Banana Split

by Josi S. Kilpack

“The last call she made from her cell phone was to the employee who covered her shift and loaned her the car,” Officer Wington said. “And none of the other numbers have opened up a new lead.”

  “Who was the employee?”

  “That’s beyond the scope of information I can give you, Mrs. Hoffmiller.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry,” she said, flushing slightly even though his reprimand was mild.

  “I’ve given you more detail than I normally would,” he said, “but Detective Cunningham indicated that being open with you would be helpful for your situation.”

  “It is helpful,” Sadie said, liking that Pete thought she was strong enough to handle it, even if she was still unsure. “I appreciate it very much.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, just a few more things. How’s her son doing?”

  “I’m sure it’s been difficult for him,” Officer Wington said. “All of my communication goes through the caseworker.”

  Sadie felt her chin quiver slightly as she wrote “Charlie” on the paper, with a frowny face next to it. She hurried to the next topic.

  “I guess they can’t do a funeral if they’re still doing tests and things.”

  “The testing is merely done on tissue samples. The actual body was released earlier this week. Her ashes were scattered as part of the memorial service yesterday morning.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said, both surprised and disappointed. “I didn’t realize she’d been cremated.” Wasn’t that unwise in an open case? What if something was discovered in the autopsy reports and the body needed to be exhumed for verification? Wait . . . the memorial service was yesterday? That meant Charlie had come to see her just hours afterward. He’d been at the service, listening to people say farewell to his mother, and remained unconvinced that she was gone.

  “Common practice on the islands and far less expensive. Is there anything else?”

  He was clearly ready to get on with the rest of his day, and she couldn’t think of anything else to ask. “No, thank you,” she finally said. Mahalo was the Hawaiian word for thank you, but she always felt out of place when she said it. “I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.”

  “Of course,” the officer said. “I hope things go well for you, Mrs. Hoffmiller. I’m sure it’s hard to think that what happened to you that day was a good thing, but at least it allowed Ms. Pouhu to be found.”

  It was hard to think that Sadie’s trauma was a positive thing, but what if Noelani had never been found? What if she’d just disappeared? That’s what Charlie thought had happened—that his mom had left—and he thought he might be able to find her again.

  Sadie caught herself before she voiced her fears that Charlie didn’t believe his mother was dead. Mentioning Charlie would open up everything that had happened with him—everything she didn’t want to talk to the police about. Heat washed through her at the near slip. “Thank you so much,” she said instead. She was suddenly eager to get off the phone in case she didn’t catch herself the next time she was tempted to talk about Charlie.

  “You’re welcome.”

  After hanging up the phone, Sadie stared at her notes, fighting the resurgence of frightening memories. She circled the note she’d made about Noelani having met with Officer Wington about a different case. She also circled “tide” and “party drop,” then she leaned back and looked at the visual of those details that stood out to her the most. Once she’d done that, she was left with the question that kept coming back to her over and over again.

  What are you going to do about it?

  Chapter 10

  The discussion with Officer Wington convinced Sadie that talking with the social worker was the best choice for her to make. But she couldn’t do anything until she heard back from Pete. She tried not to think about the fact that if things ever got back to Officer Wington, he would know she’d hidden information from him. Maybe she should have told him what had happened with Charlie . . . but what if that meant Charlie lost the only home and hope he had right now? It felt like too big a risk to take, but she still reviewed what she’d learned and what she could have done differently a hundred times.

  She showered and changed into long khaki shorts and a light cotton T-shirt instead of a fresh muumuu because she was trying to prepare herself mentally in case she needed to meet with the social worker overseeing Charlie’s case face to face. When she looked at herself in the mirror, though, she wanted to cry. Was that really her? Sarah Diane Wright Hoffmiller? The shorts were too big and the T-shirt hung limp on her shoulders. She really needed a new bra, and her legs were downright pasty. Her hair had grown out past her shoulders, but was gray at the roots with half-a-dozen shades of grayish-yellow between that and the ends which were split and frizzy. The humidity played havoc with her natural curl, making her head one big hair ball. Nothing about the reflection staring back at her said to the world “I’ve got something to offer!”

  Not only did her clothes look bad, but they were uncomfortable too. She had worn muumuus almost exclusively since her first few weeks in the islands, and the stiff fabric of the shorts felt constricting. She’d thought of dressing differently as dressing up, but she looked and felt awful, so she changed into a short blue-and-white muumuu—the one she wore when she went out with the Blue Muumuus—with a little ruffle just below the knee.

  Before coming to Hawai’i, she’d thought muumuus the unattractive equivalent of a housedress someone would wear on the mainland—i.e., frumpsville. But here, it was different. They were bright and comfortable, and it was socially acceptable to wear them nearly everywhere. The muumuu was an improvement the moment she put it on, and she felt like her old self again . . . or was it her new self? Then she wet her hair and pulled it into a bun at the top of her head. It didn’t hide the mess of color, but it helped camouflage it somewhat and would keep the hair off her neck. Makeup wasn’t even worth considering—the heat and humidity would make it an oily mess within an hour—but she did put on some SPF 15 moisturizer and a pale pink lip gloss with sparkles in it that caught the light.

