Island Of Sweet Pies And Soldiers: A powerful story of loss and love. Sara Ackerman

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       Chapter Four

      Violet

      In the months after Herman’s disappearance, Violet had dragged Ella to one form of specialist after another. They began with the plantation doctor, who prescribed small pink pills that caused Ella to walk around in a fugue state, bumping into walls and drooling. After a week, Violet flushed the pills down the toilet.

      The psychiatrist turned out to be even worse. On the day they made the three-hour drive to Hilo, an angry rain forced its way in through the window cracks and drenched them before they had even arrived. Then they dashed through ankle-deep puddles only to find that the doctor would have to reschedule; he had gone to Kona. On their next visit, Dr. Stern spent a full hour interrogating Ella behind a closed red door. Violet knocked several times throughout and poked her head in. Ella never raised her gaze.

      After the session, he invited Violet in. Looking over his wire spectacles, past a razorback nose, he said, “Mrs. Iverson, I’m afraid that shock therapy is the only thing that might bring your daughter around.”

      No expert in medicine, she knew enough to take Ella by the hand and walk out the door.

      When it came to Reverend Dunn, his answer was much the same, only in this case it wasn’t shock but prayer that would be her only salvation.

      In desperation, Violet decided to enlist the help of a Hawaiian named Henry Aulani. He lived in a modest house at the bottom of the road down to Haina. More prison guard in appearance than healer, his mellifluous voice and coffee-colored eyes told a different story. Kids played in the yard and dogs wandered in and out the open back door. He brought them into the high-ceilinged kitchen, where dried plants hung from the rafters, filling the room with sharp and sweet scents of mint and forest.

      “Please, sit.” He motioned to the table.

      Violet felt her throat constricting at the thought of explaining Ella’s condition to yet another person. But he didn’t ask her anything about Ella.

      “Tell me about your home,” he said.

      “What do you want to know about my home?”

      “Whatever you want to tell me,” he said.

      Violet thought it a strange question. Weren’t they here about Ella? “Well, to start with, it’s bright yellow...”

      She continued on. Ella remained mute until a few minutes later, when a black cat with yellow eyes jumped onto the bench and climbed into her lap. “What’s his name?” she asked Henry.

      “Her name is Pele. And you must be special, because this cat doesn’t do that with most people,” he said.

      “She purrs real loud,” Ella said.

      On more than one occasion, Ella had asked Violet why humans don’t purr and if there was any way possible to learn how. “We purr. You just can’t hear it,” Violet had said.

      If at all possible, the air in the kitchen now seemed easier to breathe. Whether it was the cat or Henry pulling Violet out of her own mind full of hidden fears, she couldn’t be sure.

      Henry took both Violet’s hands. The warmth in his palms made her own tingle. “Now, tell me what happened.”

      The date was forever etched in her mind. Friday, September 10, 1943. Violet had been with the sewing circle in the small blue-and-white church below town, assembling cardboard slippers for the wounded men still in the hospital at Tripler, in Honolulu. The group met every week. The horrors of Pearl Harbor were fresh in everyone’s mind, even though it had been over a year ago. As usual, Ella stayed next door with Mrs. Cody, who had most of the neighborhood playing in her yard.

      When Violet returned to the Codys’ cottage, Ella was nowhere to be found.

      “What do you mean, she’s not here?”

      “Maybe she doesn’t know that hide-and-seek is over,” Mrs. Cody said.

      A brief search found Ella two houses up at the Hamasus’. Violet had to steady herself when she saw her daughter. Ella lay on the living room pune’e with blankets piled up around her and a warm cloth on her forehead.

      Setsuko sat with her. “She wandered in only ten minutes ago. Something’s not right.”

      Ella’s skin was the color of cooked rice and her eyes were shut tightly. Right at that exact moment, a feeling of cold ran through Violet, turning her blood to stone.

      “You should have told me you weren’t feeling well, honey,” she said.

      Ella didn’t answer. It was only the beginning.

      * * *

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