Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris Page B

looking embarrassed. Then a giggle won out.
    “Well, what do you say, Mrs. Moritomo?” His finger rested on her wedding band. “Want to treat this like a real honeymoon?”
    She bit her lip, her cheeks still blushing. At last she nodded in earnest.
    “Good.” He grinned. “Now, let’s eat, so we can hurry back to the room.” He twisted around to find a waitress and muttered, “Isn’t anyone working here?”
    Through the dozen or so people gathered across the room, Lane spied flashes of pastel-blue diner dresses behind the counter. He waved his hand to no avail. The gals were too far away for a polite holler. Rising, he groaned before his gut could beat him to it.
    “I’ll go get someone,” he told Maddie. As he moved closer to the group, mumbles gained clarity.
    “Dear God.”
    “How many were there?”
    “What does this mean?”
    He sidled up to a bearded stranger in back of the bunch. A faded denim shirt labeled the man approachable. “What’s going on?” Lane asked.
    The guy answered without turning. “We been bombed,” he said in a daze of disbelief. “They’ve finally gone and done it.”
    “ Bombed? What are you talking about? Where?”
    “Hawaii. They blasted our Navy clear outta the water.” The man shook his head. “We’re going to war, all right. No way around it.”
    “But who?” Lane demanded. “Who did it?”
    The guy angled toward Lane, mouth opening to reply, but he suddenly stopped. His eyes sharpened with anger that seemed to restore his awareness. “You oughta know,” he seethed. “Your people are the ones who attacked.”

    The train’s whistle stretched out in the tone of an accusation. Once the locomotive had cleared the claustrophobia of Seattle’s looming buildings, Maddie forced her gaze up. The Saturday Evening Post lay limply on her lap . She’d absorbed nothing of the articles. Their print, like the universe, had blurred into smears of confusion.
    She scanned the coach without moving her head. Her neck had become an over-tightened bow. Her wide-brimmed, tan-colored hat served as an accessory of concealment. Suspicious glares, however, targeted the suited man beside her: Lane, who hadn’t spoken a word since leaving the hotel. Lane, who could always be counted on for a smile. A guy who could conjure solutions like Aces from a magician’s sleeve.
    Lane, her husband. The word hadn’t yet anchored in Maddie’s mind, and already dreams for their marriage were being stripped away.
    In the window seat, he swayed with the rattling train car. A dull glaze coated his eyes as he stared through the pane. She yearned to console him, to tell him he wasn’t to blame. The Japanese pilots who’d decimated Pearl Harbor, a place she had heard of only that morning, had nothing to do with him.
    You’re an American, she wanted to say, as American as I am, and we’ll get through this together.
    But the sentence wound like a ball of wire in her throat, tense as the air around them. Any utterance would carry the projection of a scream in the muted coach. Helpless for an alternative, she inched her hand over to reunite with his. She made a conscious effort to evade scrutinizers’ eyes. Closure around Lane’s fingers jarred him from his reverie and he turned to face her. A warm half-smile rewarded her gesture. Then he glanced up as though recalling their audience, and the corners of his mouth fell. He squeezed her palm once, a message in the release, before leaning away.
    For the rest of the trip, this was how they remained. Divided by a wall they’d had no say in constructing. Through the night hours, she heard him toss and turn on the berth beneath her; through the daylight hours, his gaze latched onto the mountains and valleys hurtling past.
    Upon their debarking in Los Angeles, the contrast between Friday and Monday struck her like a slap. It seemed mere moments ago when she had stood on this platform, the same suitcase at her feet. Yet everything had since