by Kay Bratt
Helen took a drink of her water and cleared her throat, but it was getting raspier the longer she talked. She looked quite ill.
“Do you want to take a break?” Carmen asked her.
“No. It’s too late to stop now,” Helen said. “So Jules might have been the most free-spirited of all my children, but she was also the most stubborn. Her father said she was just like me, but she’d rather spit in his eye than acknowledge that truth. We thought once they went hungry for a time that she’d come crawling back, but she and that boy figured out a way to make a living without our help. They both loved the water, and Jules had a way with people. Soon they went from giving surfing lessons to owning their own small boat where they led scuba-diving charters. But even with some decent money coming in, they still lived a free-spirited kind of life. Finally, they moved up from a tent to a camper, but I still kept tabs on her, because despite the way she turned her back on all of us, we loved her.”
The old woman looked away when she spoke of love. Maybe she wasn’t as hard-hearted as she appeared.
Helen swallowed visibly, then continued, “When she had her first child, Jonah, she brought him to see us, and we tried again to get her to come home, to raise the boy here in a safe place with his cousins and other family like she’d been raised. But she refused. Her visits were infrequent, but she wasn’t cruel enough to completely keep me from my grandson. We called a silent truce so that Jonah could know his grandparents and other family. A few peaceful years went by, and then she had her second child.”
Helen paused, her expression lost in a memory they couldn’t see. Quinn could swear she saw a few tears glistening in her eyes, but if they were there, they were blinked away quickly.
Then she stared at Quinn again. “Her second child was a girl. A tiny snip of a thing she was, her features a blend of her mother’s Native Hawaiian heritage and her father’s Scandinavian one. From the very first week they brought her home, that child took to the water, and her father called her his little Nama, short for Namaka, who was a water spirit and the god of the sea. She was the center of their world, and having her softened them both. My daughter had matured, and her sense of ohana was coming back. She couldn’t resist the pull of family, and, finally, I felt that we were in a place of healing. After some convincing, I even managed to pull together a small wedding so that Jules and Noah would be legal and the children could have his name without complications. As a wedding gift, we bought them a small piece of property near the beach, where they built a humble house. They did nearly everything themselves, insisting it would be their forever home and they wanted their mark on it. Their goal was to be self-sufficient eventually, so it had solar panels and all that other stuff those off-the-grid people do. They planted fruit trees, and last I saw, they had a huge garden.”
Quinn had to admit, the story that Helen was telling about her daughter may have been unsettling to her as a mother, but it sounded very romantic from the viewpoint of Jules and Noah.
Helen rocked back and forth for a moment, catching her breath.
“Life went on, but our relationship was still tenuous. Jules and Noah didn’t want to accept any more gifts and strove to maintain their simple life. They embraced the land we’d bought them but turned away from any other offerings. They wanted to do things on their own, and their visits were few and far between as they worked to build their business.”
She stopped talking and moving, sitting completely still. Her eyes on her hands clasped tightly together in her lap.
“Tell her the rest, Helen,” Carmen said.
Helen looked up again. “I didn’t hear from my daughter again until months later, when she called me, hysterical and begging for my help. Nama was missing. She and Jonah had fallen off the boat when an unexpected squall came up during a scuba tour. Her brother was found immediately, but Nama had disappeared, and, at less than two years old, was thought to be drowned.”
Both Quinn and Maggie gasped at the same time.
“With my daughter on the other end of the phone, I fell to my knees, broken in the knowledge that the curse had found my granddaughter, and this time it was exacting the ultimate punishment for deeds done long before she was born.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Quinn watched Helen closely. The woman looked drained, her complexion now a pasty white, the circles under her eyes darker.
Carmen went to her and knelt, searching her face as she took her hand. “How do you feel?” she asked her.
“Relieved,” Helen said. “But also afraid. Very afraid.”
“You rest now,” Carmen said. “This is almost over. It’s my turn.”
Helen nodded, then laid her head against the back of the rocker. She didn’t move, seeming too exhausted to even find comfort in rocking back and forth.
Carmen returned to the couch and removed a colorful crocheted coverlet from the back, then took it over and spread it across Helen’s lap.
When she took her seat again, she leaned forward. “I’m the same age as Jules, but my life was as far from her kind of lifestyle as one could be. Jules was born into money, and her family had it scattered in many investments in every direction, while the Crowes’ net worth was and remains tied to the land. We owned a small ranch in Hana, and we paid our bills by raising cattle. We also had horses, goats, and all the things a child loves to grow up around. To me it was the best place on earth.”
So she was just a country girl at heart. That explained the boots, pickup truck, and her scuffed-up jeans, as well as the rough way she carried herself. Quinn couldn’t even imagine her in a dress or wearing a ring the size of the rock that Helen wore.
“When I was about seven or eight, I was given a horse. From the moment we saw each other, we had a bond that transcended explanation. His name was Wiley, and I woke each and every morning hours before school would begin so that I could start the day with him. My other love was for the land our family owned. Wiley and I rode every trail around our ranch and the mountain several times a week, imprinting our presence into the soil. He loved it there as much as I did, this I instinctively knew. Once, Wiley caught some sort of virus that was rare but deadly among the herd. I slept with him every night until he finally recovered. My parents said he should’ve died, but he couldn’t find the will to leave me, so he carried on further than what most animals could’ve done.”
