is probably the first book about WWII that I have actually finished in a long time. It could be because it seemed less focused on the actual war and more on the creation of a family. I was a little disappointed to see that the story showed very little of the detention facilities. I don't know if people realize that it wasn't just Japanese people who were interred in the US after Pearl Harbor. Italians and Germans were as well. But over all, it's a sweet story about a group of people thrown together right after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
For the most part, I enjoyed the story. The characters were interesting and well fleshed out. I liked how Lana came to Hawaii alone and sad and in the end had gained a "family" and peace in her life. The romance was cute. I actually wish the story was more focused on that aspect. But that is personal preference. I think my main issue with the book is that it takes place over a couple of weeks and then it fast forwards to a year and a half later to wrap everything up. I would have liked more of one of the story lines to be explored further. It felt like there was a lot going on the book that needed more time to explore. Like the romance, Coco's "gift", the detention camps to name a few. Instead got a quick wrap-up with some threads unresolved. That was disappointing. I would still recommend giving this one a try.
THE ROAD
December 8, 1941
WITH EVERY MILE CLOSER TO VOLCANO, THE FOG thickened, until
they were driving through a forest of white gauze with the occasional branch
showing through. Lana considered turning the truck around no less than
forty-six times. Going back to Hilo would have been the prudent thing to do,
but this was not a time for prudence. Of that she was sure. She slowed the
Chevy to a crawl and checked the rearview mirror. The cage with the geese was
now invisible, and she could barely make out the dog’s big black spots.
Maybe
the fog would be to their advantage.
“I
don’t like it here at all,” said Coco, who was smashed up next to Lana, scrawny
arms folded in protest. The child had to almost yell to be heard above the chug
of the motor.
Lana
grabbed a blanket from the floor. “Put this over you. It should help.”
Coco
shook her head. “I’m not cold. I want to go home. Can you please take us back?”
Goose
bumps had formed up and down her limbs, but she was so stubborn that she had
refused to put on a jacket. True, Hilo was insufferably hot, but where they
were headed—four thousand feet up the mountain—the air was cold and damp and
flimsy.
It had
been over ten years since Lana had set foot at Kı¯lauea. Never would she have
guessed to be returning under these circumstances.
Marie
chimed in. “We can’t go back now, sis. And anyway, there’s no one to go back to
at the moment.”
Poor
Coco trembled. Lana wished she could hug the girl and tell her everything was
going to be okay. But that would be a lie. Things were liable to get a whole
lot worse before they got any better.
“Sorry,
honey. I wish things were different, but right now you two are my priority.
Once we get to the house, we can make a plan,” Lana said.
“But
you don’t even know where it is,” Coco whined.
“I have
a good idea.”
More
like a vague notion.
“What
if we don’t find it by dark? Are they going to shoot us?” Coco said.
Marie put her arm around Coco and pulled her in. “Turn off
that little overactive imagination of yours. No one is going to shoot us,” she
said, but threw a questioning glance Lana’s way.
“We’ll be fine,” Lana said, wishing she believed that.
The girls were not the real problem here. Of greater concern
was what they had hidden in the back of the truck. Curfew was six o’clock, but
people had been ordered to stay off the roads unless their travel was essential
to the war. Lana hadn’t told the girls that. Driving up here was a huge risk,
but she had invented a story she hoped and prayed would let them get through if
anyone stopped them. The thought of a checkpoint caused her palms to break out
in sweat, despite the icy air blowing in through the cracks in the floorboard.
On a good day, the road from Hilo to Volcano would take
about an hour and a half. Today was not a good day. Every so often they hit a
rut the size of a whiskey barrel that bounced her head straight into the roof.
The continuous drizzle of the rain forest had undermined all attempts at smooth
roads here. At times the ride was reminiscent of the plane ride from Honolulu.
Exactly two days ago, but felt more like a lifetime.
Lana’s main worry was what they would encounter once in the
vicinity of the national park entrance. With the Kı¯lauea military camp nearby,
there were bound to be soldiers and roadblocks in the area. She had so many
questions for her father and felt a mixed ache of sadness and resentment that
he was not here to answer them. How were you so sure the Japanese were
coming? Why the volcano, of all places? How are we going to survive up here?
Why didn’t you call me sooner?
Coco seemed to settle down, leaning her nut-brown ringlets
against her sister’s shoulder and closing her eyes. There was something
comforting in the roar of the engine and the jostle of the truck. With the
whiteout it was hard to tell where they were, but by all estimates they should
be arriving soon.
Lana was dreaming of a cup of hot coffee when Coco sat
upright and said, “I have to go tinkle.”
“Tinkle?” Lana asked.
Marie said, “She means she has to go to the bathroom.”
They drove until they found a grassy shoulder, and Lana
pulled the truck aside, though they could have stopped in the middle of the
road. They had met only one other vehicle the whole way, a police car that
fortunately had passed by.
