Free Gift of the Golden Mountain by Shirley Streshinsky

chest in a gesture that was soft and touching. Then she caught herself, put her hands in her lap and finished in a tender voice, "We became good friends." She turned to Sam and added, "Mr. Ishigo would take no pay, and after the first time I did not ask. We did that every year until the war, when they put Mr. Ishigo and his family into a camp."
         Sam looked at Kit, but had nothing to say. Karin's eyes were brimming with tears, and I didn't trust myself to speak. It was May who broke the silence. With a puzzled look on her face, she asked: "Did my father know about the camps—what you did?"
         "Yes," Kit answered carefully, "In fact, you were too young to remember—you must have been about four years old—but I took you to visit Mr. Ishigo's daughter when she came back. I had sent them pictures of you and that day she gave you a little teak sampan that Mr. Ishigo had carved for you not long before he died."
         "I have it," May said, "my name is on it in tiny, tiny characters. I thought someone gave it to my father." The look on her face made me think that the revelation was not so much that Kit had been involved with the camps, but that Kit had been involved with her, with the child May, to have taken her to visit the Ishigos.

    The next day I found myself going through a box of photographs labeled "May: baby pictures. Age one to four." I was looking for something, I wasn't quite sure what. I can only explain it as a niggling in the back of my mind, a question unanswered—or never asked. I leafed through the prints. May and her grandmother, May and Sara, May and Emilie. The wide, searching look in the baby's little face. Suddenly it occurred to me to separate out all of the pictures of May and Kit together, and there it was, as clear as day. In almost every picture, May was touching Kit. Kit's face radiant,

as she gave the baby her bottle, May reaching out for Kit's arms while taking her first steps, holding tight to Kit's skirt as a shy two-year-old, a tired three-year-old tilting her head against Kit's. And then an especially telling picture of Porter, Kit, and May a few days after Porter's return. He was strange to the child, still, and she was clinging for dear life to Kit! For the first four years of May's life she had trusted Kit completely, had loved her as a child loves, without question. Something had happened to erode that trust. The question was: what?
         I went to the letter file and pulled out the one labeled, May-letters, 1957-1960. I leafed through the pages filled with a girl's square hand, until I came on the one I wanted.
    Colworth Farm
February 6, 1957
     Dear Aunt Faith:
     Thank you for all your letters (three since the last time I wrote you! Sorry!) You deserve a nice, long one back and today is the perfect day for me to write because I am home sick with a cold. Emilie has me all tucked in on the cot behind the wood stove in the kitchen. You know that cozy spot. It's my favorite place. Phinney gets up early and stokes up the wood stove so it is warm and cozy when the rest of us get up. It always smells like someone has just cooked a big pot of applesauce.
     On Saturday, Phinney is taking the twins to the hardware store with him so Em and I can do some shopping. That should be a scream, Amos and Annie loose in the store. Especially Annie. Phinney says, "I'll just flash my Phineas Colworth, Prop. sign at them and they'll know they better behave." He's very proud of the new sign, which was carved by an old man who used to work for Phinney's grandfather.
     Em has been helping me with my math. She says she doesn't understand how Daddy could have taught me Chinese and skipped algebra altogether.
     I miss him so much. I know you are right when you tell me that Kit misses him too. I suppose that's the only thing she and I have in common. You asked me to write her. If you say I have to, I will. I just wish you and the rest could understand that I don't feel