Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers Read online

  Hawaii, 1944. The Pacific battles of World War II continue to threaten American soil, and on the home front, the bonds of friendship and the strength of love are tested.

  Violet Iverson and her young daughter, Ella, are piecing their lives together one year after the disappearance of her husband. As rumors swirl and questions about his loyalties surface, Violet believes Ella knows something. But Ella is stubbornly silent. Something—or someone—has scared her. And with the island overrun by troops training for a secret mission, tension and suspicion between neighbors is rising.

  Violet bands together with her close friends to get through the difficult days. To support themselves, they open a pie stand near the military base, offering the soldiers a little homemade comfort. Try as she might, Violet can’t ignore her attraction to the brash marine who comes to her aid when the women are accused of spying. Desperate to discover the truth behind what happened to her husband, while keeping her friends and daughter safe, Violet is torn by guilt, fear and longing as she faces losing everything. Again.

  SARA

  ACKERMAN

  Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers

  For my grandmother Helen, who never forgot.

  And for the soldiers.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Mr. Macadangdang showed up with a truck full of coconuts this morning. The way his back fender scraped across the road, you’d think he was transporting barrels of lead. He knows that Mama and Jean are suckers for coconut pie, and he’s been extra helpful since Papa disappeared.

  There’s only one problem with a mountain of coconuts in your front yard—someone has to husk them all. He taught me how once, using a cane knife that could have hacked off my hand with one slip. First you hold the coconut in your hand like a baseball. Then you crack it in half with one big hit. When the water pours out, you hold it above your head and swallow it down.

  Mama put an end to that. “Macadangdang! What are you doing? Teach me, not Ella,” she said.

  It’s been almost three years now since Pearl Harbor, one year since Papa vanished. Everyone else measures time from the moment those Japanese planes shot their torpedoes into our ships. I measure it from the last time I saw Papa. People say things get easier as time passes but not in my case. Even though we get special treatment, as Jean calls it, that doesn’t make up for being fatherless in the middle of a war.

  Mama and Jean are plotting to sell pies to the new soldiers in town. Mama says we need the money, Jean needs a distraction, and I’ll get to eat the leftovers. So it works out for all of us.

  But back to my papa disappearing. I was there. Mama thinks I was playing in the Codys’ yard. That’s not true. Don’t ask me to tell because I’m sworn to secrecy. Lives depend on it.

  There are days when I feel like the secret is growing inside of me, and wonder if I might explode like a popped balloon. But I have to keep Mama safe, and not let the words out. Words that could ruin everything and put us all in danger. At first all I wanted to do was run to her, screaming, to paint the story in giant red letters across the wall. But it was a year ago, and writing didn’t come easily. I still got the b and the d mixed up.

  Nowadays, I keep the cane knife close. But not for the coconuts.

  Chapter One

  Territory of Hawaii, 1944

  Ella

  The first soldiers arrived last December. More came last weekend. On the day the first group arrived, Mama and I were on our way to Hayashi store for a vanilla ice cream after school. Mama fanned her face and fought off rivers of sweat, but I didn’t notice the heat. Growing up in Hawaii would do that to a child, everyone always said. We were halfway down the hill when the ground began to vibrate under our feet. I thought maybe the Japanese were back, this time coming for us by land.

  Mama squeezed my hand. “Honey, not to worry. The sirens would be going off.”

  When we made it to the main road, we saw the first truck rolling in. In the sticky air, I could taste the diesel on my tongue. No matter what Mama said, my heart hummed along with those trucks, about one hundred beats per minute.

  “That man has blood on his head,” I said, worried about a soldier leaning on the edge of the truck bed. His eyes were closed like he was in silent conversation with himself, or maybe God, and he wore a red-soaked bandage.

  “Blood happens when you’re fighting a war, sweetie.”

  Until that moment, I had never seen real live wounded soldiers. The soldiers were propped up against each other, looking out with blank faces. Torn shirts, bandaged limbs and eyes that had lost all smile. Folks from town rushed out to throw fruit to them. A coconut struck one man in the stomach and he slumped over. I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do. My eyes followed him until the truck went out of sight. But even then, the funny feeling in my stomach stayed.

  “Where did they come from?” I yelled above the rumble.

  Mama seemed lost in her own thoughts, her big blue eyes glossy. “Hilo, probably, but before that, who knows.”

  In the distance, I could see that the convoy continued on through town—past the school, the bank, the post office, following the late-afternoon sun. The last three trucks turned up the road toward Honoka’a School, where we live.

