Murder of the Prodigal Father

by Mark Wm Smith

  “Haka,” I said aloud. The word stopped me in the street, thirty feet from my car. “Homes for the dead. Tombs.” When a lightbulb comes on you expect it to brighten things. This one darkened my world. “She’s dead. Kumi is dead.”

  My gaze drifted toward the ocean that took up all of the view from here to edge of the earth. Had Akira’s long lost daughter died there? Umi. The sea.

  When the old woman became enraged I’d wondered if she was cursing Kumi. Maybe for leaving. But I’d misunderstood. She’d said umi. The sea. If she was cursing, it was at the ocean. For stealing her daughter. For leaving her, like the girl’s father had, alone in the middle of the East China Sea.

  I trudged the last few steps and climbed into my rusty little gaijin car. I gripped the key, intending to give it a good twist and peel away from this dark memory. Before I could, a swell—something like the tug of the moon on the tide—pulled at my heart. I began to cry.

  Nansi kept her eyes on the big, blue ocean. “We’re not having sex,” she said.

  Her comment tickled my guilt. “Is that a complaint?” I sat, half-slouched where the sun peaked beneath the shade of the lanai. After a week back at work, absorbing the beautiful vitamin D rays felt like a healing massage to my shoulder.

  The military had recently opened the Kadena Marina restaurant off of Highway 58 for the season. Birds whistled, chirped and squawked their approval. Nansi and I decided to enjoy it before the tsunami season kept us away for two and three weeks at a time.

  We’d been staring into the vast blue waters while the kids colored their menus. Quentin dramatized his tropical scene with one ear focused on our conversation, while Penelope poked her tongue through one side of her lips to emphasize her single-mindedness.

  My joy was being invaded by a song. You want… me to act… like we’ve… never kissed. You want me… to forget. Patsy Cline.

  “I’m not ready.” Nansi echoed the lament.

  “It’s already been awhile,” I said, mostly to stop the carousel of lyrics. Pretend we've never met. And I've tried… and I've tried…, But I… haven't yet.

  “They won’t stop, Connor. Until you get it.”

  “Huh?” She could hear inside of my head? The idea jacked my heartbeat up a notch.

  Annoyance showed in Nansi’s expression. “I said,” she lengthened the syllable. “The pain won’t stop until you get it.”

  “Sorry. I drifted. Thinking about Akira. How long its been for him. His loss.”

  Nansi’s face softened. “It’s not about time, Connor.”

  That’s when Patsy’s message came through. Like the sun breaking on a new day. I knew in that second that I would tell Nansi the whole truth. Tell her how I came to the affair with Jasia. And Sharon before that. About my history with Garboski and the local girls. I would open up and let Nansi decide when— if, she could keep me. “It’s about truth,” I said.

  She turned her head briskly. “Yes.” Then she returned her stare to the ocean blue. “And trust. So, no sex. Not yet.”

  “Why not, mommy?” Quentin asked.

  I laughed.

  “What’s funny?” Quentin was saying as his mother covered his ears.

  “Not until I’m convinced you’ve made this relationship top priority.”

  Quentin shook his head to get free. She pulled him close and kissed the top of his blonde hair before letting go.

  “Mom!” He picked up a red crayon and started to color one of the lion’s feet blood red. “Boys are supposed to be on the beach.”

  “Really?” I said. “That a rule we missed in the parent guide book?”

  “Yep. With the girls.” He didn’t raise his head from the intricate work of coloring.

  I chuckled.

  “Crap,” Nansi whispered. “Where’d he get that?”

  I studied his face. “With the girls, eh? Why do the boys have to be on the beach with the girls, Quent?”

  The split concentration hardly showed. “Teach girls to surf.”

  My laughter grew bolder. I tussled his hair. “Good point, son.”

  Nansi scowled at me. “Girls can surf just fine without boys, Quentin James.”

  “Just not very well,” I said.

  “Yeah, Mom. Not very well.”

  Nansi tried to hang onto her frustration with the Pierce men, but it melted into a soft laugh. “Incorrigible, both of you.”

  Quentin lifted his half-completed menu high. “I have the courage of Simba!” He mimicked in a deep voice.

  Nansi burst with glee, laughing out loud. Her beauty increased by a factor of ten.

  Heat radiated through my chest and my limbs became weightless. I leaned forward to take her hand, ignoring thousands of tiny pins stabbing my wounded shoulder.

