by Edie Claire
“Are you ready to go?” he asked anxiously. “She wants to lead us somewhere in the car. And she means now.”
I cast a glance back at my mom, who had gone completely pale. Zane hadn’t realized she could overhear, but of course it hardly mattered now.
“We need to go,” I told her. “But please don’t worry. We’ll tell you the whole story as soon as we know it. We’re going to figure it out… today. And Dad will be fine.”
I looked back at her stricken face.
“I promise.”
Chapter 20
Zane wasn’t speeding. In the “safe driver” category, my parents couldn’t have asked for better. But I could tell from every facet of his body language that he was in a hurry.
“Left here,” he said mechanically, turning. The muscles of his arms were tight with tension, and his mouth was set into a grim line.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. It’s just… a feeling. You can’t see her face, Kali. Every time I’ve seen her, she’s looked upset. But at your house just now… Well, she seemed almost to be losing hope.”
“But that doesn’t make sense!” I argued, frustrated. “We’re making progress, we’re closer than ever! I even know his name, now. What else can she want?”
“Maybe it’s not about what’s happening with us,” Zane suggested. “Maybe something else is happening, with somebody else, and Kalia feels like she’s running out of time. This exit.”
I looked at where we were, and my stomach flip-flopped. “Not the base!” I exclaimed. Oh please, anywhere but there! How could I possibly relive the bombing of Pearl Harbor today? Even with Zane beside me, the grief and terror of battle, the sum total of every single person’s fears and agony and pain —
“No,” Zane interrupted, turning again. “Not the base. We’re going the other way.”
I sighed with relief. I would do whatever I had to do to see this through, but it would be nice to be sane at the end of it. “Where are we going then?” I asked.
He didn’t answer for two more turns. Then he took a deep breath and pulled off. “Moanalua Gardens,” he answered.
We were in the lot of a public park. A small brown building ahead sported a sign for an upcoming hula festival. Beyond the building lay an inviting expanse of level green lawn and giant monkey pod trees. “Why here, I wonder?” I asked, as we stepped out of the car.
Zane looked around. “It’s an old park. If it was here in the fifties, your grandparents might have come here… for a picnic or something. It’s not that far from the base.”
We walked out on the lawn, and all at once, I felt like smiling. Shadows were everywhere. And in this place, almost all of them were happy. “It’s definitely been here since the fifties,” I said confidently, catching sight of many shadows in traditional Hawaiian dress along with several men wearing fedoras and women wearing long dresses with corsets. There seemed to be shadows from every era — mostly playing, picnicking, and celebrating — and their emotions were so predominantly positive that I was able to leave my blind open. “Let’s just walk around,” I suggested, doing so. “I’ll look for them.”
A little stream flowed through the gardens, and I began walking toward it. If I was wasting time, Kalia could redirect me, but as emotional moments in beautiful places went, there was nothing like a picnic lunch along a stream. Shadows — as well as several other living people — milled about in every direction, and my eyes hunted through them for a familiar face. It was noisy, if I cared to listen. The shadows generally made sounds, and I had experienced entire conversations more than once. But unlike their feelings, which seemed to radiate from their bodies whether I liked it or not, the sounds they made didn’t usually rattle my eardrums unless I made some effort to pay attention — perhaps because they were not real sounds at all, in the physical sense. However it happened, I was glad of it. The world had enough noise created by the living.
I was so blissfully absorbed in the feelings of excited children and canoodling lovers that when I spotted my grandfather, I had almost forgotten what I was looking for. But the sight of him, once again strikingly handsome in his officer’s uniform, brought me quickly back to reality. “Here!” I called to Zane.
I hurried toward the image of Albin, who was leaning forward with one knee perched up on something invisible to me — most likely a bench or the seat of a picnic table. But when I saw the woman sitting beside him, I stopped cold.
