Elise said, intruding into his momentary musings, “Sorry to cut your sob story short, dear brother, but the carnitas is done and my husband has been nibbling my ear from hunger.”
The dinner Elise served was better than anyone expected and everyone praised it. Elise was pleased, but she didn’t want to raise hopes of better dinners from then on.
“Since I do this very well, thanks to Alicia’s coaching, I won’t push my luck. Anytime you all come to dinner—the few times I make it—prepare to gorge on carnitas. I’ll make it my signature dish.”
Greg grinned. “Fine with me. Great improvement over ham and cheese, pastrami, or egg salad sandwiches.”
“How about dessert?” Justin said.
Elise said, “I have store-bought ice cream, but Leilani brought something that looks homemade.”
Leilani lifted the cover to the dish. “As it happens, Elise and I must have exchanged vibes or sent each other smoke signals. I brought a dessert of Latin origins. And yes, I made it.”
“That’s crème caramel. It’s French,” Greg said. “We have friends in Aix-en-Provence, Benoit and Cecile. She makes it every time we visit.”
“No, it’s not French. It’s Mexican. It’s flan.” Justin protested.
Leilani said, “You’re both right. Many cultures have some variation of it. It’s also found its way to the Pacific.”
Elise said, “Is that where you’re from, Leilani?”
“Yes. From Costa Mora, a small country that had been invaded by several European countries, each one leaving something of their culture. Some good, some bad. It’s now free, though that might not last too long. This custard dish is a legacy of one of those countries.”
“How old were you when you left?” Elise said.
Leilani glanced at Elise and hesitated for a moment to answer.
“Nine.” She stood up as she spoke “I’ll serve. Where do you keep your dessert plates?”
Greg began to get up from his chair. “I’ll get them for you.”
Leilani said. “No, please. You and Elise have been cooking and serving us. Let me do this.”
“Plates are on the third cabinet from the right, dessert spoons in the drawer below,” Elise said, her gaze following Leilani’s figure as she walked to the third cabinet.
Justin frowned. Leilani was being evasive. What could possibly be making her uncomfortable?
*****
In bed later that night, Justin slowly yielded to sleep with a smile on his face, glad that he had acquiesced to his sister’s request and stayed one more day. The evening had turned out more delightful than he could have anticipated. Leilani’s sense of humor pleased him. She would be nice to have for a friend. He was certain she was one of those girls who could “blend in with the boys.” She would be no shrinking violet.
At the image of violets, his fading consciousness stopped its descent into oblivion. He forced his lids open. The flowers. That message, the impersonal one—the same for each delivery—that would accompany the flowers he had arranged to be sent to Leilani’s office. They all seemed wrong, a discordant follow-up to a night spent in good fun with the best company he could wish for. He had always felt in his element with Greg and his sister. Leilani mixed with that small group without much effort. Unlike Megan, who had often been uncharacteristically quiet and impatient to leave his family’s get-togethers.
At the very least, he should call the florist the next day to change the message. Justin lay awake for another hour thinking about how he should change it. Or whether he should cancel the order or send flowers only once. He wouldn’t want Leilani to think he was interested in her. Especially not after that night’s dinner.
V. Revisiting the Past
Leilani glanced at the time on her dashboard. A little past ten. Barring any accidents on the freeway, she should be home in half an hour. The dinner at Elise’s and Greg’s home had been quite pleasant except for a few uncomfortable moments. Not really enough to mar a beautiful evening.
Still, those moments had been awkward for her. She had never disclosed to anyone her past in the old country and the years immediately following their arrival, first in Hawaii, then in California. None of her friends or colleagues had been interested enough to ask. Justin and the Thorpes seemed so close to doing so.
Everyone else she had known outside her family assumed she was born in this country. After all, didn’t she speak and act like them? Not quite as American as apple pie. But who was in California, anyway? She did prefer to keep her roots and early years guarded from outsiders. Much easier that way. She could never truly describe what living in Costa Mora was like or why she had to leave it.
What could she say, anyway? She had very few memories of that small island country. Besides, she was uneasy enough explaining why she was a sharpshooter when she had to make Greg and Elise understand how she could confront three big thugs with a knife. A story of her past would have to include her father. That would surely draw a blank from her, a disturbing blank.
Her father. What kind of fate had befallen him? Even within the family, they hardly talked about him anymore. But she was sure of one thing: Her father’s fate and her marksmanship were tied together, entangled within the events that forced their flight from the old country.
Five years after they left, Rudy and her mother had gone back to Costa Mora to look for her father. Leilani had hoped that some of the mystery about his disappearance would clear up. The country was at peace again and the new regime had released detainees of the old regime. Her mother promised her children to bring the family together again.
But her mother and Rudy returned without her father. All her mother would say was no one knew where he was. The country was in such bad shape that finding him was impossible. She was done with the country and there was no question of their ever going back. They had to accept their new fate. California was now home.
