Ko, of a different generation, continues to think of the West Coast as his home and, as diffident as a slave freed during the Civil War, sticks to the old way of life "out of habit or lethargy or fear." Since he can no longer hold a commercial fishing license and his boats and nets have been either confiscated, repossessed, or stolen, he chooses to let the government reinstate him in public life and commerce. At the hospital, Mama observes rampant psychosomatic aches and pains among internees, indicative of insecurity and hesitancy to leave Manzanar. To ease tightness in Mama's back, Jeanne momos (massages) the knotted muscles.
Meanwhile, Ko, in response to a need for housing, proposes a cooperative through which Japanese men will build a housing project in which to settle internees. The departure date looms as summer ends. In August, an atomic bomb incinerates Hiroshima.
By now, the once tightly knit Wakatuski family has, like the camp, deteriorated. Woody is in the army at Fort Douglas, Utah; Eleanor lives in Reno; her husband is stationed in Germany with the occupation troops; Bill and Martha and Frances and Lillian are living in New Jersey; and Ray is now in the Coast Guard, the only service that would take him at the age of seventeen.
In early October, the remaining Wakatsukis can no longer postpone departure.