  Deep in the blue of her eyes, brightness shifted to softness as the humor faded, revealing a gentle strength that promised safety for my heart. I had not truly known her before our recent disaster. Before my recent attempts to destroy us. She was the steady one, the one who couldn’t stray. The “Garboski” incident could never have happened outside of my guilt-ridden imagination. His inbred clumsiness translated to dropping our phone at the opportune time I had called home in a state of despair. Nansi had simply invited him for dinner, an act of contrition for knocking him on his ass the day before I left for Montana. The same inferno tempered by grace I’d glimpsed the first day we met. The fiery angel I fell in love with, chased and married. Now, on the edge of an endless ocean, its promise percolated the hope in my soul.

  “No surfing, then. Until you’re ready. Until you can be sure of me, of my honesty.”

  Those cobalt eyes searched me, looking for a con.

  “I want to share,” I whispered. A tear flowered at the duct, swelled over, and broke loose to roll down the side of my nose. “I want you to know me. All of me.”

  Her smile spread expectancy across her face. She squeezed my hand, touched my cheek. Her thumb rubbed gently at the wet line on my face. She leaned in to kiss me.

  “You guys are getting yucky,” Quentin said.

  We giggled with our lips connected.

  Sitting back, letting the moist rubbing dry of its own accord, I said, “I spoke to Tony this morning.”

  “From the shop?” Nansi lingered a moment longer before letting herself settle back into the chair.

  Maybe sex wasn’t that far off.

  She turned to the late afternoon vista of blue and bluer. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s taking a leave of absence.”

  “For recovery?”

  “An artist retreat.”

  “You said he abhorrs art.”

  “For his parents sake, he did.” I glanced at Quentin, hoping I’d never put that kind of pressure on him. “Getting shot made him take inventory. He’s really very good. His mom and dad made a pretty big deal about art when he was growing up. I guess his rebellion is passé with a bullet wound.”

  A line of turquoise thickening to emerald followed the beachfront. Air Force blue took over about a hundred yards out. Several swimmers paddled to a diving platform, climbing out and jumping back into the cool mystery of the briny deep.

  A chill went through me, sending a twinge of pain into my upper back. “Those guys are crazy. It needs to be about twenty degrees warmer for me.”

  “Daddy,” Penelope said in a chastising tone, with near perfect syllables. As if she was reminding me not to be critical.

  Warmth flooded my heart, seeped into my back and relieved the pangs from the gunshot wound. I smiled and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  She shook it back. “Bah-woo,” she said, taking a blue crayon from the pile and scribbling around the eyes of a cartoon zebra.

  “Its blue, sister” Quentin said, shoving another shrimp into his mouth.

  “When we go back, Connor, I want us to be… together.” Nansi voiced her change of direction.

  Returning her gaze, I realized the sea had nothing on her beauty. “To Miles City? You sure? Th
ere are things—”

  “I know.” She tipped her chin up. “I’m not sure. One thing that I am sure of, though. It’s ungodly to leave you.”

  It checked my heart. I inhaled quickly.

  “I’m not making a guarantee,” she clarified. “That I won’t leave.”

  My mother had tried that. I didn’t like it. But it wasn’t mine to say.

  “There are those things…. But, I want to follow my faith. And I like the changes I see. Maybe getting back to your roots, helping your family set things right, maybe that will help.” Sincerity resonated behind her words.

  “And you’re ready for that?"

  “It’s a commitment I want to make.” Nansi’s smile was broad and accepting. “We’ve tried the duck and dodge method. Let’s change it up. Try the face and embrace it plan.”

  It set a quiver in my stomach. Plans had a way of going sideways. And I wasn’t that sure about Mother and Renée. Stability with them was a day or two further along. I stared at the waves splashing against a coral pillar in the cove and wondered how long it had taken to pound out its shape. “I want that, Nansi.” I looked directly into her eyes to make sure it took. “With you.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  I nodded, trying to shake the notion into place.

  “You’ve ask about early release?”

  “I have.” Something about the agreement loosened my limbs. The idea of settling down, running the dealership with Renée, and building a permanent home for my children filled me with satisfaction. “Yeah. Its a good idea, Honey.”

  She reached for my hand and I was glad for her warmth.

  Far out across the water I saw a splash. Could have been a flying fish. Or a whale. But it probably wasn’t a plane going down.

  END

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  Murder on the East China Sea

  Mark Wm Smith

  Mark Wm Smith was born in Miles City, Montana and raised all around the Big Sky Country. He writes mystery and suspense, novel and story length, with a little poetry a la carte, all designed to stimulate your senses and engage your mind. He writes with a stick in his mouth, drooling through fast-paced scenes and emotional disturbances, leading you to a surprising and meaningful conclusion.

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