  I imagined a whole new wave of war happening, and this scared the gobbledygook out of me. By now we were used to blackouts and air-raid drills. If they could so much as see the burner from your kitchen stove, you were in trouble. Big trouble, like they would arrest you and haul you off to jail, maybe forever. Saving metal scraps was also important. I used to rummage around school for any old paper clips or nails or tacks. You could turn them in for ration tickets. Rumors swirled around town, too. Hilo will be taken over soon by the Japanese. Midway is the next target. So-and-so is a Japanese spy. Everyone was affected.

  “Where are
they going?” I wanted to know.

  Mama shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out.”

  In Honoka’a, if you really wanted to know something, all you had to do was ask Miss Irene Ferreira, the telephone operator. Why was it that some people had names that had to be said together? Mama was always Violet, and Jean was Jean. But Irene was never just Irene. She swore she never listened in, and still, somehow, secrets leaked and stories spread. Even though the military took over the phones after Pearl Harbor, for some reason they let her stay on.

  Once the endless line of trucks passed, we walked across the street to the small red house where she worked. Irene Ferreira sat amid wires and plugs. She wore a headset that made her look very official.

  “Any idea what this convoy is about?” Mama said.

  Irene pinched her plump lips together and shook her head. “Mum’s the word. You know how the military is.”

  “Come on. You must have heard something.”

  Irene Ferreira looked behind Mama and me, and then stood to peer outside the dusty windows. “I hear they’re building a base in Waimea town. Marines.”

  Technically, Waimea wasn’t a town. It was more a ranch with a handful of wooden houses and stores sprung up around it. A cold and windy place full of Hawaiian cowboys and more grass than you’d know what to do with.

  “Why our school?” Mama said.

  Irene didn’t answer.

  “Is there something we don’t know?”

  That got my attention. If the island was filling up with soldiers, did that mean we were going to be attacked? I have my own bunny suit, which is a dumb name for a gas-mask contraption, but I never thought I would really need it. My breath caught halfway up my throat and my chest started squeezing in. This happens a lot. Vexation, Mama says. Besides not knowing how to breathe, I gnaw my fingernails to the point where they bleed and I pick at freckles and turn them into scabs. The worst of all is the stomachache that never goes away. It all started happening when Papa disappeared.

  Irene said, “That’s all I know. I promise.”

  As tempting as it was to stay and pry the information out of her, we decided to follow the trucks up to the school. The soldiers drove straight onto the newly clipped field in front of the gym, their heavy trucks sinking into the mud. Mr. Nakata, the principal, must have been mad, watching from the side of the gym. A man in a green uniform spotted us approaching and marched right over.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. This area is off-limits,” he said.

  “We live here,” Mama said, pointing toward our house.

  “You don’t live in the gym, do you? Please step away.”

  There was nothing Mama hated worse than being ordered around, especially by a newcomer. I sometimes point out that she was once a newcomer—here they call them malihini—but she believes it’s more about how you behave and what’s in your heart than where you come from.

  Still curious, she dragged me over to the administration building, where the men unrolled strands of barbed wire and posts. Another group unloaded cots and stacks of green metal boxes. With no spare movements, they went about their business of taking over a part of our school. The war had finally arrived in our own backyard.

  But for Mama and me, the war was not the worst thing that had happened lately. The worst had already come.

  Chapter Two

  Violet

  The kitchen was where most of their living took place. Violet pulled a cold towel from the icebox and pressed it to her forehead. The radio played Bing Crosby, a welcome diversion from updates on the battles taking place in Europe. It was hard to keep the names and the places in order, but Jean had hung a giant map on the living room wall so they had something to refer to when they heard that British troops had landed at Reggio Calabria or that the Italian fleet had surrendered at Malta.

  “These Chinese names are impossible to pronounce. Jiang Zhongzheng? My mouth wasn’t designed for them,” Jean said.

  Violet laughed. “The Russian ones are worse. Five consonants strung together?”

  “Either way, I’m glad the Russians are on our side.”

  “Me, too. I just wish the Japanese were.”

  Jean stood next to Violet, husking corn and humming along with the music. Her hips couldn’t help but sway, and her lips mouthed the words to every song. When Violet had first seen Jean in the classroom next door, she wondered why a movie star had come to town, but Jean turned out to be the newest teacher at Honoka’a High. Fresh off the boat from Seattle, where it had been too damp and too cold. Jean had been living with Violet and Ella for over a year. Ever since Herman disappeared and Violet’s life had begun to unravel.