Rudy told Carmen and Leilani a different story. He had heard rumors. The government had detained their father for questioning as one of the planners of an attempt to depose the government. Newspapers and all radio news stations had broadcast news of the attempt until a week before uprisings. They had mentioned names of suspects, and that of Dr. Renato Torres was foremost among them, along with a General Vicente Huang.
Rumor had also gone around that most suspects were killed soon after rebellion started, but no graves or bodies could be found to prove it. Another rumor had speculated that they were thrown out at sea, a deed easy to accomplish in a country with 300 miles of coastline.
Rudy presumed their father was among those killed. For the last thirteen years, Rudy and Carmen believed he was probably somewhere at the bottom of the sea. But Leilani was doubtful. She trusted her mother’s instincts. Or, maybe, at age fourteen, when she first heard the stories, dying was unimaginable. In any case, she suspended judgment.
When she passed the licensing she needed to practice her profession a year ago, she resolved never to look back on her early years and considered those chapters of her life closed. Her life was off on a new course and she had new and bigger problems facing her. Although she didn’t want to believe her father was dead, she resigned herself to never seeing him again. The time had come to break from the past, move on.
Back in her apartment, Leilani went straight to her bedroom to change into her nightdress. She put on a robe, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. She intended to sit in front of the television, put up her legs on the couch, and watch some mindless program until she was sleepy. Tomorrow, Sunday, her week would begin as it always had, with a visit to the gym.
The following morning, Leilani awakened to a tinkling melody she could not place, although she had heard it several times before. She stirred from her position. Her back hurt and her legs felt a little numb. She moved again, but her right arm hit a padded object. The back of her couch. She had fallen asleep in front of the television.
The annoying melody stopped. Now, a little more
awake, she remembered that it came from her cellphone. She sat up and reached for it on the coffee table. She skimmed through the notifications on the screen and was surprised to find that the last call came from Justin Halverson. Another one before that, a call she never heard, came from her mother. Leilani knew she would ring her up again.
What could Justin possibly call about? She was curious to know, but not eager enough to return his call right away. She would wait until she was on the treadmill at the gym.
It was nearly ten and she was running behind her regular schedule. She must have been more exhausted than she thought. Although she lay in an uncomfortable position on her couch, she had overslept.
She rose from the couch, clasped her hands above her head, and stretched her body toward the ceiling. She extended her arms sideways and twisted her body to one side, then the other, before going back into her bedroom to change into her gym suit.
Minutes later in her kitchen, she poured some oatmeal into a bowl, filled it with more soymilk than usual, and put it in the microwave. No tea for her this morning. No time to make it.
She sat by her small dining table, slicing a banana into her oatmeal when her cell phone vibrated its melody in her pocket. That would be her mother calling. She took the phone out and answered it.
Her mother said, “You’re not at the gym yet, are you? I don’t hear the whirring of your treadmill. Good.”
“Why is that good, Mamá?”
“Because I need you to come over right away. Are you decent?”
Leilani felt her chest flutter from some vague premonition. Her mother, for all her irritating little habits, was not a hysterical woman. Something had to be wrong for her to ask any of her children to come to her house at once on a Sunday, the sacred day she set aside to play mahjongg with friends.
Leilani said, “Of course, I’m decent. I’m about to leave for the gym. Mamá what’s going on? Isn’t this mahjongg day for you?”
“I’ve cancelled that for today. I need your help.”
“But what for? Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Please, just come. Don’t bother to change. I’ve asked your brother, too. He’s already here.”
Leilani’s apprehension grew. If her mother also needed Rudy’s help, then something was seriously wrong. “Mamá, are you sick?’
“No, no. I’ll live to a hundred unless someone kills me. Stop asking questions and come now. We haven’t got much time to lose.”
“Okay, but let me, at least, finish my breakfast.”
A couple of cars were parked on her mother’s driveway when Leilani arrived at her house. One of them was her brother’s. She did not recognize the other. As she turned off the engine on her car, her phone rang. Justin Halverson was at the other end of the line.
“Hello, Justin. How are you this morning?” She hoped she didn’t sound impatient. She was struggling from bolting out of her car, anxious to learn what her mother needed her for and Justin’s call was holding her back.
“Even better than yesterday. I wanted to thank you again for saving my life.”
“Once is enough and you already did that last night.”
“What if I keep doing it for a few mornings more?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you like flowers?”
“As much as any other female, I suppose.”
“Well, I had planned to send you flowers at your office every Monday morning until the New Year as my way of showing my gratitude to you for rescuing me.”
“How sweet, but really there’s no need,” she replied, unable now to hide her irritation.
It took Justin a moment to answer.
“I see. Well, okay then, I’ll cancel my order.” He sounded disappointed.
“Okay, I do have to go. My mother needs my help with something.”
Leilani was about to end the call when she changed her mind. She detected a hint of disappointment in Justin’s voice and it bothered her.
She said, “On second thought, it would be nice to get flowers once.”