The rain had let up, and they all climbed out. It was like
walking through a cloud, and the air smelled metallic and faintly lemony from
the eucalyptus that lined the road. Lana went to check on Sailor. The dog stood
up and whined, yanking on the rope around her neck, straining to be pet. Poor
thing was drenched and shaking. Lana had wanted to leave her behind with a
neighbor, but Coco had put up such a fuss, throwing herself onto her bed and
wailing and punching the pillow, that Lana relented. Caring for the girls would
be hard enough, but a hundred-and-twenty-pound dog?
“Just a bathroom stop. Is everyone okay back here?” she
asked in a hushed voice. Two low grunts came from under the tarp. “We should be
there soon. Remember, be still and don’t make a sound if we stop again.”
As if on cue, one of the hidden passengers started a
coughing fit, shaking the whole tarp. She wondered how wise it was to subject
him to this long and chilly ride, and if it might be the death of him. But the
alternative was worse.
“Deep breaths…you can do it,” Lana said.
Coco showed up and hopped onto the back tire. “I think we
should put Sailor inside with us. She looks miserable.”
“Whose lap do you propose she sits on?” Lana said.
Sailor was as tall as a small horse, but half as wide.
“I can sit in the back of the truck and she can come up
here, then,” Coco said in all seriousness.
“Not in those clothes you won’t. We don’t need you catching
pneumonia on us.”
They started off again, and ten seconds down the road,
Sailor started howling at the top of her lungs. Lana felt herself on the verge
of unraveling. The last thing they needed was one extra ounce of attention. The
whole idea of coming up here was preposterous when she thought about it. At the
time it had seemed like a good idea, but now she wondered at her sanity.
“What is wrong with that dog?” Lana said, annoyed.
Coco turned around, and Lana felt her hot breath against her
arm. In the smallest of voices, she said, “Sailor is scared.”
Lana felt her heart crack. “Oh, honey, we’re all a bit
scared.
It’s perfectly normal under the circumstances. But I promise
you this—I will do everything in my power to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“But you hardly know us,” Coco said.
“My father knew you, and you knew him, right?” Lana said.
“And remember, if anyone asks, we tell them our story.”
They had rehearsed it many times already, but with kids one
could never be sure. Not that Lana had much experience with kids. With none of
her own and no nieces or nephews in the islands, she felt the lack palpably,
smack in the center of her chest. There had been a time when she saw children
in her future, but that dream had come and gone and left her sitting on the
curb with a jarful of tears.
Her mind immediately went to Buck. Strange how your future
with a person could veer so far off course from how you’d originally pictured
it. How the one person you swore you would have and hold could end up wreaking
havoc on your heart instead. She blinked the thought away.
As they neared Volcano, the fog remained like a curtain, but
the air around them brightened. Lana knew from all her time up here as a young
girl that the trees got smaller as the elevation rose, and the terrain changed
from towering eucalyptus and fields of yellow-and-white ginger to a more
cindery terrain covered with red-blossomed ‘ohi‘a trees, and prehistoriclooking
ha¯pu’u ferns and the crawling uluhe. At one time in her life, this had been
one of her happiest places. Coco reached for the letter on the dashboard and
began reading it for the fourth time. “Coco Hitchcock. It sounds funny.”
The paper was already getting worn.
Marie swiped it out of her hands. “You’re going to ruin
that. Give it to me.”
Where Coco was whip thin and dark and spirited—a nice way of
putting it—Marie was blonde and full-bodied and sweet as coconut taffy. But
Lana could tell even Marie’s patience was wearing thin.
“Mrs. Hitchcock said we need to memorize our new names or
we’ll be shot.”
Lana said as calmly as she could, “I never said anything of
the sort. And, Coco, you have to get used to calling me Aunt Lana for now. Both
of you do.”
“And stop talking about getting shot,” Marie added, rolling
her eyes.
If they could all just hold it together a little bit longer.
There was sweat pooling between her breasts and behind her
kneecaps. Lying was not her strong suit, and she was hoping that, by some
strange miracle, they could sail on through without anyone stopping them. She
rolled her window down a couple of inches for a burst of fresh air. “We’re just
about here. So if we get stopped, let me do the talking. Speak only if someone
asks you a direct question, okay?”
Neither girl said anything; they both just nodded. Lana
could almost see the fear condensing on the windshield. And pretty soon little
Coco started sniffling. Lana would have said something to comfort her, but her
mind was void of words. Next the sniffles turned into heaving sobs big enough
to break the poor girl in half. Marie rubbed her hand up and down Coco’s back
in a warm, smooth circle.
“You can cry when we get there, but no tears now,” she said.
Tears and snot were smeared across Coco’s face in one big
shiny layer. “But they might kill Mama and Papa.” Her face was pinched and
twisted into such anguish that Lana had to fight back a sob of her own.
Excerpted from Red Sky Over Hawaii by Sara
Ackerman, Copyright © 2020 by Sara Sckerman. Published by MIRA Books.
