The Aloha Spirit

by Linda Ulleseit

  A priest entered. Grateful for the doctor’s instinct, Dolores crossed herself.

  “Is she a baptized Catholic?” the priest asked.

  Dolores nodded her head. “Why would God take my family, Father?”

  “It’s unusual to perform Last Rites on a baby,” the priest began.

  Dolores’s mouth went dry at the words. “Please,” she begged him.

  He removed the stole from around his neck, murmured a Latin prayer, kissed it, and replaced it. He raised both hands toward heaven. “Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, audtiotum, odorátum, gustum et locutiónem, tactum, gressum deliquisti.”

  The Latin surrounded Dolores, the comfort of her religion, the only constant comfort in her life. She drew strength from the words. She didn’t know their exact English meaning but knew they focused God’s love on her daughter.

  The doctor raised the oxygen tent, and the priest pulled a vial of holy water out of a hidden pocket in his robe. Dolores realized he must be asked to do emergency sacraments often at Queen’s. She blinked quickly to keep her eyes clear of tears as he made the cross on her baby’s forehead. Grandma Jessie and Dolores made their own sign of the cross as the priest traced the cross on Carmen’s hot forehead.

  The priest took his leave with Grandma Jessie’s thanks. Dolores remembered Carmen’s baptism, at just a few weeks old, as a joyous occasion celebrating a new soul pledged to God. Now, just six short months later, her father wasn’t even here for her Last Rites.

  Dolores stared at Carmen as the doctor replaced the oxygen tent. A tear slid down her cheek, and she accepted defeat. As she cried, someone handed her a handkerchief.

  Manolo put his arm around her. Dolores hadn’t even noticed his arrival. She didn’t know whether to lean in or pull away. “Better now?” he asked.

  “Are you?” Her words came out more sharply than she intended, but she didn’t apologize. “You missed her Last Rites.”

  The doctor looked at Manolo, his eyebrows raised. “I’m the baby’s father,” Manolo said.

  Grandma Jessie said, “Let’s go sit down and let the doctors work.”

  They returned to the waiting room where Alberto was pacing. Manolo joined his nephew while his mother clutched his wife’s hand. Dolores felt love and support from her mother-in-law. Alberto’s pacing showed his concern and support. Manolo was neutral. He was here because the family expected him to be. If Alberto hadn’t fetched him, would Manolo have come? He would have awakened to an empty house and gone to his mother’s. Grandma Jessie was always in her kitchen. Would Manolo have worried? Helen would have told him where they were. Would Manolo have felt fear? Guilt? Dolores didn’t know. She realized she didn’t know her husband well at all. Maria had been right. They’d married too soon. She didn’t know how he felt, and she wanted the support of the women in his family, not him. Dolores began to cry. Grandma Jessie patted her hand.

  An overwhelming sense of illness and death drenched these walls. Above her, below her, on all sides, hundreds of sick and dying people were suffering. A thousand white-clad professionals zipped in and out with contraptions and medicine and forced good cheer. Carmen was at peace with God, and that eased Dolores’s fears. Without God, how could anyone have hope? Dolores forced her attention to the doctor who had followed them from Carmen’s room.

  “Pneumonia is serious for such little lungs. We’ll put her on pure oxygen, start antibiotics.” The doctor’s voice was solemn. It contained no hope. Dolores sank into a chair Manolo brought over to her.

  “Where could she get pneumonia?” Manolo asked.

  The doctor shrugged. “Almost anywhere. It’s the season.”

  Dolores thought about the huge family—Manolo’s siblings, their spouses and children, the older generation—and countless friends and neighbors, all kissing and holding the baby. If pneumonia was anywhere in Hawai‘i, it could have found its way to their baby.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Medeiros,” the doctor said as he left them.

  The nurse brought a glass of water and knelt beside Dolores with soothing words and a soft rub on her arm. What ancient medical genius taught that a glass of water cures all ills?

  Grandma Jessie squeezed Dolores’s hands, as if to imbue the new mother with her strength. Grandma Jessie clutched a rabbit’s foot in her other hand, her superstitions always prevalent. Family arrived. Helen. Manolo’s brothers and their wives. Manolo filled them in on Carmen’s condition, and they took over a waiting room near the baby’s room. Their presence supported Dolores with the unspoken strength of faith and family.

