Leaving Lana'i

by Edie Claire

  When at last Maddie drew back, she caught Nana surreptitiously wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

  “Sweet Jesus, girl,” Nana exclaimed, shaking out her arms, then struggling to her feet. “I think you broke some bones somewhere. I need breakfast. You want some eggs?”

  Maddie nodded. “You want help?”

  “No!” Nana said forcefully, even as her dark eyes twinkled. “You stay right over there.”

  Maddie smiled and returned to her chair. She stayed out of Nana’s way in the kitchen, grateful that her exuberance did not appear to have caused any actual injury, and the two enjoyed a quiet breakfast with no more talk of the past. By the time they had finished and the dishes were done Maddie felt almost human again.

  She accompanied Nana on her usual Sunday morning trek up to Sacred Hearts, then decided to go for a walk around the park. She was drained emotionally, yet at the same time, she felt restless. It was too early to pester any of the Nakamas, but she was glad to find the old man bench fully staffed and open for visitors. She walked up to a chorus of cheerful greetings and settled herself between Mr. Li and Mr. Kalaw. They had been in the middle of some spirited discussion in Pidgin when she approached, but after she joined them they switched to English. “Well, Akage-chan,” Mr. Hiraga said with a grin. “We see you have found your old friend again, eh?”

  Maddie looked at the uniformly grinning faces around her. Oh, right. They had seen her with Kai. She could only imagine what they must be thinking. They had known all along that her mother was neglecting her and that Nana was essentially raising her. They had probably felt sorry for her, spending so much time in the park. Then she had left abruptly under a cloud of drama that was probably good for several years’ worth of gossip as well as children’s ghost stories, and now she was back looking like — well, what she looked like — and cavorting around with the town’s favorite son. Of course they were happy to see her. She was better than a Sunday matinee.

  Her head hung a little, but Mr. Kalaw’s kind, dark eyes immediately caught hers with a twinkle. “What’s this? Something wrong, eh?”

  She met his gaze, and both guilt and relief flooded through her. She wasn’t being fair. The old men had shown her nothing but kindness long before the drama started, back when she was nothing but an unkempt, pesky little haole girl.

  What the hell? She might as well throw it all out there. Maybe she would feel better talking about it. She couldn’t possibly say anything these men didn’t already know — or at least suspect.

  “It’s been really nice getting to know Kai again,” she answered. “I can see why we had so much fun together when we were kids. But it’s been a long weekend. I didn’t know until last night that my mother committed suicide. I didn’t even know she was depressed. So… I’m still kind of trying to take it all in.”

  The old men exchanged some not-so-furtive glances. Mr. Hiraga stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Akage-chan,” he said gently. “But it’s best that you know. I’m glad that’s what was decided.”

  Mr. Kalaw nodded. “People think lies protect, but they always end up hurting, in the end.”

  Old Mr. Li, whom Maddie was not certain could hear well enough to follow the conversation, grabbed her hand. “Kai is a strong boy,” he said earnestly, meeting her eyes.

  Maddie looked back at him. She felt like she had missed a segue somewhere. But his gaze, albeit cloudy, seemed intentional.

  “Your mother’s death was very difficult,” Mr. Kalaw continued. “Difficult for you and your father. Difficult for Kai and for his family and everyone here. But we move on.” He smiled at her warmly. “We are all just happy our pretty Maddie has come back to us.”

  Mr. Puyat chimed in something in Pidgin. Maddie perked. She had understood him! In essence, the grouchy old goat had chuckled and said, “and Kai is happy she’s all grown up and finally got some nice curves on her!”

  The other men laughed. Maddie looked straight at Mr. Puyat. He still smelled like fish. “I heard that!” she said accusingly, pointing at him with a grin.

  Mr. Puyat, for the first time in recorded history, smiled sheepishly back at her. The other men guffawed with laughter.

  Her heart melted.

  “Aw, you ignore him,” Mr. Yokota said apologetically. “We’ve got nothing better to do than match-make. Means nothing.”

  “Speak for yourself,” teased Mr. Hiraga. He gave Maddie a wink. “You make a lovely couple, eh?”

