Red Sky Over Hawaii

by Sara Ackerman

  While Mr. Young had kept absolutely everything, her father had kept everything he ever made. Light fixtures made from wood and Hawaiian print fabric, driftwood creatures with copper wire limbs and puka-shell eyes, a bench designed for opening coconuts, gadgets that served a purpose only he understood. Organized chaos, he used to say.

  Now the house was nearly empty, but for the furniture and books. It felt as though its soul had been removed. She went into the bedrooms. Same thing. Had someone come and taken his stuff, or had he moved it somewhere? Strange, he hadn’t mentioned it on the phone. Lana sunk into a chair, perplexed.

  As she sat there, the letter in her pocket felt as heavy as a lead fishing weight. To read or not to read? On the one hand, she was curious and knew it was the rational thing to do; on the other, reading the letter would be like reading the last page of a beloved book. Once those words came out, there would be nothing more. She pulled it out and set it on the table.

  Someone rang the cowbell at the door. “Hello?” A tall woman stood outside the screen peering in, a girl on each side of her.

  Lana greeted them and invited them in. The woman introduced herself as Ingrid Wagner, and the girls as Marie and Coco. Ingrid wore a stylish blue-and-white sleeveless dress, and all three of them were barefoot. “We are so sorry about your father. Dr. Woodell called us this morning to break the news.” She had a strong German accent. “Jack felt like family to us,” she said with genuine sadness.

  The older girl said, “We help him feed and take care of Gin and Tonic.”

  “Gin and Tonic?”

  “The geese. Your father had a sense of humor, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, the geese, that’s right,” Lana said, laughing nervously.

  Up until this moment, there had been no mention of geese. And how much did these people know about her anyway? Surely if they had lived here any amount of time, they would have known that Lana had not set foot on the property recently. The ungrateful daughter.

  “Anything that walks on four legs, swims or flies, and my girls want to be involved,” Ingrid said, glancing at the girls with adoration plastered all over her face.

  “How long have you folks been here?” Lana said.

  “In Hilo for six years and this house for four. My husband struck up a friendship with Mr. Young, who used to come into our store, and he agreed to pass on the house when he died.”

  How anyone could have seen through all that junk, Lana would never know. Mr. Wagner must have a good imagination.

  “What kind of store do you own?”

  “Oh, dry goods of all sorts. We specialize in watches and radios, too.”

  A strange racket started up outside.

  Marie smiled. “The geese want their dinner. Come meet them!”

  “Honey, she probably wants to be left alone,” Ingrid said, then turned to Lana. “We’ll leave you, but I just wanted to say hello. And if there is anything at all we can help you with—”

  “You know, I’ll come see the geese,” Lana said.

  As much as she wished they would leave her alone, it felt good to have people around. Despite being a knockout who looked like she belonged in a Vogue magazine, Ingrid seemed very motherly. Something Lana could use about now. They went out back to a large fenced enclosure, complete with a small pond. Leave it to her father to begin collecting nene geese. Whatever struck his fancy, he would dive in up to his teeth. You never knew what strange notions would take up residence in that overactive brain of his.

  Coco opened the gate and waltzed in, ignoring the honking and flapping and threatening-looking behavior. She held tight to her bucket.

  “Careful,” Lana said.

  Ingrid waved her hand as though it were nothing. “He’s just posturing.”

  Next to the pond, Coco emptied out the bucket, and the geese converged on the berries and grass as though they hadn’t eaten in weeks. The little girl crouched down and began stroking the smaller goose on the back.

  Ingrid leaned close and spoke quietly. “Coco may have her quirks, and she’s not an easy child, but boy, does she love these geese. And they love her back.”

  Lana decided that the woman smelled like marshmallows. This was the perfect solution. “I suppose I should ask, then—would you like to keep them? I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them, and I certainly can’t take them back to O‘ahu with me,” Lana said.