It was Kalia. The young, vibrant, three-dimensional Kalia that my own eyes had never seen. She was stunning. Her glossy back hair hung loose over her shoulders, framing both a face and figure fit for Hollywood. Her cheekbones were high, her small nose pert, her mouth as perfectly formed as something from a lipstick commercial. Her large dark eyes were framed by thick, black lashes, and as they peered up at my grandfather, I could see in their considerable depths a woman who was every bit as intelligent as she was beautiful.
Unfortunately, she was also miserable.
I stepped closer.
“I have thought about it Albin,” Kalia proclaimed, her voice strained and shaky. “I’ve thought of nothing else all day. But I can’t.”
“Why not?” my grandfather countered. He was tense, earnest, nearly bursting with a volatile combination of hope and fear.
“Because it wouldn’t be fair to you!” Kalia insisted.
“Is it fair to you that Emilio is dead?” Albin fired back. But then, seeming upset with himself, he gentled his voice. “Life isn’t fair, Kalia. None of it. And I appreciate you worrying about what’s fair to me. But you’re wrong if you think I’m sacrificing a thing. I love you. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. I think you know that.”
Kalia stood up. “I’m sorry, but I don’t love you, Albin.” She gulped in a breath, her eyes tearing. “You know I’m terribly fond of you. You’re the sweetest, kindest, most charming, most… selfless man I’ve ever known.” She swallowed painfully. “Including Emilio. That’s why you deserve better than me. You deserve to be loved!”
Albin was close to panic now. “Your mother isn’t well, Kalia,” he said steadily, concealing his angst. “His mother won’t even acknowledge the engagement—”
Kalia interrupted him. “It wouldn’t matter if she did, now. She hates me; I wouldn’t let her near this baby!”
“All the more reason to think about how you’re going to raise it,” he insisted. “You’re going to need help.” He took hold of her shoulders, gently, and sat her down again next to him. “Listen to me. However I may feel, I’ll always be your friend. If you don’t want to marry me, I’ll still help you all I can. I’m not rich, but I could make things a little easier for you.”
Kalia started to speak, but he silenced her with a finger to her lips. His face was very close to hers. He meant every word that he had just said. Still, his heart pounded with hope. “But if you will marry me, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. I’ll raise the baby as my own. If we marry soon, no one outside your friends and family will even think to question it. I would love the child, truly. And maybe someday, you’ll feel differently about me. But I’ll never pressure you. I swear it.”
Kalia was caving. I could feel her heart breaking. And I knew, in that moment, that although her feelings toward him were not romantic, a part of her already did love him. She might not believe she could ever be happy; but she did want him to be.
“I want you to be my wife, Kalia,” Albin finished. “And there’s nothing sacrificial about that. I’m not selfless. Right now I feel pretty damned self-serving, considering the fix you’re in. But I’m asking you anyway. Please. Marry me.”
Kalia’s eyes overflowed with tears. Her chest heaved. She made one tiny, affirmative nod of her chin. Albin lurched forward and folded her into his arms.
The shadows disappeared.
I stood still, staring at nothing, for a long time. I knew that Zane was standing beside me, and I
wanted to take his hand. But I didn’t. I felt too rotten to deserve it.
“I was wrong,” I said finally, still not moving. “I was so wrong.”
Zane took my hand anyway. Warm comfort floated up my arm. “You want to go sit down somewhere?” he asked.
I let him lead me back towards the car, where we settled on a bench under a monkey pod tree. I released his hand and pulled my blind back down. I didn’t deserve other people’s happy feelings, either.
“Albin knew everything,” I explained. “He and Kalia might have met at Christmas, but they weren’t dating — they were just friends. Albin fell in love with her knowing she was with somebody else. But while she was working at the base, they must have gotten pretty close, because after Emilio died, she told Albin she was pregnant.”
“I see,” Zane said, brushing back the lock of curls I had allowed to fall in my face.