  Maddie reddened. She was embarrassed because of course she’d had that same thought herself, she was touched because Mr. Puyat had actually smiled at her, and yet… something else had been said that worried her.

  “You live on Maui now, right? Near where Kai lives?” Mr. Kalaw asked.

  Maddie nodded absently. What was it?

  Old Mr. Li was still sitting quietly at her side, watching her with a small, knowing smile. Kai is a strong boy, he had said.

  True enough. But why had he said it? And why had Mr. Kalaw mentioned Kai’s name specifically in saying that Jill Westover’s death was hard on Maddie’s friends here on Lana'i? Kai was a sensitive kid and wouldn’t have cared for all the gory talk of hangings and hauntings, that was for sure. He didn’t even like to fight spiders! But he was never close to Maddie’s mother. Nobody was. Could he have been that upset over Maddie’s leaving so suddenly, without saying goodbye to him?

  She pondered. Surely not. He admitted that he had missed her. But if cared that much, he would have written her back!

  “You said that my mother’s death was hard on Kai,” she asked Mr. Kalaw, her pulse speeding up again. “Why? I mean, I’m sure he felt sorry for me, and it was a horrible thing all around. But…”

  Maddie’s voice trailed off as she watched the men’s faces. They were all looking at each other as if they’d gotten caught doing something wrong. No one said a word.

  Dammit. And she’d been so certain the secrets were over!

  Her face flashed with unwelcome heat… again. She rose to her feet.

  “Maddie,” Mr. Kalaw said quickly, putting a gentle hand on her arm. “Don’t be upset.”

  “I know there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said with frustration. “Who told you not to tell me? Let me guess. Nana? Malaya?”

  Mr. Hiraga smiled apologetically. “You know mothers. Grandmothers. They protect their young. It’s nature.”

  “We feel for you, child,” said Mr. Yokota. “But we cannot cross the aunties. Our days are numbered already, you understand?”

  “Talk to Kai,” Mr. Kalaw urged. “Ask him your questions. But if he chooses not to answer…” He held her gaze. “Respect that.”

  Maddie fumed. Her first choice, she wanted the record to show, had been not to hear any of the truth. But now that she’d been forced to hear some of it, she darn well wanted to hear it all. She wanted it out and exposed and completely air-dried so she could pack it away neatly and forget it again, and she didn’t want any loose ends hanging around to remind her of the process. If this mysterious missing piece involved her life, she wanted to know about it, and if Kai insisted on keeping it from her — Kai, who had forced all this on her in the first place! — they were going to have problems.

  Respect that, indeed.

  She did, however, respect Mr. Kalaw.

  “I’ll consider your advice,” she told him. “Thank you.” She faked a smile and wished all the men a happy Sunday morning.

  Then she stomped off toward the Nakama house.

  Chapter 23

  Kai woke up feeling thick-headed and confused. He was sprawled across the top of his parents’ bed, which was odd, because when he had returned in the pre-dawn hours, he had crashed on the couch.

  He rubbed his face and sat up. Someone must have woken him up at some point and helped him stumble in here, but he had no memory of it. How much sleep had he managed last night, anyway? Three, four hours? However long he’d slept before the nightmare didn’t count. And the last few hours, frankly, hadn’
t been the most restful either. Thanks to one Miss Madalyn Westover, he might never sleep again.

  He exhaled roughly. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault. The woman had been doing practically everything in her power not to entice him ever since she’d first walked into his office on Maui. Could she help it if that was impossible? If only he’d forced himself to get out more, work a little less, he might have another girlfriend now. But he’d been out of BYU for six months already with nothing to show for it, and the frustration was getting to him.

  He didn’t like to think of himself as naive. He’d known that the culture shock he would experience in moving between the carefully structured singles world of Provo, Utah and the hookup culture of Maui would be extreme. He knew that finding women to date would be a challenge, that the population of twenty-something females on Maui who lived an LDS lifestyle without actually being LDS would be limited. He had not expected it to be flippin’ non-existent. He’d accepted the fact that he’d have to settle for a woman who shared only some of his values, and he’d accepted that quickly, but even that pool was no more than a puddle. He’d gotten discouraged, and time had slipped by. Now he’d found Maddie again, and now he was… eager to move things along.