  “I can ask Fred. I know Coco would be devastated to see them go.”

  “And for now, they could stay here at the house.”

  Ingrid looked as though she had swallowed a plum. Her sky-blue eyes widened. “You don’t know, then...”

  “Know what?”

  “Meine liebe, your father sold us his house, too.”

  An invisible hand slapped Lana across the face. “What?”

  This house that she had purposefully stayed away from suddenly seemed essential as air, more valuable than every other possession. This would have to be undone.

  “It was your father’s idea. He said he needed the money for a project, and that you had no interest whatsoever. We want more kids and horses and dogs, so it made sense,” Ingrid said, her singsong voice now strained under the weight of bad news.

  “When did he do this?”

  “Earlier this year, but we said he could stay for a while.”

  All worry about pretenses evaporated. “What was the project he needed money for?” Lana asked.

  “He kept it to himself, but he did say he would tell us when the time was right. He would disappear for stretches of time. A week here, a few weeks there.”

  Jack had gone through an assortment of obsessions, always the next big invention, and usually ended up more broke than when he started. Pulley systems for cane, earthquake warning systems, amphibious vehicles. What would have made him sell off the house?

  “Would anyone else know?”

  Ingrid shrugged. “Beats me. He had that old fisherman friend, Mr. Mochizuki, I think? And a few others I saw around here. But most of my time lately has been at the shop.”

  Hawaii had a knack for attracting adventurous and ambitious people, the kind who would move clear around the globe for a better life. Lana admired that. The slamming of the enclosure gate startled her back to the geese and tall grass. Coco skipped past them humming.

  “Look, feel free to stay as long as you need to. To sort out your father’s affairs and figure out what to do next. Will your husband be joining you?” Ingrid said.

  Lana winced at the word husband. For so many years now she had been known as Buck Hitchcock’s wife. All around town that was how she was introduced. Never just Lana.

  “We’re separated.”

  Spoken aloud for the first time, it was like hearing the words from someone else. Yet this was her life. She was now a family of one.

  “What a hard time this must be for you. I’m sorry.”

  “Feast or famine, you know how that goes,” Lana said, though it was quite possible that Mrs. Wagner did not know. She seemed like that kind of person.

  “Would you come for breakfast in the morning? I hate for you to be handling this alone. And your father was like family to us.”

  Lana wasn’t in the mood to socialize but couldn’t come up with an excuse fast enough. “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  The whole thing felt like a sad dream. Just then a shiny black car turned up the Wagners’ drive. A massive dog hung halfway out the window, pink tongue flapping in the wind. Both girls took off running.

  “Here’s Fred,” said Ingrid, waving as though she hadn’t seen him in weeks.

  Lana said goodbye and made a hasty retreat into the now dark house. Before reading the letter, she needed food. Someone had emptied out the fridge, and the cupboards were nearly bare, but she found a can of tuna, a bag of stale Saloon Pilot crackers and a startled cane spider. One
thing she had not missed about Hilo. There was also a big bottle of gin staring her in the face. She wasn’t much of a drinker but poured herself a shot. Why the hell not?

  Within ten minutes she was more than a little woozy and lay down on the pune’e with the letter in hand. She pulled down the string for the light.

  My dear Lana,

  In case I don’t make it through, the first thing I want you to know is that I never once stopped loving you, not for one second of one minute of one day. I wish we could undo stupid decisions, but we can’t. For that I am sorrier than I hope you will ever be, and here is my advice to you: always put people and love first. I don’t care what the circumstance. No amount of pigheaded ideals are worth it. I should know. Damn, my head hurts and I wish I could say more right now. Just know that you will always be my little girl.

  Be careful, Jack

  PS Check the inside of your favorite book.