“She and Emilio were engaged when he left,” I continued. “But I guess he couldn’t afford a ring, because after he died, his mother refused to acknowledge it ever happened. Apparently she didn’t like Kalia, or didn’t approve of her, or something. I’m not sure if Kalia ever told her about the baby. But I’m guessing she didn’t.”
Zane considered a moment. “Hard to see why she would, if she was marrying Albin. Things were different back then. Illegitimacy was a big deal. If Kalia hadn’t married, both she and the baby would have been treated like criminals.”
I nodded, thinking about the bleakness of Kalia’s situation. Supporting a child as a teenaged war widow would have been hard enough, but… as an unmarried mother? Zane was right. In the fifties, she’d have trouble even finding work. And what other options did she have? Illegal abortion? A forever-closed adoption where she would never know what happened to the baby — a living, breathing part of the man she had loved and lost?
It was unimaginable.
Kalia had done the best she could. I couldn’t know how she had felt later about her decision, but I did know this. She had made both Albin and her child very, very happy.
“Stop it, Kali,” Zane said firmly.
“Stop what?”
“Beating yourself up for having the wrong idea about Kalia.”
I didn’t bother asking him how he knew what I was thinking. Miserable guilt had to be written all over my face. “I should have given her the benefit of the doubt,” I said roughly. “Why didn’t I? Why was I so quick to jump to the worst possible explanation?”
He brushed my hair back over my shoulder again. “Because you knew your grandfather, and you loved him. You never knew Kalia.”
“You didn’t assume the worst of her,” I pointed out.
“I never knew either one of them,” he replied. “I could be objective. You couldn’t. You loved your grandfather very much — it’s only natural that your loyal, compassionate heart would leap to what you saw as his defense. Now cut it out.”
I looked up at him. “I still feel rotten.”
He leaned in a little. “Well, to quote you, I believe the phrase was: get over it.”
I smiled at him. In a perfect world, he would kiss me.
Instead, he let out a muffled growl and sprang up from the bench. “We’ve got to get you back in the water, Kali. Soon.”
My smile broadened. He was weakening already. “We can’t do a swimming lesson now,” I reminded him. “We have to keep watching for more clues from Kalia. I understand how everything came to happen as it did back then, but I still don’t understand what kind of danger my dad is in. All we really know is that it has something to do with the mystery man at her funeral.”
A look of something close to pessimism crossed Zane’s eyes, and the sight of it chilled me. He was never pessimistic. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he agreed. “But… I’m afraid Kalia may be getting too weak to keep this up. The fact is, I was totally winging those last two turns. She did appear, but she was so faint and blurry I couldn’t tell which way she was pointing. When I saw the gardens ahead, I just turned in on a hunch.”
“Oh no!” I exclaimed. “But she seemed in such a hurry to have us finish this!”
“She definitely wants us to finish this. Maybe you could call Kylee for advice again? On how to help her get stronger or something? I don’t want to scare you, but… You didn’t see her face, the look in her eyes… I really think we’re running out of time.”
I studied him for a second. Then I dug frantically into my bag and pulled out my phone. “I missed a call from Tara!” I cried. “Why didn’t I hear it?”
I called her back, and she answered on the first ring.
“Thank goodness,” she said without greeting. “Kali, are you sitting down?”
My heart beat faster. “Yes.”
“Is Zane there with you?”
“Yeah, I’ll put him on speaker.” I punched the button, and Zane sat down on the bench beside me.
Tara inhaled, loudly and slowly. “Okay, kids. Brace yourselves. Nobody’s driving, right?”
“No!” I replied impatiently. “Tara, just tell us! What is it?”
“I found out quite a bit more than I expected to about Emilio Lam,” she began. “The clipping you found was indeed from 1953, from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. I found military records that confirmed everything in it. Except that wasn’t the whole story.” She cleared her throat. “Are you sure you’re sitting down?”
“Tara!” I pleaded.
Zane’s arm slipped comfortingly around my shoulders.