  Unfortunately, that traffic signal was still on red.

  He groaned aloud and stood up. Enough wallowing in self pity. Maddie had wandered into his office exactly three days ago. Four days ago, he’d been fine. Tonight they would go back to Maui, and this week he would redouble his efforts to meet some new people, date some more. And he’d have his old friend back, too. What was so terrible about that?

  Because you want Maddie. And only Maddie.

  Kai told himself to shut up. He crossed to the bedroom door and looked out. Neither of his parents appeared to be home. The truck wasn’t visible out the front window. Gloria’s bedroom door was closed. He grabbed his bag and stepped into the bathroom for a quick shower, then dressed and headed to the kitchen to find some breakfast. At no point did he hear a peep from Gloria’s room. In fact, the whole neighborhood seemed unusually quiet.

  He plastered a piece of toast with lilikoi jam and caught himself in a sigh. All things considered, Maddie had taken the tough news very well last night, and he knew he’d done the right thing in telling her. Yet this morning, his own dominant emotion was sadness. Yesterday he’d had fun. Plain, old-fashioned, whole-hearted fun, more fun than he’d had in ages. He had his Maddie back. Just like when they were kids, she’d been his sunshine. The yang to his yin. Her lively spirit, her snarky smile, her bubbling laugh, her wackiness. Her biting wit, her foolish bravado, and above all, her genuine courage. Always she had challenged his own cautious, resolute nature. Always she had made him feel stronger, more carefree… happier. Now she was back in all her glory, only this time she was all grown up.

  And she wanted very much to be his friend again.

  But only his friend.

  Kai crunched his toast with more force than necessary. He should be able to do that. Up until last night, he thought maybe he could. God knew he’d done it enough times before, with enough other girls. But not with Maddie. He wanted her too damn much. The circumstances were beyond frustrating. Maybe if he’d been happily married to someone else when he met her again… But that wasn’t the case. If friendship was truly all she wanted — and she had a perfect right to want that — then eventually, he would have to back off.

  Which meant that he would lose her as his Maddie. His best bud. His sunshine.

  Again.

  He sunk his head into his hands. His mother and Nana were wrong. They were being so ridiculously overprotective, so worried that Maddie’s return would send him back into the land of his childhood nightmares, back into reliving the events of that one horrible day. What they never really understood, what he was only coming to understand himself now, was that it wasn’t that one day that had caused his nightmares in the first place. It was all wrapped up with his losing Maddie.

  Most likely, it was his fear of losing her again that had brought them back.

  Kai rose. His memories of that time were vague. He remembered doctors. He remembered missing school. He remembered horrific nightmares. And he remembered Maddie’s letter, and that it marked some kind of turning point. But he couldn’t remember a word that she had written, nor why he hadn’t answered it. He only remembered that afterwards, he had tried to forget her.

  He opened the door to the closet in the main room and pulled out boxes and bags from off the floor and the shelf until he found the one cardboard shoebox he sought. He stuffed everything back into the closet and then brought the shoebox to the kitchen table. He tore off the masking tape, which was marked with his name and a skull and crossbones to ward off would-be trespassers. He had sealed it up when he’d graduated from high school and left for Provo, and he knew it contained some letters from his grandparents and a few others. If he’d kept Maddie’s letter, which he was pretty sure he did, it would be in here.

  No sooner had he popped the lid than he heard Gloria’s bedroom door open. He closed the box again and looked up at her. She was wearing an overlarge tee shirt and yoga pants and looked bedraggled and half asleep, with her hair sticking out in all directions. She returned his look without expression, stumbled to the counter to retrieve an apple banana, then pulled out a chair across the table from him. She fell into it in a slumping position with her knees against the tabletop. She peeled the banana.

  “Good morning, Sister,” Kai said, enunciating the words perfectly, just to bug her. They had always spoken English, rather than Pidgin, within the Nakama household. Aki’s mother, who spoke Japanese to her children but taught English at the local school, had never allowed Pidgin to be spoken in her home, and Aki had followed that tradition with his own children. Of course, all of the Nakamas could and did speak Pidgin in other situations. But the influence of the English teacher in the family lent all of their speech a little more properness than was socially desirable for a kid, and when Kai returned after the additional insult of having been immersed in the affluent suburbia of the mainland, his Lana'ian friends teased him mercilessly about sounding “haolified.” He knew they were right; his everyday speech did sound stilted. But he could drop back into Pidgin anytime he wanted to.

