Still, Jujube couldn’t trust herself to believe any of it was true. It was too much to hope for anything these days, and besides, things would never be the same. Even if the Japanese left, half her family was gone. What would a postwar life be without Jasmin and Abel? Would their family continue to exist in the horrific silence of their present, creaking around like tired apparitions in their own home, weighed down by the footfalls of their sadness? There was no more normal for Jujube. She did not know how to go home.
