. He needed to think about his children who were still alive, because he was honor-bound to think of the living before the dead. If he stopped working for three days, that might mean we would not eat fish one night or could not pay the mortgage on what we thought of as Lynn's house.

At the grave site my father cleaned off Lynnie's small stone and laid down a bunch of white flowers. He said, "I remember when a twelve-year-old could run away and make a good life. That's what I should have done when I was a boy. I almost did." I knew he couldn't remember such a time, only thought he could, because he'd told me how when he was twelve, he and Uncle Katuhisa had needed to stop their education in Japan and return to California to help their parents on the family farm. So he only thought that everything could have happened differently, if only he had started life a little differently.

He said now that maybe if he'd set off at twelve, he would have ended up staying in California instead of going to Iowa with his family. Since more Japanese people lived in California than in Iowa, when he and my mother eventually opened a grocery store, it would have stayed in business. Then maybe they would have had more money, and when they had Lynn, maybe she would have been healthier. This, of course, was impossible, for he had met my mother in Iowa, not in California. If he'd stayed in California, he wouldn't have met her and Lynn wouldn't have been born. But I didn't say this. I didn't say anything because I could see he really felt like imagining what might have happened, if only.

It was during this trip to the cemetery that my father mentioned to me that Lynn had wanted me to have her diary. Later, after we got home, I sat in my tiny old bedroom and read it straight through. The windows were closed, but I pulled my sweater tightly around myself I loved our house, but it was drafty at night.