  “Oh shut, up,” Gloria snapped, biting off a piece of banana. She looked around the rest of the house. “Everybody gone?”

  Kai nodded. He watched as Gloria slumped some more and fidgeted with her knees against the table. She was seventeen years old. Right now, she looked about twelve. Knowing that for the past couple months his baby sister had been sleeping with a man his age — some jerk who treated her like garbage — made him sick to his soul.

  Gloria sat up suddenly. “So?” she asked, her eyes alight with sudden interest. “Tell me what’s happening with Maddie. With you and Maddie, that is. Any progress?”

  Kai took another bite of his now stone-cold toast. He lacked the energy to berate her for her nosiness. Besides, berating her never worked anyway. “We’re just friends.”

  Gloria’s mouth dropped open. She looked genuinely disappointed. “But why?”

  He shrugged. “Because that’s the way she wants it.”

  Gloria stared at him. She stared at him a very long time.

  “You do know you’re perfect for each other, don’t you?” she said finally. “Did you know she doesn’t even drink? I don’t know about the caffeine thing, though. She might—”

  “I don’t care about that!” Kai interrupted. His voice was ragged. He needed to watch himself. Gloria didn’t need to know details.

  “Then why aren’t you going for it?” Gloria pressed, undeterred. “I watched you yesterday, you know. The two of you together. You think there’s not chemistry there? Are you kidding me? I was getting scorched in the back seat! Sparks are flying everywhere and everybody’s laughing and everything’s great and you had, like, a thousand chances to make a move… and brah, you did nothing. Nada. What’s up with that?”
/>   “I told you,” Kai said heavily. “It’s her choice. Not mine.”

  “She said that?”

  Kai hesitated. “Not… in words. But yes, she has.”

  Gloria gave her head and shoulders a shake. “You know what? There is something seriously wrong with both you people. It’s like you’re still in the eighth grade or something.”

  Kai’s blood heated. He glared at her.

  “Don’t just look at me like that! Talk to me!” Gloria demanded. She leaned across the table towards him. “I don’t understand you, Kai! You’re obviously into each other. I don’t know what her excuse is, but the least you can do is explain yours. You didn’t join that church in Utah, you say you don’t believe in that stuff, but here you are. Still alone. I don’t get it. What are you waiting for? Does it bother you that Maddie’s more… experienced than you are?”

  Kai stood up and whirled away. He did not want to have this conversation with her. Not now, not ever. She was his baby sister, for God’s sake! He didn’t like talking about his personal life with anyone. It was none of her business. Particularly when her own life was so screwed up that—

  He stopped and drew in a breath. Damn, he was a hypocrite. He’d made her personal life his business quick enough, hadn’t he? Sat her down and started giving her advice. Nice, safe, big brotherly advice. But he couldn’t say it came straight from the heart, could he? In fact, it had come straight from what he remembered of the church’s teachings on the importance of chastity before marriage.

  Wow.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Crap.

  He turned back around and looked at her. Her dark eyes were imploring. Hopeful. Don’t give me a bunch of platitudes that somebody else thinks I need to hear, she seemed to be begging. Just talk to me!

  He stepped back to the table and sat down. Whatever he said to her, it could not possibly go worse than the last time. “You want to know what I’m waiting for, Gloria? I’ll tell you. I’m waiting for someone who’s going to make me happy. Really happy. Deeply happy. Constantly and consistently happy. Not happy for twenty minutes here and a couple hours there with days and weeks of crazy agonizing drama in between. Just happy. And I don’t just want a couple months of happy, either. I want it all. I want a whole freakin’ lifetime of it. And if the price tag is high, if I have to be alone a little longer because I’m waiting for a relationship I’m sure is right rather than screwing around with women I know for a fact will not make me happy, that’s my choice. And yes, Gloria, perfectly normal guys can and do think that way. Not a lot, maybe. But more than you probably think.”