  Campus housing was scarce and Violet had been happy for the company. Their cottage was the largest on campus, with three bedrooms and a living room big enough for a sofa, two chairs and a pune’e. Set back from the others, the cottage bordered a dense tangle of woods behind the school. Violet and Jean had painted the walls white and filled it with ferns and crawling plants and enough books to help them forget the outside world. The exterior of the house was another story. Sunflower yellow. For Ella.

  One of the disadvantages to having the largest cottage was the abundance of windows. Windows that needed to be boarded up and blacked out at night. Houses in Hawaii were designed for the steady trade winds, with more screened windows than walls. When the school was built, no one had planned on a war. Soon after Pearl Harbor, and martial law, the shop teacher fashioned thin wooden slats that easily slipped into place. But the sliding screen doors that led from the living room onto the porch made blacking out that section of the house nearly impossible. So at night, Violet, Jean and Ella stuck to the kitchen, reading Dr. Seuss and listening to the radio. And once Ella went to sleep, Violet and Jean would discuss the war. And Jean’s flame, Bud. He was one of the marines who showed up last December straight from the battle at Tarawa. The people in Hawaii had taken them in and made them their own. Jean fell in love with Bud, but now he’d been shipped out.

  They also talked about Herman. And what might have happened to him.

  “Ella asked me today if she could go to Japanese school,” Violet said in a hushed tone so Ella, who was drawing in the living room, wouldn’t hear.

  Jean turned off the faucet and faced her, eyes big. “Our Ella?”

  “I wasn’t sure I heard correctly at first.”

  That morning, when Ella had asked, Violet fought to keep her face in order. “Japanese school is for Japanese. And you, my dear, are not Japanese,” she’d said, brushing a lock of Ella’s hair back.

  “Why does it matter?” Ella had said.

  “It’s just how it is right now. With the war.”

  “Umi says all they do is make origami animals and sing.” Ella was still too young to know the meaning of skin color, and how it mattered more than it should. “Please?”

  It took Violet a few seconds to realize that Ella had made up her mind. “No promises, but I can ask.”

  These were the moments in childrearing that she longed to have Herman around. He was good at handling difficult matters. Violet tended to let emotions cloud her thinking. Anyway, it was the first time in the past year that Ella had shown interest in doing anything apart from Violet. She would spend a whole afternoon drawing pictures of dragonflies or petting the cats on the porch rather than venturing out on her own. Aside from when she was at school, which she hated, Ella could always be found within a thirty-foot radius of her mother.

  Jean wiped her hands on a dish towel. “What did you say to her?”

  “I pointed out the obvious. But now I’m wondering. Japanese learn English. Why couldn’t she learn Japanese?”

  Jean shook her head. “I know you hate to say no, but this might not be the best time. People are on eggshells about whether or not the school should even be open.”

  “If they were going to shut
it down, they would have already.”

  “Nothing’s for certain.”

  Before she could respond, Ella appeared in the doorway, bare feet white against the green linoleum. “Mama, there’s a tall man at the front door.”

  She and Jean exchanged glances. There were few tall strangers in the area. Jean smoothed her skirt and they walked out to the living room together. Ella hung back. It was September and the remaining light sent streaks of gold through the hau trees. A figure in a green uniform stood in front of the screen door, backlit. Another stood on the steps below, looking out toward the ocean.

  As she approached the door, Jean squealed. “Zach? Is that you?” She flung open the door and flew outside, wrapping herself around one of the men before he could get a word out. “What are you doing here? Oh, Lordy Lord, I can’t believe this!” She turned to Violet. “This is my little brother, Zach.”

  When he managed to detach himself from Jean, he shook Violet’s hand, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  Zach motioned to the other man. “This is Sergeant Parker Stone, Fifth Division.”

  Parker squeezed her hand. His eyes were either deep-sea blue or silver, and she tried not to stare. Must have been the lighting.

  “Please, come in,” Jean said.

  Parker remained planted. “I’ll wait out here if you don’t mind. I can’t seem to get enough of this sweet air,” he said, looking more interested in the whitecaps and cane fields than in either of them.

  Jean pulled Zach in and dragged him into the light of the kitchen. Ella sat at the table, looking into her glass of milk. Violet could tell she was curious because she kept sneaking glances.

  “Ella, honey, this is my brother, Zach. Can you say hi?” Jean said.

  Ella’s chestnut eyes were stubborn. She didn’t look up, but in a small voice said, “Hello.”

  Zach towered over her. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ella.”

  He looked down at the picture on the table. Ella ignored him.