She paused, lost in thought for a moment.
“When I was eleven, our barn was set on fire. It burned for hours before we even woke and sounded the alarm. Wiley died before we could get him out. He would’ve lived another twenty years if it weren’t for the hatred of a reckless human. I knew I had let him down when he needed me the most, and I slipped into a terrible depression that took far too long to overcome.”
A tear ran down her face, and Quinn felt moved to comfort her but refrained. She didn’t look like the type to want anyone’s pity.
“I never really got over it, even when my parents gave me another horse. I loved him, but we didn’t have the bond that Wiley and I did. When I got older, I heard the rumors that the fire was no accident. My brother told me he thought it was probably set by one of the Rochas, the family who’d lost their barn and part of their house in a fire years before and blamed our family.”
Helen looked pained before adjusting her expression again.
“I was shocked at the story my brother told me. I hadn’t even known about this vendetta until then. I understood then that Wiley’s death was some sort of eye-for-an-eye act of retribution. But what the Rochas didn’t understand is that we didn’t set their fire, and their act of revenge took away my best friend and made them an enemy for life. I’m ashamed to admit it, but a seed of hatred for the Rochas sprouted in me and grew fast and hard. It was an uncontrollable kind of hate, and I longed to find a way to make them pay for what they did to Wiley. One day when I was out walking by the sea, the universe delivered an answer to my prayers.”
“What was it?” Quinn asked.
“
I was looking out across the water, searching for marine life and hoping to see a whale or at least a dolphin, but some movement in the high grass on the dunes caught my eye. I went over, thinking maybe it was a stray dog, but it was a child. A pale, shivering little girl. She’d dug herself a hole and lay with her legs pulled up to her chest.”
“You found Nama?” Quinn asked, putting the two stories together.
Carmen nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“How did you know it was her?” Maggie asked.
“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out,” Carmen said. “I’d seen the news and read the papers. The headlines were everywhere: ‘Young Heiress to Rocha Estate Lost at Sea.’ And I’ll admit, every time I saw the words or listened to a new report, I felt a stir of triumph. I didn’t want a child to die, but I’m ashamed to say that I was enjoying the fact that the family was suffering.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s just sick,” Quinn said, unable to stop herself.
She looked at Helen, who sat rocking with her eyes closed.
“I know it is,” Carmen said, choking over the words. “I’m not that person now. But back then I was young and stupid, barely twenty years old, and you have to understand, not only had the Rochas taken the life of my horse, but I had also learned that the land I so loved was only a tiny portion of what was really ours. The great-grandfather of that missing girl had stolen my legacy. My land. And I was livid.”
“Tell the rest,” Helen said, opening her eyes weakly.
“I bent down and tried to talk to her. At first she didn’t respond. She wouldn’t even open her eyes. My mind was spinning; I couldn’t believe the luck that I, of all people, was the one to find the Rocha child, and now she was going to die anyway. I felt sad for the impending loss of such a beautiful being.” Carmen paused, looking pointedly at Quinn. “But then she opened her eyes and looked up at me.”
Quinn had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
“I argued with myself on that beach as I comforted her,” Carmen said. “I knew the right thing to do, but that deeply cultivated hatred burned in me, and I wanted to make the family suffer just a while longer.”
Quinn looked from Carmen to Helen, amazed that they could even be in the same room together. How could Helen just sit there and listen to Carmen talk about finding her granddaughter and deciding to make them suffer longer? What kind of people were these? Something really strange was going on between the two of them, and Quinn couldn’t figure it out.
“Wrap it up, Carmen,” Helen said. “It’s my turn, and we need to finish this.”
Carmen nodded. “I only kept her a day until my conscience got the better of me. For all she’d been through, she bounced back fast. Sure, she was weak and dehydrated—even sunburned—but after some food, water, and rest, she seemed okay. I was so relieved that I almost went straight to the police with her, but I just couldn’t do it. I thought somehow once the Rochas heard that a Crowe had found Nama, they’d accuse me of kidnapping her. I could just imagine the news picking up on our ‘Hatfields and McCoys’ story and splashing our family name all over the headlines, right alongside a snapped photo of them walking me into the jail with handcuffs.”
“So what did you do?” Maggie asked. Quinn could tell by her voice that she was getting very impatient.
“What I wanted to do was hand her over without any media involved, so I tried to find a number to call the child’s mother. She didn’t have a phone listed, so when Nama was asleep, I snuck out and went downtown. I looked for one of the posters with her face on it, then called the number.”
She looked at Helen pointedly.
Helen picked up the story. “Jules and her husband wouldn’t leave their boat. Night and day they were out searching, so the posted number was mine. I was alone the day that I got the call. At first I thought it was another prank. We had listed a substantial reward to anyone who found Nama, and most of the fishermen had set aside their work to hunt for her and grab a payday that was probably more than they made in a year. We had a few false leads, people trying to weasel the money out of us before handing over our granddaughter. When Carmen said she had her, I was so tired of it all that I called her a liar.”