  “Babies aren’t as fragile as you think,” Grandma Jessie told Dolores. “They make it through very serious illnesses. We’ll all pray to Jesus for a miracle to help our little Carmen fight.” She took a rosary out of her purse and wrapped it in their clasped hands. She made the sign of the cross and said, “Em Nome do Pai e do Filho e do Espírito Santo. Amen.”

  Her prayers were always in Portuguese. Dolores echoed her in English, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Ruth arrived and brought Dolores a dress and shoes. She changed in the bathroom, at least looking better once she put on some lipstick and combed her hair. They sat in silence as the day wore on. The hospital showed no indication of the passing hours. Nighttime looked the same as daytime. Family came and went. Manolo’s brothers stayed briefly, their wives longer. The children were in school. Alberto stayed, hovering around the periphery, lending support without requiring interaction. He took Manolo to get lunch and brought Dolores coffee and pastry when she declined to join them.

  A day, a week, a month later—Dolores was sure it wasn’t as long as it felt—the doctor stood before them. Dolores rose on trembling legs. He scanned the faces of those who were here—Grandma Jessie, Manolo, Alberto—and spoke to Dolores. “She’s fighting and holding her own.”

  She was very, very sick, but she was alive. Dolores felt a slight relief at that.

  “Come on, Vovô, I drive you home,” Alberto said. He offered Grandma Jessie his hand.

  Manolo looked at Dolores. “Are you staying?” At her nod, he said, “I’ll be back later.”

  They left Dolores alone with her God and her sick little girl. She went into the baby’s room and sat in the chair where she could see Carmen’s tiny body. All night she stared at her baby’s chest, watching it rise and fall in time with the machine. Once or twice she looked out the window where the palm trees swayed in a moonlit sky. Then her gaze returned to the crib, where the only family in the world that was truly hers struggled for life.

  In the wee hours of the morning, Alberto returned, but Manolo did not. Alberto ran a hand through his dark hair and sat beside her without a word. It was a time of night where words were unnecessary. His presence comforted her, and Dolores didn’t have to tell him so.

  Natural light from the window faded with dusk and brightened with dawn, and still Manolo had not returned. A breeze waved the flowers of a bird of paradise plant outside the window. Birds hidden in its foliage twittered. Even lit with glorious dawn, the view couldn’t hold Dolores’s interest as much as the beeps and blinks of Carmen’s machines. Early in the morning, Alberto left, squeezing her hand on his way out and saying, “Manolo is all right. He’s book smart like my father. He’ll do well in business. His common sense is lacking, but he’ll provide for you and the babe.”

  Dolores nodded, pleased that he cared. “I know. Mahalo.”

  She was too worried to be angry with Manolo over his absence. They didn’t both need to be there for Carmen, but part of her wished he would be there for her. It was another hour before he arrived with coffee and fresh malasadas from his mother. “Dolores, you must eat. When Carmen comes home, she’ll need you to be strong.”

  Dolores took a bite of the sugary fried dough and a sip of the coffee. “Mahalo,” she told him. He was dressed in his usual white shirt and tie, looking neat. She was a mess.r />
  He looked at the clock on the wall. “I have to go to work. I can’t sit here and watch her die.”

  “She won’t die.” Dolores’s conviction gave the words strength. “I’ll stay with her. There’s no reason for us both to be here. I’ll send someone if there’s any change.”

  He nodded, kissed her and held her tight for a moment, then left.

  When the doctor arrived, he greeted her solemnly. “Mrs. Medeiros.”

  Dolores nodded. “Doctor, how is she?”

  He checked the machine, opened the oxygen tent, and listened with his stethoscope to Carmen’s tiny heart. Showing no reaction, he closed the tent back up and turned to Dolores.

  She gripped the arms of the chair, her stomach roiling. She forced herself to breathe, in and out, in and out, to the rhythm of the machine.

  He looked up from his charts. “She’s going to live.”

  Dolores was numb with relief. The doctor smiled and left the room.