“The telegram the army sent to Emilio’s mother was in error,” Tara continued. “He was reported killed in action, but in fact he was taken prisoner. He was captured in Korea, but unlike most of the other POWs, he wasn’t released after the armistice was signed. Somehow, he ended up in China. He was held in a work camp there for over two years.”
“Oh my God. How terrible,” I whispered.
“I’m sure it was,” Tara agreed. “But eventually he did manage to escape, with some help from the locals. He was part Chinese, on his father’s side, and he knew a little of the language. What he didn’t know, he must have learned quickly. It took him most of another year, but eventually he made his way to South Korea, and then back to Hawaii.”
Zane’s eyes met mine. I knew we were thinking the same thing.
“The man at her grave,” I said quietly. “It was Emilio.”
I remembered the feelings surrounding the prostrate shadow, and his grief washed through me all over again. I had been so stupid, assuming both men were at her funeral. How many other times had I seen shadows exist simultaneously when I knew they were separated by time, and in fact, merely overlapped? My grandfather hadn’t looked at the other man with indifference — he hadn’t looked at him at all! By the time Emilio had made his way back to Hawaii, Albin and my father were already on the mainland, in Minnesota.
“Emilio’s return was big news in Hawaii,” Tara continued. “But I haven’t found any evidence that his story went national. He wasn’t the only POW to find his way back as the years went on, and people’s sources of news were more limited.” She paused a moment. “Kali, I don’t know whether your grandfather kept up contact with anyone in Hawaii after he left, or if he even knew who Emilio was, but unless some third party took it upon themselves to alert him, I think it’s highly unlikely he ever knew that Emilio came back from Korea alive.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “No. I don’t think he did.” I would like to think that my grandfather wouldn’t intentionally keep a man from his biological son, and from now on, I intended to think the best of everyone.
The memory of Emilio’s pain at the cemetery gnawed at my insides, and I was grateful for the warmth of Zane’s arm around me. “Emilio would have come home to find out not only that Kalia was dead and gone,” I said sadly, “but that right after he was reported killed, she had married another man. And had a child.”
Did Emilio know why she had married so soon? That the baby was his?
“Kali,” Tara said, anticipating m
y next question, “I’ve studied the timeline… when Emilio would have been in basic training and when he shipped out. You do not want to know how much time I spent looking into pregnancy diagnosis in 1953 and length of gestation related to infant body weight. But here’s my best guess. Kalia might have worried that she was pregnant when she was still in touch with Emilio. But it’s highly unlikely she was sure of the fact before his unit hit the ground in Korea. Odds are, even if she did write him with the news, he was captured before it reached him.”
“But,” Tara continued, “when he got back to Hawaii, there’s every chance he would have found out from family or mutual friends that Kalia had married somebody else and had a baby.”
Loving wife and mother. “Her gravestone said that much,” I replied. “But that doesn’t mean he ever knew the whole truth, does it? Even if he had friends who knew exactly when Kalia gave birth, I can’t see them falling all over themselves to give him that information three years later when Kalia was dead and the baby was gone. At that point, what chance could he possibly have of ever getting the baby back?”
“Zero,” Tara answered. “They didn’t have DNA paternity testing back then. If Albin was married to Kalia and his name was on the birth certificate, the baby was legally his son, period. So you’re right — it’s hard to imagine any of Emilio’s family or friends wanting to open that can of worms, particularly when they didn’t know for sure. Which no one could have, unless Kalia told them herself. Do you think she told Emilio’s mother?”
I remembered the biting hurt in Kalia’s eyes as she spoke of Josefa Lam. “I seriously doubt it,” I answered.
The more I thought about Emilio’s situation, the more it made my heart ache. Either he suspected he had a son but had no hope of ever getting him back, or he believed that the girl he was engaged to had callously replaced him the minute she found out he was dead. Either way, both his grief, and his anger, could only be expected.
I fought back my own sadness. “Tara, whatever happened to Emilio? Did he ever marry?”
