- This is when Naomi's mom disappears. Naomi doesn't know why or when she's coming back, but everyone says that she will. Obasan says that her mother has gone to take care of Grandma Kato.
- When they come home from the boat, Naomi makes a surprise for her mother's return. Spools of thread, candy, chocolate, and fluffy toy chicks. But her mother never comes home, and they are still in their hiding place now that Naomi is in her thirties.
- But Naomi had no way of knowing that her mother would never come back. Young Naomi rehearses everything so that she can remember to tell her mother when she comes home. Soon Mother has been gone so long that Obasan lives in her house. She reminds Naomi of her mom.
- One day Naomi wakes up in the middle of the night and here's her father talking to someone. It's Old Man Gower. Naomi doesn't understand why he's there, she doesn't like it, and she's sure this wouldn't be happening if her mother were home.
- One day Stephen comes home with his glasses broken. He won't say what happened, but we can guess. A girl in his class told him that all the Japanese are bad people and will be sent away into remote places in Canada. Naomi asks her dad if it will happen to them. No, he says, they're Canadian.