  IT took a week for the doctors to declare Carmen out of danger and discharge her.

  Dolores called Manolo at work. “She’s coming home today!” Triumphant happiness surged through her.

  “That’s wonderful. But I can’t get away right now. There’s an urgent problem I need to deal with.” He sounded distracted.

  “I understand.” Dolores felt her joy dissipate as she hung up the phone and turned back to the crib. Carmen was awake but sleepy. Dolores stroked her pale cheek. Then she picked up the phone again.

  Alberto didn’t ask questions about Manolo. “Lemme grab car keys. I be right der.”

  Grateful beyond words, Dolores beamed. “Mahalo, nephew.” He laughed. Technically, he was her nephew since his mother was Manolo’s oldest sister, but he was only four years younger.

  Dolores dressed Carmen in one of her prettiest dresses. She held the baby tightly as tears filled her eyes. She trembled, overcome with emotion.

  Alberto stroked the baby’s cheek. Getting close to her face, he said, “Enough a dis drama, Carmen. We go home, ya?”

  It was a brilliant day of tropical sunshine and clear blue sky. The trade winds ruffled the palm fronds high above them. Alberto took a detour and drove them down Fort Street. Dolores’s eyes opened wide in awe. Someone had strung Christmas garlands across the street as usual, but this year they were illuminated. Wreaths adorned lampposts and shop doors.

  “It’s beautiful,” she told him.

  “We come back at night. Carmen will like the lights.”

  He turned for home, and contentment eased the tension that had been Dolores’s companion for the past week.

  CHRISTMAS spirit infused them all with goodwill. No one argued or complained. With Carmen home and healthy, an already joyful season became even more so. Ruth and Dolores gave their children presents on Christmas Eve at Dolores’s house.

  “What is it, Winona?” Ruth encouraged her oldest, three-year-old Winona, to open the present.

  The girl tore the wrappings. “A doll!” She picked the doll up, and its eyes opened. She experimented and put it down again. The eyes closed. “Like a real baby.”

  Ruth had saved her money for months to buy the doll, and she’d made extra outfits for it herself.

  William looked at his present skeptically. “Dolly?” It was a different sized box, long and thin, but at two he couldn’t make that connection.

  “Open it, honey,” Ruth said. “I know boys don’t play with dolls.”

  He tore the paper open and jumped up. “A horse!” The stick horse had a painted head on one end and wheels on the other. William threw a leg over it and galloped around the house.

  “Oh, goodie,” Dolores said, “we’ll have to put away anything he can crash into.”

  Ruth laughed, and Dolores joined in.

  Rosa and Carmen were too young to open their own presents, so they let Winona help. Ruth and Dolores had made each other’s baby a new dress. “When did you make this?” they asked at the same time.

  The crash of the front door startled them. “Mele Kalikimaka!” Manolo shouted as he came into the room on unsteady legs, supported by Alberto.

  “Merry Christmas, Alberto. How was the office party, Manolo?” Dolores said. She felt Ruth’s eyes but refused to look at her.

  “I’m so tired. Going to bed.” Manolo stumbled down the hallway.

  Dolores didn’t move to help him. “Mele Kalikimaka, ladies,” Alberto said. “I see you tomorrow fo’ dinner.” He turned to go.

  “Alberto,” Dolores said. He waited. “Mahalo.”

  He waved her off and left. The door closed behind him.

  “Love is a strange thing,” Ruth said. “You fall in love with the nice things they do and ignore the bad.”

  “It’s easier to look past some things when they are loving,” Dolores said.

  “How long can a woman be expected to look past, though?” Ruth asked.

  “As long as she must,” Dolores said. “A marriage is not always a beach being kissed by the sea.”

  Ruth smiled. “Alberto says that.”

  They were quiet for a moment. The absence of their husbands loomed between them. Every now and then, Ruth’s brothers teased her about her invisible husband. Dolores wondered what it was like for Ruth when he came home. At least Manolo was there. When he wasn’t drunk, he was a good father.

  “He loves me,” Dolores told her sister-in-law. “And he loves Carmen. That’s enough.”