  She was staring at the woman in the mirror, still not sure she knew who she was, when her cell phone rang from the bedroom. For an instant, she was tempted to let it go to voice mail—she’d done that many times over the last several weeks—but then she remembered Pete was going to call with the social worker’s number. She hurried to the phone, then paused when she saw that it wasn’t Pete. It was Gayle.

  Sadie bit her lip, realizing she hadn’t talked to Gayle like she’d promised Pete she would. Right now seemed like such horrible timing, but she couldn’t justify putting it off. She took a breath as she brought the phone to her ear and sat down on the edge of her bed.

  “Hi, Gayle,” Sadie said, remembering her goal to be brave every day. Since writing it down, she’d already had many opportunities to test her resolve. This was one more challenge she had to face.

  “Sadie,” Gayle said, sounding a bit surprised that Sadie had answered. “How are you doing?”

  Sadie considered the list of assurances she could use to explain herself and put Gayle at ease. However, there were more reasons not to do that than supporting justifications to keep pretending everything was okay. “Actually,” she said, feeling nervous and hating it, “things have been a little rough.”

  “Really? What’s going on?”

  Sadie took a breath and laid it all out there.

  “Oh. Wow,” Gayle said when Sadie finally ran out of words. Sadie braced herself for the inevitable “Why didn’t you tell me?” comment, but instead, Gayle shored up her best friend status and said, “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

  “So am I,” Sadie said. She then told Gayle about the therapist and about Charlie coming over. “I’m feeling all . . . mixed up about everything. Pete’s trying to find the social worker. I feel so anxious and driven and scared. It’s confusing.” She left out that she also felt incredibly vulnerable.

  “I struggled with anxiety
after my divorce,” Gayle said, sounding embarrassed. “I look back now and can see there was some depression mixed in, but it was awful, not being able to trust your reactions to things, being afraid and not knowing why, not being able to see ahead or make sense of things that happened.”

  Sadie’s throat thickened, and she nodded before realizing Gayle couldn’t see her. “I’ve never felt like this before,” she confided. “I’ve always been a strong person.”

  “You’re still strong,” Gayle said. “Anxiety doesn’t make you less than what you are at your core, but it’s really hard to see you amid everything else that’s going on. And coming up with coping mechanisms to deal with it just compounds things.”

  “Coping mechanisms?” Sadie repeated.

  “Things that protect you from the anxiety,” Gayle clarified. “Like not going out as much to avoid things that seem scary, or drinking too much, or getting angry so no one can see you’re so scared—things like that.”

  Sadie automatically listed the coping mechanisms she’d developed to avoid her own anxiety—not making friends, not being honest with the people who cared about her, and isolating herself. She hadn’t seen them as things she was doing to avoid scary situations that would trigger her anxiety, but with Gayle’s definition fresh in her ears, she could see them for what they were.

  “I’m so sorry you’re facing it,” Gayle added after a pause.

  “But you got better?” Sadie asked, needing hope.

  “I did,” Gayle said. “For the most part. I still have moments, but I know how to deal with them now, and I know why they’re really there. And, believe it or not, I think I’m stronger because of that period of time; I learned how to confront hard things in new ways. I had a good therapist and some great friends.”

  “I didn’t even know,” Sadie said, feeling bad she hadn’t been one of those great friends. She hadn’t even noticed.

  “No one knew, other than my kids and my sister,” Gayle said. “But that doesn’t mean great friends didn’t help me all the same. You were always my cheerleader, even if you just thought I was devastated that Harold left me like he did. My friends helped me have somewhere to go, and they let me be angry, which I needed to be, and they let me see that there was still life to be lived.”

  Sadie nearly asked why Gayle hadn’t told her about it—maybe she could have helped more—but she already knew the answer. It was the same reason why Sadie had kept things to herself: embarrassment, fear of rejection, not feeling capable of carrying the burden of knowledge for someone else who would then worry.

  They talked until Gayle arrived at her office; she’d called Sadie while she drove back from lunch. “I’ll call you later, okay?” she said.

  Sadie thanked her, and they ended the call. A few minutes later, her phone rang again. It was Gayle, and Sadie furrowed her brow, wondering what Gayle had forgotten to say.

  “I thought you were at work,” Sadie said.

  “I was, I mean, I am.” Gayle took a quick breath. “I’m just gonna throw this out there, and I already know what your automatic answer will be so just don’t say it right away, okay? Just think about it for a minute.”

  Sadie braced herself. “O-kay.”