  Was that it? Lana flipped the paper over. There had to be more. The back was blank. Be careful? Her mouth went dry. What about the house? A burning need to know filled every pore in her body. She glanced over at the bookshelf. The Education of Henry Adams, Pragmatism, The Sound and the Fury, The Theory of Continuous Structures and Arches. She stood, then walked over to the shelf, inhaling the musty book smells. Mixed in with his books were a few she recognized as hers. Riders of the Purple Sage, The Secret of the Old Clock, The Secret Garden. She opened these and leafed through them, even though none had been her favorite. Her hand shook with each turn of the page. Nothing. And then a small slip of paper fell out of The Call of the Wild.

  She picked it up. It was a drawing of a girl standing on a dappled horse, with what looked like honeybees, or maybe fireflies, swarming around them. She had no memory of the drawing but recognized it as her own. What was she even looking for? Her father’s vagueness bothered her, and she was ready to give up, having scanned every row. Then, on the bottom shelf, pushed back and shadowed by two other books, she spotted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A tingling ran across her skin. As a girl, she loved this book so much that the minute she finished, she would go right back to the beginning and start again.

  When she cracked it open, a manila envelope stuffed with papers dropped into her hand. Hale Manu was scrawled across the front—“house of birds.” The name made her smile. Jack was bird obsessed, and he had passed his love onto Lana, who at a young age had memorized every Hawaiian bird in the forest. She went to the table and dumped out the contents: a folded-up sketch of a house, rough but elegant; a piece of paper with directions written on it, starting at Kano Store in Volcano; a key; and a piece of card that read “When the time comes, all are welcome.”

  The room was full of orange light from the homemade lamp and the whirring of moth wings against the screen. She had no idea how long she stared at the words. When the time comes. She thought back to what Ingrid said, about telling them when the time was right. Had her father built a house and said nothing to anyone about it? At the volcano no less. There was only one Kano Store that she knew of. None of it made any sense. Especially the cryptic nature of it all.

  Perhaps he was worried about a tsunami. Or maybe another eruption from Mauna Loa but this time actually reaching Hilo and wiping it out. The only other possibility that came to mind was the attack or invasion by the Japanese that everyone was talking about. What they had done to China was unthinkable, and rumors and headlines had been storming around town, increasing by the week. She felt a strange, heavy feeling inside. Her father had lots of Japanese friends. What if he knew something? The newspaper headline came back to her then: Japanese May Strike over the Weekend. All the more reason to get back to Honolulu, which had a good portion of the US Navy there for protection.

  She had two hundred more questions, but her eyelids kept shutting. It was as if the whole world had tilted under her, and if she didn’t lie down now, there was a good chance she would collapse. No teeth brushing, no changing, no using the bathroom. She fell to the dusty sheets of the pune’e in slow motion and curled into a ball. There was a hollow spot on the mattress in the shape of her father, and the house was so quiet she could almost hear the sound of his knife on a plate, or the shaking of ice around his glass when he’d finished his drink. All of his noises suddenly filled the room.

  As bone tired as she was, Lana lay awake for hours, tossing and turning and crying. Apologizing, rewriting their history, and telling him how mixed-up she felt. She was mad at him for going and dying, mad at herself for not coming back to Hilo sooner. The sad truth was she was the world’s worst daughter.

  THE NEWS

  December 7, 1941 Hilo

  Lana woke to the sound of roosters. For a moment she had no idea where she was, not to mention a terrible case of cotton mouth. As it turned out, gin and tuna were a poor dinner combination. Now her stomach growled with hunger and her temples throbbed. There were so many odds and ends to tackle today that she ordered herself not to think about any of them until after breakfast.

  Coming up the Wagners’ steps with a bouquet of freshly picked ginger, she smelled bacon and something fresh-baked and cinnamony. “Hello,” she called.

  A sudden roar of barking stopped her in her tracks. The door opened and a black-and-white dog bounded out. All paws and limbs, it came nearly up to her waist. Lana wasn’t sure whether to turn and flee or greet the dog in her most assured voice.

  Marie was behind the dog. “Don’t worry, she’s friendly.”