  FIFTEEN

  New Year 1933

  Putting away the holiday decorations was always bittersweet. It marked the end to a time of happiness, good food, and family celebration, but it was nice to get the house back to normal. Manolo wanted to hold on to the festive spirit. “Don’t put the garlands away yet,” he said.

  “When the decorations begin to gather dust, they come down. I won’t dust holiday decorations.”

  He sighed but didn’t get up to help her.

  “Can you get me the ladder?” she asked.

  “Really, Dolores? Do you know how hard I work all day? Then I come home, and you expect me to work even more. When I’m home, work is pau. All done.”

  She stared at him. “Keeping a house and child is hardly a picnic in the park.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s what all homemakers say. Tell you what. You come to work with me for a day and see how hard a man works.”

  Dolores’s hands whitened as she gripped the garland. “That’s a mean thing to say.”

  Something in her tone must have alerted him. He looked at her face and said, “Oh, come on. I’m teasing. Of course, you work hard. And I love you for it.”

  But he didn’t get the ladder. She didn’t either. She left a lonely bit of gold garland over the door for three more days before she couldn’t stand it anymore. Dolores waited until Manolo was at work and dragged the ladder in from the carport. She climbed up, removed the garland, and returned the ladder. Furious indignation gave her strength. Manolo came home from work early and never noticed the missing garland. He left before dinner though. “Off to do some business over dinner. Don’t wait up for me.”

  Dolores wondered what business he could conduct over dinner besides drinking. When the doorbell rang scant moments later, she ripped the door open ready to confront him about his absences, his drinking, and his lack of respect.

  Ruth stood on the step with her eyes red with tears. Rosa was in her arms, and the other two children stood close to her. “Oh, Dolores, I don’t know what to do!” she said. She sobbed as she told Dolores that Charles had left her. “He’s sold the house and all our furniture!”

  “You’ll move in here with us.” ‘ohana was everything. “There are rooms downstairs you can use. We’ll fix it up nice, you and I. Come on. Let’s get some cookies for the little ones.”

  Dolores was glad. Ruth was better off without Charles. He hadn’t been around much anyway. At least when he wasn’t around, he couldn’t hit Ruth or be drunk in front of her.

  Downstairs, in the basement, the h
ouse had three small rooms that had been storage for the family since before Manolo and Dolores moved in. Dolores fetched blankets to make beds for Winona and William. “Rosa can share Carmen’s crib,” Dolores said.

  They went upstairs and gathered the children for dinner. Dolores gave Ruth the portion Manolo would have eaten. For the older children, she sliced mango and banana and cut pieces of haupia, the coconut pudding they all loved.

  After they ate and read stories to the children, Dolores and Ruth managed to get all the children to sleep. Dolores made a pot of Kona coffee and sat in the kitchen with Ruth. They drank coffee and ate haupia, and Ruth never asked where Manolo was.

  Over the next few days, Alberto and João cleared the basement. Dolores hadn’t even realized it had a small bathroom. She didn’t ask where all the dusty boxes ended up. Grandma Jessie opened her closets in the main house. “I never throw away anything,” she told Dolores. “You never know when you’ll need it.”

  They found furniture Ruth could use. Alberto retrieved the kids’ things, Ruth’s clothes, and her sewing machine from Charles before the sale of the house went through. He set the machine up in her small bedroom. She could sew for clients there and still watch the children playing on the rug.

  “At yo’ service, Aunties.” His irrepressible grin made them both swat him and laugh.

  “He makes me feel so old!” Dolores told Ruth.

  “Next year you bot’ get canes for Christmas, ya?” Alberto said.

  “Better be careful, Alberto,” Ruth warned. “We can use canes for more than walking.” She pantomimed whacking her nephew on the head.

  He raised his arms in self-defense. “Lōlō wahine! Save me, Dolores!”

  “You’re on your own, buddy.” Dolores laughed.

  Ruth laughed, too, and went to fix the kids a snack.

  “Seriously, Alberto, why do you spent so much time taking care of your aunties?” Dolores asked.

  “You and Ruth are family, ya?” he said. “I help when husbands no can do.” He looked as if he would say more, but then decided not to.