The Finding Tree

Chapter 1 - The Drunk

"Daddy can you tell me about your Grandma Mabel?"  Janey loved hearing her father talk about Mabel, and dad always perked up talking about her. When he was a small boy Mabel had shared all her life stories with him.

Dad was a bad character when he was young. A "greaser" mama liked to call him. But she always said it with a smile, and followed it up with "Your daddy was so handsome before the war."

Janey remembered her mother's words. "He drove fast cars, and wore white T-shirts with a cigarette pack rolled in the sleeve. He wore his hair in the pompadour style and combed it back with one that he kept in his back pocket. Redwing boots and Levi's jeans and a Jean jacket. He was was so confident, his smile could melt a girl's heart from twenty feet."

Marcie would reminisce, flick her cigarette and tell Janey about how they met in high school, but lost touch after dad got in trouble and had to enlist in the army, only to meet at a party eight years later, and ended up spending the next week together.

After breakfast, dad had another cup of coffee, and told Janey a story. "Did I tell you about my Grandma Mabel's time teaching in Yokohama?"

"No dad, I never heard that."Janey looked at her father in excited anticipation.

"Yeah, you remember how her dad was an Ambassador right? Well, Mabel went with him on his last trip abroad, in 1891. They lived in Tokyo."

Mabel looked around the small bungalow that she shared with her father on the grounds of the American Embassy. She didn't want much from her father's belongings. She grabbed his pocket watch, his wedding and class rings from the dish on his dresser and his favorite hat. She had her satchel of clothes and her writing journal in hand.

Her father had just died the week previous, and Mabel had no intention of returning to the hell her mother had prepared for her if she went home to Missouri.

Ladies Finishing school was not on her agenda. When she was young, her mother was considered a suffragette and allowed Mabel to form her own opinions about most things. They often talked politics and current events as a family at the dinner table.

But her mother's leniency only went so far. She knew that if she came home...she would be required  to present herself to polite society as an eligible young woman and to marry in a year or two. Mabel had no such goal, her mother's education had unleashed a beast.

Mabel wanted to live. She wanted to explore and do great things, save the starving children and help the abused women she had seen in the alleys that ringed the prostitution ghettos downtown. In Tokyo, Mabel could sneak out wearing her dark hair under a hat, and costume herself in a Japanese man's Kimono and Hakama pants. She could disappear if she wanted. She was shorter, so no one noticed that she was American if she kept her head down.  She could speak the language and knew the customs. She had done this countless times before.

That afternoon Mabel vanished for the first time. She had taken her belongings from her father's house and became someone other than Mabel Swift. She took up residence at Mary Kidder's school in Yokohama as a teacher and a counselor. She also had a different purpose in mind, she was angry and filled with so many causes.

Mary was a good friend and they both had ambitions. Mary founded a girl's Christian school there and was slowly opening up the strict Japanese culture to the possibility of educating their women and girls. She was also secretly saving those who had been sold into sexual slavery.

"Mary, do you have my Haori?" Mabel asked as she was getting ready for another evening's rescue. Mary handed her the dark blue and white patterned garment and helped her dress. They stood in front of her narrow bedroom mirror, and examined the effect. She had spilled Sake on the front and had dirtied up her hands, face and feet.

"Stand a little wider, hands on your hips and stick out your belly."  Mary instructed her.

Mabel followed her instructions and Mary grinned at her from behind, looking in the mirror. "Perfect, be careful and bring her home."

Later that night, Mabel  was bartering in a dark alley for the purchase of an evening's entertainment, but the pimp was looking to get rid of the girl for good. This fit into Mabel's plans even better. She wouldn't have to hide after she was rescued.

The girl was sixteen, but looked twelve. She was on the floor, sick with a fever, shivering with cold and pain. Bruises covered her face and a split lip had just started to heal. She had been used almost beyond what her body could endure and Mabel was almost overcome with anger and grief.

She stuck to her deal though, and acted like a shrewd businessman, not offering more than what he thought she was worth.

"Maybe she'll die," the pimp shrugged.

"No matter, she'll be useful  as long as she lasts," Mabel rasped, lowering her voice and speaking in forceful staccato Japanese. She exchanged money with the man who grinned and thought he had come out a winner.

"Get up!" She shouted to the girl who whimpered on the floor. Mabel grabbed her arm and hauled her up. As soon as they were out of sight, Mabel whispered to her new charge. "You're safe now... we have a place for you stay where you don't have to go with anyone anymore."  The girl was delirious but started sobbing when she heard Mabel's words.

In a few minutes they had made it in the back door of the school, and Mabel had deposited her charge with Mary and the school nurse. The girl would heal with rest, good medicine, food and clean water. If necessary, Mary would call a western doctor who served at a local mission, and was used to treating the prostitutes that would come in with various illnesses.

Mabel hugged her friend and they cried over the plight of the rest they couldn't afford to save. There would be another in three months, when they had the money again.

Janey was quiet when dad had finished the story. She could tell he was proud of his grandmother.

"Janey's too young to hear about this kind of sordid stuff, Tom," Marcie huffed.

"No I'm not mama...I'm ten!  They've already had the health class you were worried about in school, and I'd rather hear about how Great Grandma saved these girls than watch the TV movies you like."

Marcie acted like she wanted to yell, but then she chuckled. "I guess soap operas are bad examples too. Get going both of you. I want to call my friend Kate, and you'll be too noisy in the house."

Dad had gotten the fishing gear and two lawn chairs and had Janey carry the cooler with a six pack of Budweiser, three tuna fish sandwiches and two Cokes inside.  They had sat on the dock and caught Bass and Bluegill. Dad had laughed at her squeamishness for the worms, and had shown her how to clean and scale the fish with his pocket knife.

Janey was worried. She watched as he drank the entire six-pack and saw his mood darken while he got quiet. Janey knew the drunk was coming, and her stomach dropped, as the hair on the back of her neck prickled. She could feel the atmosphere change.