by Kay Bratt
Maggie laughed. “When Charlie was that small, he refused to wear a hat in the sun. Now he’s old enough that I can negotiate terms. A hat means half an hour more. No hat means we leave right away.”
Quinn could just imagine Maggie standing over a tiny boy with her poker face on as she laid out the terms of their negotiations.
The waitress approached, carrying a tray. She put a plate of pancakes in front of Maggie, then a smaller one with bacon on the table before leaving them again. After sitting there for nearly an hour, they felt food had to be ordered or they’d be asked to move to the bar.
Maggie was glad to oblige.
Quinn couldn’t eat, but while she left the drink with the umbrellas on the table, she’d ordered a tall glass of tomato juice to settle her stomach.
“These are great,” Maggie said. “Sure you don’t want a bite?”
Quinn shook her head. The pancakes were topped with fresh bananas and toasted macadamia nuts, and just looking at them made her feel queasy.
“Did you hear about the angry pancake?” Maggie asked, her mouth full.
“No.”
“He just flipped,” Maggie replied, laughing.
Quinn smiled weakly.
“Sorry. But you’re so tense you look like you might just break in half,” Maggie said. “Please, try to take some deep breaths and relax. You’re going to give yourself high blood pressure.”
“I know. I’m trying.” Quinn knew she wasn’t very good company, but Maggie couldn’t possibly understand. Maggie knew her entire family history. How could she know the deep sense of longing that came with feeling as though you had no one in the world who shared your blood? Or they were out there somewhere, but unreachable?
This wasn’t just a regular meeting for her. It was everything.
Unless it was nothing.
Quinn’s phone rang, and she jumped. She fumbled in her bag until she found it, then looked at the screen. It was Auntie Wang.
“Hello?”
“Quinn, this is Wang,” the old woman said. “Are you still at the restaurant?”
“Yes. He hasn’t shown up,” Quinn said, trying to keep her voice steady. Something about the motherly figure Auntie Wang presented made her emotions bubble to the surface.
“I know,” she said. “He sent me an email. He came, saw you, and then left.”
Quinn didn’t know what to say. He had been there? Watching her? Her skin tingled eerily.
“Why did he leave?” she finally asked. She scrolled through images in her head, trying to remember every male who had come around their table or walked up the ramp. No one had looked suspicious. She hadn’t caught anyone staring at her. And she’d been looking, scrutinizing every man.
“He just said he wasn’t ready,” Auntie Wang said.
He wasn’t ready? What about her? If he was her father, he was abandoning her once again. How many times in her life was she going to have to experience that feeling?
Auntie Wang cut into her thoughts, breathless as she spoke faster than normal. “But listen, Quinn. It doesn’t matter. I think I stumbled upon the direct path to the truth.”
The truth.
Two words that held so much promise. And this time, Wang’s words sent goose bumps creeping up Quinn’s arms. Could that mean something? Was the universe trying to tell her that this was really it this time?
“Just a minute, Auntie Wang, I can’t hear you well enough.”
Quinn signaled to Maggie that she was going to walk outside, away from the clattering sounds of dining around them. When she got outside, she turned away from the beach and went to stand under a huge banyan tree on the path leading to the parking lot.
“What do you mean by the truth?” Quinn was beginning to believe she’d never know the truth of who she was. And this person claimed to have it? Sounded too good to be true.
Auntie Wang sounded breathless when she answered. “This is much more complicated than I can tell you on the phone. I spoke to Carmen Crowe. She’s the right age, and though she’s aged not so gracefully, I can tell she’s the one in the photo with your mother. I told her all about you.”
Quinn’s heart was beating fast. “So now what?”
“She was very resistant at first. I thought she was going to shut me down. But she finally said it was time to talk. I think this is it, Quinn. She wants to meet with you today. Just you, though,” Auntie Wang said. “She said she’ll take you to someone who will give you the answers you need.”
Immediately, Quinn knew Maggie wouldn’t go for that. But her gut told Quinn that Wang was onto something. This might be the lead she was looking for. She felt more excited about it than she had even about this so-called connection who hadn’t shown up. This woman—this Carmen Crowe—had known her mother back in the day. They looked very close in the photo. And if that was the case, then she had to know something about Quinn—and her birth father too.
“Call her back and tell her that I’m not coming alone. I’ll have my best friend, Maggie, with me. If she doesn’t like that, then she can hold on to her secrets.”
Of course Quinn didn’t mean that, but she could bluff as well as the next person. And she wasn’t going anywhere without Maggie.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Auntie Wang said. “You be here at half past five. I told her to pick you up from my house.”
Chapter Twenty
Only minutes after Quinn and Maggie arrived at Auntie Wang’s house, Carmen Crowe arrived in an extended cab pickup truck. After quick introductions and an awkward pause, they were on their way.
“It’s not my story to tell,” was the only thing Carmen would say when Quinn and Maggie peppered her with questions before they’d gotten in the truck and after, on the way up the road to Hana.
“I find it totally ridiculous that you know something and won’t give us some insight on what Quinn is about to face,” Maggie said from the back seat.