  The dog sniffed and licked and leaned with her whole hundred pounds against Lana, making it impossible for her to move.

  “Sailor, stop,” Marie said, laughing.

  Lana had never encountered such an enormous house pet. So much tongue and slobber, now transferred to her skirt in frothy strings. She enjoyed dogs as much as the next person, but why would anyone want such a huge one?

  The Wagners’ whole house was unrecognizable from the way Lana remembered it, especially the kitchen. Shiny white paint, eyelet curtains, black-and-white checkered linoleum on the kitchen floor, and a spanking-new red refrigerator. Ingrid stood beside the stove in a peach-colored apron, waving around a spatula and singing to the radio when Lana walked in. Mr. Wagner lowered his newspaper and stood to shake her hand.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, you look Hawaiian,” he said, as though this were some huge revelation.

  Ingrid shot him a look.

  “My father never mentioned it?” Lana said.

  “I could ask Jack why my engine was idling high, how to unstick the lawnmower blades or what ships were in port, but we drew the line there. Man talk,” he said, grinning with a set of orderly teeth.

  It sounded exactly right. “My mother was Hawaiian, from Kaua‘i. She died in childbirth,” Lana said.

  That shut him up fast.

  “Now losing Jack must be doubly hard on you. I’m so sorry,” Ingrid said, though Lana guessed that she already knew the story, as a mother herself. Women had a knack for uncovering all kinds of details that wash right past the men. Mothers especially. It seemed as though being a mother elevated you into a special club where you suddenly developed superhuman skills. Lana was not a part of that club and felt like half a woman because of it. By all appearances the Wagners were the perfect family. If Lana hadn’t liked them so much, she would have been wallowing in envy.

  “Coco, come help set the table,” Ingrid called.

  A minute later Coco pranced in with a lizard on her shoulder. She made no eye contact with Lana and announced, “I hear airplanes.”

  Fred peered out from behind the newspaper with slate-colored eyes and bushy brows, tilting his head. “Do you, now?” He and Ingrid exchanged glances.

  It was possible that Lana missed it, with the sizzling bacon and conversation. But everyone quieted. The only sounds were the rustling coconut fronds and cooing doves. She listened hard for engines.

  “Our Coco has an active imagina
tion. Don’t you, dear,” Ingrid said, ruffling up her daughter’s hair.

  Coco went to the window, stood on her tippy toes and looked out. “I’m not making it up, and there are lots of them.”

  A peculiar feeling of unease circled through the room.

  “Honey, maybe you did, or maybe it was just car noise. Now please get the silverware out.”

  The little girl did as she was told, and Lana hoped that the speckled gecko would stay put on Coco’s arm and leave the freshly cut papaya and banana for the people. Coco moved around Lana as though she wasn’t there.

  “Is that a pet?” Lana asked.

  “No, it’s a friend.”

  “Does your friend have a name?”

  Coco looked straight at her and said, “Jack.”

  Lana commanded herself to hold it together.

  Ingrid jumped in. “She really looked up to your father. He talked to her as a real person, not just a kid. And her favorite thing was when he cut open coconuts for her. It got to the point where she would wait on his deck for him to come home in the afternoons. She could never get enough. In fact that’s how she got the nickname Coco. Her real name is Berta.”

  Marie came in with Sailor just then and filled a bucket with water. Sailor drank noisily and then went to a rug and lay down without even being asked. This kitchen was like a warm and cozy center of the universe—you could almost feel it pulsing. No wonder her father had befriended the Wagners.

  “Do you have plans for a service? I would be more than happy to help,” Ingrid said.

  “I haven’t had a chance to think about any of that yet. When I flew over yesterday, I was expecting to be nursing him back to health, not planning a funeral.”

  “You must still be in shock. We all are,” Fred said.

  “It feels that way.”

  Numbness was better than the alternative.

  “I had a dream about him last night,” Coco said.