*****
Rudy opened the door to her. From where she stood, she could see her mother and a man—to her, a stranger—sitting in the living room, talking.
As she entered, she whispered, “Who’s he?”
Rudy whispered back, “Remember the rumors I told you about? This is the guy who’s the foremost suspect along with Papá. General Vicente Huang.”
“Did Mamá know him?”
Rudy did not answer. They were a couple of steps away from where their mother and the visitor sat.
Her mother raised an arm towards her and said, “I’m glad you’re here now. We’ve got something important.”
She turned towards the visitor, a man in his late fifties, with alert eyes that seemed as if they were forever suspicious. He was obviously from their old country. He was sitting back on a chair, his legs crossed, and his hands clasped tight on his lap. Except for a few of her clients on their first therapy sessions, Leilani seldom saw anyone look as uncomfortable as this man.
“This is my youngest daughter, Leilani. Leilani, this is General Huang. He knew Papá.”
“How do you do, General Huang?” Leilani said as she sat next to her mother on the couch.
He said, “I am fine. Thank you, Leilani. Your father talked about you, about all of his family, very often.”
He spoke with a very thick accent that she would have struggled to understand if she had not learned the language of her native country. The Torreses hardly spoke it anymore, but it had stayed with her, ingrained in her brain, holding a big set of neurons hostage.
Leilani said, “When was the last time you saw my father, General?”
He hesitated to answer. Her mother answered for him. “General Huang escaped from military prison three months ago. He saw your father at a military hospital six months before that. Papá is alive.”
Leilani was speechless. Alive? Did she say Papá’s alive?
Her mother had kept up hopes her husband was still alive, despite her children’s conviction that he was dead. When Rudy and their mother came back to California from their futile search for their father, she was more restrained and she stopped saying their father would come soon. Still, she continued to insist he was alive. She knew it in her heart.
When Leilani found her voice again, she said with wonder, “Papá’s alive, imagine that.”
General Huang said, “I think he is alive—that is what I said. I do not want to raise your hopes. I saw him at the hospital six months ago. I do not know why he was there or where he is now.”
Her mother said, “I plan to go back and see if I can find out more. He might still be in prison.”
Leilani said, “What will you do if he’s in prison? And I don’t understand why he’d be there if they released everyone in the regime change about fifteen years ago.”
The General said, “Not everyone. I was not. I suspect that in addition to Dr. Torres and me, three others were kept in prison.”
“But why?”
“There were five of us who put together the plan to depose the government.”
“Are you saying Papá was one of those five?”
“Yes. I was, too. Until I saw Dr. Torres at the hospital, I did not know that he was not released. They put me in solitary confinement. Probably, they also did that to him, to us five.”
“There’s much about this I may never understand. Now I do a little more, but I still fail to grasp why the regime, which took over, didn’t let you all go. It was the old corrupt government you wanted to get rid of.”
“It seems the new regime also considered us dangerous. I think they were afraid we would try again if they did not govern to our liking. They turned out better, but not much more, than the old one.”
“They never released you. You had to escape. So, chances are Papá’s still in prison.”
General Huang said, “Everyone at home
thinks we are all dead—those who never came out after regime change. The current President will deny your father is alive.”
“Then, Mamá might never see him,” Leilani said.
Her mother said, “I’m prepared for that, but I can’t sit home and do nothing.”
Rudy said, “You have to agree, Lani, that we have to do something. We have to get our heads together on this.” He had been quiet while Leilani was asking General Huang questions.
Leilani said, “So, you’ve heard all this before?”
“Yes. General Huang has been here since 9 AM.”
“Why didn’t you call me then?”
Her mother said, “It was my suggestion to hear out the General first. After he first told us, we called you. But you didn’t answer.”
“I was exhausted, dead to the world. I slept more than eight hours. What about Carmen? Does she know yet?”
Rudy answered, “Mamá will tell her soon. But let’s be honest. Carmen will not be much help. She’s so tied up with her family. She won’t have time or energy for this. Besides since she became an almond farmer’s wife, she’s gotten ground almonds for a brain.”
“Rudy! Don’t talk that way about your sister.” Her mother scowled at her son, but a moment later, her brow relaxed and she chuckled. “Although, you’re right. Almonds and everything to do with them are all she talks about. And her skin lotions. Sometimes, she does talk about her children.”
Leilani smiled, but she was too distracted to laugh at the joke her mother and brother shared. She still hadn’t fully grasped what the news about her father meant.
“When are you going back to the old country, Mamá?”
“As soon as possible. You and Rudy would have to talk and see if you can think of a strategy for Papá to be released, if he’s still in prison. I want to make sure we do all we can to help him get out. I’ll give you both a week to come up with something. Then, ready or not, I’ll call the airlines to schedule my flight.”
Rudy said, “Two weeks, Mamá, at least two weeks. I’ve got a family and a job that need me, too. We can come up with more information, better strategies with more time.”
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