“It’s fine,” Quinn said. “Let’s just get there, and then we’ll sort it out.”
Carmen gave her a grateful look, then thankfully put her eyes back on the road. The road winding through the Upcountry was just as dangerous as Quinn remembered from when she and Liam had taken it.
And the woman wasn’t the best driver. She drove with both hands on the wheel, leaning forward as though she could barely see the road. A few times she pulled over to let someone go around her, refusing to pick up speed.
“So, are you married?” Quinn asked, breaking the awkward silence.
“Nope,” Carmen said.
“No children?”
“My pets are my children. I have dogs and horses. Half a dozen cats in the barn. Even a few tamed rabbits.”
Quinn wondered why Carmen had never married, but then, it wasn’t her business. She couldn’t think of any other questions that weren’t intrusive. They took the rest of the trip in silence, other than a few words from Maggie now and then.
Quinn got more nervous with every mile. The entire event was unfolding like some sort of movie.
From the road, the house looked imposing, and as they took the winding driveway, Quinn noted it also looked empty. Lifeless. As far from welcoming as a home could get. Built in a mountain retreat rustic style, the house boasted tall matching front windows that looked out over the land. To Quinn, they reminded her of two bottomless eyes watching them approach.
“Who owns this house?” Maggie asked.
“You’ll know soon,” Carmen said.
That appeased Quinn for the moment.
Maggie, not so much. She was very unhappy about the secrecy. Quinn already had to shush her a few times when her temper started to show.
They parked as close to the door as possible and followed Carmen to the porch. Quinn noted how bent over she was, as though she held the weight of the world on her shoulders.
It was hard to believe that Carmen was the same age as Quinn’s mother. Carmen could’ve passed for at least a decade older, the lines and grooves around her face belying a
woman in her late sixties.
Even so, she looked strong. Not physically so much. It was more of a mental strength that she carried. She was sharp, and Quinn could see the stubborn streak that must have defined her throughout her life.
Quinn could feel the racing of her heart, and the pounding of her pulse alerted her that whatever story it was that Carmen wanted someone else to help her tell, it was huge.
Carmen reached the top first, and she went to the door to knock.
“Wait,” Quinn said.
Carmen’s closed fist hung midair as she turned around.
“I need a moment,” Quinn said, then sat down on the top step, dropping her head into her hands. Everything was moving so fast, she felt like she needed to step back and take a second.
Maggie sat down beside her, and Carmen lowered herself to the other side. The three of them sat there, silent, not touching, but there.
“You can do this, Quinn,” Maggie whispered.
Quinn squelched the urge to run, visualizing Kupuna’s kind face and the words he’d shared with her that morning. Perhaps the answers she was seeking were not about discovery at all but about forgiveness. Above all else, Quinn wanted healing. She needed to feel whole inside. Her entire life there had been a void—some deep, dark, empty place that was too unreachable to even begin to try to heal it. Even under the loving and devoted care her mother had given her, there was something missing. If her healing would only come about from forgiveness, then that was what she’d have to muster up, no matter what the story was.
She took a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Carmen nodded, then stood and held a hand out for Quinn.
Quinn took it, noting the surprising strength the woman had. When they stood and turned, the door was already open.
A woman stood there. She clutched the doorframe with one hand, her gnarled fingers like claws as she stared first at Maggie, then Quinn. She was old. At least in her eighties, if not beyond. Her white hair was pulled back in a severe bun that showed the large pearls weighing down her earlobes. Though her house was up high on the mountain and nearly backed into the jungle, she was dressed more like a socialite, a black sweater shell over a white blouse, her slacks showing a spiffy pressed crease. She wore one diamond ring, and the stone looked too heavy for such an old woman to bear.
Her expression was intense as she searched Quinn’s eyes.
Carmen nodded toward Quinn. “This is her.”
The old woman nodded back and stepped inside, a silent invitation.
It was an uncomfortable moment. No niceties. The silence was deafening, setting Quinn even more on edge.
“I’m Quinn. Thank you for seeing us.”
The woman nodded. “I’m Helen. Let’s sit down.”
With Maggie right behind her, Quinn followed as the old woman pursed her lips and held her shoulders as upright as she could manage, then led them to a family room.
She gestured for them to take a seat on the couch before disappearing down a hallway.
“This is all too mysterious, Carmen. Can we just—”
Carmen held her finger to her lips, shushing Quinn.
They heard some noise from a room down the hall. Some muttering and sliding of what sounded like boxes across a floor. Finally, Helen emerged again, carrying what appeared to be a boot box. She crossed the room to the rocking chair, set the box on the floor, and then took a seat.
She turned her attention back to Quinn, and her stare took on an intensity that Quinn had never experienced.
“Do you have a birthmark?” she asked.
Quinn nodded.
“Where is it?”
“Behind my ear.”
“Is it shaped like anything in particular?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s shaped like a sea turtle.” She tried to keep her tone in check, but it was obvious if the woman knew she had a birthmark behind her ear, she probably also knew what shape it was.
The woman nodded solemnly. “You are well?”
Quinn nodded. “I am.”