“I didn’t want her money,” Carmen said. “When I told her that, she was taken aback. But when I mentioned the tiny birthmark behind Nama’s ear, she shut up and started listening.”
“The officials didn’t release that information in case we needed something to identify her that no one could replicate,” Helen said. “When Carmen said something about it, I knew that she might have really found our Nama. When she told me she was a Crowe, I was stunned, and then I was terrified. It was the curse that had dropped Nama into the sea and then hidden her from all the searchers only to deliver her to our family’s biggest enemy.”
“So you returned her?” Quinn asked Carmen.
“No, she didn’t,” Helen answered for her. “Nama had survived the unsurvivable, and I felt that if we took her back, something worse would happen to her.”
“What the hell kind of messed-up story is this?” Maggie said.
Helen nodded. “Back then, my thoughts were that this event had happened this exact way for a reason. Fate had delivered one of ours straight into the arms of a Crowe. That meant we should give Nama up as penance for the wrongs our family had done to the Crowes. If we did, the curse would end, and my remaining and future grandchildren wouldn’t be in danger. I thought that eventually the loss of Nama would bring us all together again as a family. We’d gather to grieve, and then heal.”
Quinn could feel herself getting angry. “Do you know how absolutely insane that sounds?” she asked the old woman.
“I do. But by the time I realized how wrong it was, the deed was done.”
Quinn stood and Helen did, too, facing her, suddenly strong and imposing. “You’ve known where this story was going all along, Quinn. You could’ve stopped it at any time. You wanted to know the truth.”
Quinn reached up and felt behind her left ear, her finger rubbing the birthmark she’d hated her entire life. Yes, she’d known it at least halfway in. But that lost child didn’t exist anymore. Nama, Quinn thought, finally admitting it to herself. I’m Nama. She sat back down, weak in the knees. She closed her eyes and tried to process the sudden realization. If she belonged to Jules and Noah, then Elizabeth wasn’t her mother?
“I want to hear the rest of it,” Quinn said.
“I tried to bribe Carmen to take you to the mainland,” Helen said. “I told her I’d give her enough to get a new start, and I’d arrange for the best identification documents that could be had, that she’d never be found out. I just wanted her to keep Nama safe until she was older. I planned to also set aside a trust for Nama that she would get one day when I was gone. But Carmen wouldn’t leave Maui. She couldn’t break the connection to her people’s land for any price.”
Quinn’s anger was chased away in a rush of adrenaline and realization. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know who she was anymore. But their stories still didn’t answer everything she needed to know.
She locked eyes with Carmen. “So tell me, who is my mother? Not my biological mother, because obviously you think that was Jules, but Elizabeth, the woman who raised me?”
“Beth was my best friend,” Carmen said. “I chose her because I could trust her, and I knew she could disappear without it looking suspicious.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Helen got so weak she nearly crumpled over in the rocking chair. Once they determined she was okay, Carmen called off the rest of the meeting, saying she’d fill them in on the last details as they drove home. Helen didn’t argue. She actually seemed relieved.
“Before I leave, what about Jules and Noah? Are they both still living?” Quinn asked, nearly holding her breath as she waited for the answer.
“They are,” Helen said, her voice now a hoarse whisper.
She allowed Carmen to help her to her room, settle
her into her bed, and bring her a hot cup of tea before they locked up and left.
Though Quinn felt a slow stirring of anger at the old woman, she felt bad for leaving her all alone in the spooky house so far up and away from everyone.
The thought that Helen was her grandmother was one that still felt bizarre, and Quinn barely said goodbye to her as Carmen walked her down the hall.
Once in the car and on the way back, Carmen picked up the story. There had already been so much said that Quinn struggled to stay focused. Her head was reeling with information overload and the huge secret her mother had kept her whole life. Now so much of it made sense. Her mother had never wanted her picture taken. She avoided social networking like the plague. She’d never bought a house, a new car, or anything that required credit. She worked housekeeping and nanny jobs that paid under the table so no one would ever scrutinize her credentials. She didn’t make friends, rarely had a boyfriend, and of course never claimed any relatives.
Knowing all this, it was still hard to connect the sweet, doting mother to the profile of a criminal, but Quinn had to admit, her mother had pulled off a crime that not many could. Her mother was a kidnapper. Or was she? They’d given Nama to her. But then, Nama wasn’t theirs to give. If the child hadn’t been declared dead at sea, Quinn could just imagine her mother’s face plastered all over post offices, listed as one of “America’s Most Wanted.”
It was too much. This couldn’t be real.
But it was.
She still couldn’t think of herself as Nama. It was as though the story was about some child from Maui. From a family she didn’t know. A tragic tale but one not connected to her.
Maggie was silent in solidarity, somehow knowing that all Quinn needed right now was time to process the new past laid out in front of her. Everything she’d ever known was a lie. The only family she’d ever had was a fraud. And that was a hard discovery to reconcile with the woman she loved more than anything in the world.