Set on a warm day at Terminal Island in Long Beach, California, on Sunday the 7th, the first weekend in December 1941, Jeanne, the first-person narrator, watches the Wakatsuki family's fishing boat, The Nereid, chug out to sea then inexplicably turn back and return to the pier. Unable to fathom why the boat is returning to Terminal Island, the family learns from a cannery worker that Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That night, Papa burns a Japanese flag and documents which connect him with Japan, from which he emigrated in 1906. Two weeks later, he is arrested. According to a Santa Monica newspaper, Papa was arrested for allegedly delivering oil to Japanese submarines. Jeanne does not see her father again for a year.