“I have a story to tell you,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky. Uncertain.
“That’s why I’m here, I suppose,” Quinn said, looking at Carmen for confirmation. Maggie took her hand and squeezed it.
“We all have our own story,” Carmen said. “But what you will see is how it all fits together in the end.”
The old woman rocked back and forth, her chair creaking eerily with each pass.
“I would like you to reserve your questions—and your judgment—for when I am finished telling. Can you do that?” Helen asked.
Quinn hesitated. “I’ll let you speak.” She wasn’t promising she wouldn’t judge, though. That much she probably couldn’t control, depending on what the woman had to tell. And she sure couldn’t guarantee that Maggie would stay quiet.
Helen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, they were boring a hole through Quinn. “I’ve had a troubled life, and an unfair one at that. I did everything right, and still the universe tried to punish me. As a child I listened to my parents, respected my teachers, and did what I was told. I graduated high school in Oahu at the head of my class and then moved to Maui with my parents and siblings. I never chased the boys, but one chased me, and I made him marry me before trouble could find us. We built a house on the same property that my parents owned, and he went to work for my father. He worked hard, and we had four children. My sister also married and began to raise her family on our family land, all of us together like our culture is meant to be. Soon my sister had five mouths to feed, and the place was filled with the sound of children. The kids grew up like siblings, and we cared for them as a group, sharing the work between our two families and their very hands-on grandparents. The children were together for meals, homework, and especially playtime.” She paused to catch her breath.
Quinn didn’t know where this was going, but the woman was describing an idyllic life, something akin to how Auntie Wang had described her own childhood. Once again, Quinn felt a longing stir for what might have been had her mother not decided to leave Hawaii. The family life was so strong here, but her own childhood had been more than a little lonely.
“It wasn’t only to build strong family bonds that we lived our lives so closely. It was also for protection. Our family was met with more than its share of bad luck, but we tried to shield and protect the children from it as much as we could. Some of it they understood, but much of it we were able to hide from them. Despite some bumps in the road, most of them did well. But a few had their troubles, and let me tell you, do you know what it’s like watching your child grow into adulthood and fall into the wrong crowd? Or to see them follow some ignorant way of life—the morals and values we instilled in them just dropped by the wayside like a bag of trash?”
She continued, her voice escalating, becoming harsher, “You feel helpless, that’s how you feel,” she said. “It tears your heart out to watch them make mistake after mistake, knowing that the damage they are doing can follow them for the rest of their life. We spent their childhoods emphasizing family loyalty, and then in a wink, when things get gritty, they couldn’t care less.”
“Skip ahead, Helen,” Carmen said. “She doesn’t need all that background.”
Helen calmed down and lowered her voice. “My sister’s children didn’t give her half as much heartache as mine gave me. I feel like I spent most of my time apologizing to school administrators and other mothers, always defending my kids for whatever mess they found themselves in. You see, I knew they were rebelling because things at home weren’t what you’d call pleasant. Their grandfather was an angry man. A righteous man. And bad luck followed him everywhere he went, with much of it trickling down to those of us under his care. We all lived on the family land, but no matter that my husband was also a strong man who tried to rule his own household, my father refused to step aside and let us raise our own families. He ruled everything, and I wanted to move away. Bu
t everyone else wanted to stay.”
She paused, looking lost in a memory before she focused again. “Finally, after high school my oldest two straightened out and began to fly right. My father found a way to get through to them when their father and I couldn’t. I think it was the threat of losing their inheritance, but however he managed it,” she said, waving a hand in the air, “it worked. But that left Jules, my youngest and most stubborn child. She hated how the community judged her and the way her classmates considered her a spoiled rich kid; therefore, she rebelled more than all her siblings put together. When she was eighteen, she met a boy who came from the mainland. Noah. At first I thought it was a relationship that would pass quickly. But with his free-spirited ways and reluctance to follow society’s rules, he won her over immediately. A few months later she snuck off and joined him in one of those tent colonies along the beaches.
“But I found her. You should’ve seen her face when I lifted the flap of their tent and saw her all tangled up with that boy, looking like some kind of ragged drifter. I know exactly what they were doing in there, and she’d never seen me so angry. I’m sure my eyes were flashing fire when I jerked her out of there.”
She paused for a breath.
“We argued, and from somewhere deep inside her, she matched me flame for flame, barb for barb. Everyone around us was afraid to step in. I think there on the beach with the waves roaring behind us, our hair whipping in the wind, and both of us trying to outscream the other, we looked like two enraged witches. I’ve never been one to hang our dirty laundry in public, but I was so mad—and she was too—that we laid out every single grievance against each other we’d been harboring since she was old enough to walk.
“It went on for far too long, but finally we both ran out of steam. When I begged her to come home, she refused. I couldn’t drag her back, so I left her there. I hired someone to check in on her frequently, just to make sure she was okay. It was humiliating. The whole town knew our daughter was down there living like a homeless person, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.
“That boy convinced her that she didn’t need us or our money—that all she needed was the clean ocean air and the freedom of the water, and they could live happily ever after on Spam and rice.”