  “I told you how Denny’s niece, Barb, has been training with me for a few weeks, right?” Denny was Dr. Lithgo to everyone else and the best optometrist in Garrison. Gayle had managed the front desk and optical center of his practice for almost sixteen years.

  “Yes, that’s why you could take your vacation and visit me next week,” Sadie said. Barb was going to be running the new optical office in Sterling when it opened in May. Dr. Lithgo was bringing on a new doctor who would split time with him at both locations. Sadie’s heart stilled for a moment as she considered that maybe Gayle couldn’t come, that something had happened and Barb couldn’t cover for her after all.

  “Right,” Gayle said. “The opening for the Sterling office has been delayed, again, which means she’s going to be in the office with me for an additional three weeks. We’ll be lucky to get it open by Memorial Day at the rate things are going.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sadie said. When she’d talked to Gayle almost two weeks ago, the conversation had been full of complaints about Barb, who had just started her training. Gayle liked to rule her own roost and was irritated by the younger woman being underfoot within her domain.

  “It’s okay,” Gayle said quickly. “The thing is, I have, like, two months of vacation stacked up and no reason to stay here now that Barb knows how to do everything. What if I came out there sooner? Stayed two weeks instead of one. I could use the break.”

  Sadie blinked. “Uh . . .”

  “I know your automatic reaction is to say no,” Gayle said in a rush. “That’s why I want you to think about the responsibility you’d be taking upon yourself to deny me the chance to come out there when I have coverage at the office and I am in such desperate need of a vacation. I mean we’ve already established that you’re dealing with a lot of pressure right now. Do you really feel capable of carrying the burden of denying me an extra couple of weeks in paradise along with everything else?”

  “Are you using my anxiety issues to manipulate me into agreeing to have you come?” The banter felt good, though. Really good. Sadie knew she was safe with Gayle.

  “I’m not sure I’d say it quite like that.”

  “How would you say it, then, if I gave you a second chance?”

  “Um.” Even though Gayle was thousands of miles away, Sadie knew she was biting her lip and twisting a lock of her red hair between her fingers. “Okay,” Gayle said, gearing up for a second attempt. “Please let me come,” she begged. “Did I tell you that Barb is a size four and every day talks about how she needs to lose weight? She doesn’t even look like a grown woman. If she needs to lose weight, what does she think when she looks at me?”

  Gayle had never apologized for being a full-figured woman. It helped that her figure, full though it may be, was amazing. Still, skinny women who whined about their weight had always rubbed her the wrong way. “She’s making me crazy, Sadie. If that’s not enough to convince you I need a longer vacation, it’s been raining for three weeks out here. Sadie, spring is being held hostage, I swear, and I am going crazy. And did I mention that I found out George wears a toupee?”

  “No,” Sadie breathed, a smile hovering around her lips.

  “Yes!” Gayle said. “We were on the couch, watching a movie, and I started running my fingers through what I thought was his hair, and he tried to stop me. I thought he was being playful and . . .” She made a shuddering sound. “I managed to avoid him for a few days, but then he confronted me on my way to my car after work. I told him how I feel about fake hair, and he had the gall to call me shallow. Me! I have depth, Sadie, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for a man lacking in self-confidence, oh no it does not! I think I had already taken great strides by dating a man named George in the first place, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.”

  Sadie put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

  “Please let me come sooner,” Gayle said. “It will solve all my problems, and maybe help you out too. Please. If you need some time to think about it, that’s okay. I can call you after work or something.”

  “Can you even change your tickets?” Sadie asked.

  “I’m sure I can. One of my clients works part-time for Delta, and he helped me when my aunt Grace’s funeral was bumped back a few days to give her son time to come home from Iraq. Barb and I are stepping all over each another, and now that the Sterling office is being delayed, she’s going to be underfoot even longer. The office will be fine—better, even, without Barb and me racing to answer the phone at the same time. I just need you to tell me you want me to come sooner than we planned and to stay longer. I can take care of everything but that.”

  Did Sadie want her to come? Her instant reaction was to feel bad at having Gayle go to such expense, time, and money to fix Sadie. Thou
gh veiled as a solution to all Gayle’s problems, Sadie knew this was really Gayle coming to the rescue. She wasn’t used to playing the damsel in distress role, but Gayle had told her not to go with the automatic answer. What, then, was Sadie’s second answer?

  “Like I said,” Gayle continued when Sadie didn’t say anything. There were trace amounts of defeat in her tone. “You can take your time to think about it. I’m really not trying to put you on the spot or—”

  “Yes,” Sadie cut in.

  “Yes?” Gayle repeated, her tone rising. “Really?” she practically squeaked.

  “Yes,” Sadie said with a laugh, though it quickly fizzled. “But, you have to know that I’m . . . different.”

  “I know,” Gayle said in a motherly way. “And I understand.”

  “And I’m looking into the life of the woman I found.” Saying it out loud was hard. Really hard.

  “Ohhh,” Gayle said.