The Dream Jumper's Promise

by Kim Hornsby

  Within minutes, Philip’s words had Dr. Chan agreeing. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to have a change of scenery, even just for a few weeks,” Emily Chan said to her. “But it’s ultimately Tina’s decision.”

  Tina was shocked. How could the doctor be steamrolled like this? Tina fleetingly thought about phoning Jamey for support, envisioning herself holding onto the doctor’s leg to wait for Jamey while her father tried to pull her off. Two weeks was on the table now, but Tina knew better. They would try to convince her to stay longer. She thought about the day she picked up the phone to hear that her father had a heart attack and was on his way by ambulance to the hospital. That flight to Seattle had been six of the longest hours of her life. “I don’t want to take more than a week. I have a business to rebuild and can’t afford to be away.”

  “Fine, Kristina. A week is better than nothing.” Philip looked pleased, satisfied.

  But Tina knew better than anyone that seven days could turn into a month, which might turn into a year, and then Maui would be a memory. Given the hold they had over her, she worried that she’d never get back to her beloved island.

  ***

  The Beaver 251 plane dipped and rocked through gusty pockets of air as Jamey followed the Maui coastline at eighteen hundred feet. Coming up to the northern tip of the Valley Isle, he noticed cumulonimbus clouds hovering over Molokai in the distance. “Uncle Jamey? Right over there must be that current, the Molokai Express.” Katie sat on the edge of her seat beside him, her face almost pressed against the windshield.

  “Yup, between the two islands. They said it was strong?” “Extremely.” Katie squealed in the headphones. “This is totally radical! Ned is going to be so jealous I got to come with you in a plane,” She was a good distraction, filling the small cabin with her enthusiasm, even if she had no idea they were looking for a dead body. The sound of the engine roared outside the headphones while Katie’s voice chatted on the microphone.

  Looming in front of them was Hawaii’s second largest island, Molokai. This time of year it was green and lush, waterfalls striping the northern end, like movie scenery. The owner of the rental plane had warned Jamey to watch for sudden wind gusts. “I flew a few days ago from Maui to Molokai,” Jamey said. “I’ll take care of your beauty.” With hands on the steering wheel, he aimed for Molokai’s uninhabited northern coast.

  “I didn’t think it would be so noisy in a little plane,” Katie said.

  “Not like a commercial flight, is it, kiddo?”

  “Better.”

  Jamey flipped a switch to contact the air traffic controller.

  “This is Little Beaver, at the north of Maui. Request permission to drop to fifteen hundred feet.”

  “Little Beaver, this is West Maui Airport. You have a small plane at fourteen hundred feet heading your way, rounding Kahakuloa. Please wait.”

  Jamey looked below to verify, waited for the aircraft to pass, and when given the go-ahead, he dropped lower to cross the channel. Closing in on his destination, Jamey next reported in to Kalapaupa Airport on Molokai. “Little Beaver at fourteen hundred feet, heading west towards you.”

  Seconds later, they verified a clear route along the Molokai sea cliffs and got clearance to drop lower.

  Jamey scanned the coast for the dream’s beach as he approached the cliffs. From the recent rains, the waterfalls were majestically active, dropping tons of fresh water to the sea from hundreds of feet, all along the cliff face. As Katie oohed and ahhed and clapped her hands at the stunning view, Jamey searched the ocean, wondering if Hank’s body waited below this postcard scene. No sign of the beach from the dream yet, but this had to be the stretch. He’d asked the guys at the private airport about the Molokai Express and was told that things washed up on the north shore from West Maui on a regular basis. When he mentioned a body, he’d been told again that a body would never get that far because of the sharks. One of the pilots even laughed at the thought.

  A headache crept to the edge of his skull. Maybe residual feelings from last night’s jump. The hum of the plane’s engine was irritating. He’d bring Tina here tomorrow. Hopefully he’d know what was in the drink residue at Tina’s house. If it was a roofie, then Noble didn’t cover his tracks very well, leaving the glass on the table like that. It irked him that she wouldn’t do a rape test, but he’d reminded himself many times that it wasn’t his decision. Possessiveness over Tina was probably clouding his opinion of Noble.

  Circling back towards the long Molokai coastline, Jamey took inventory—tall cliffs, rocky shoreline, waves, but nothing familiar. Nothing that jumped out at him as the brief vision he’d had from the dream. Maybe he’d been too optimistic about recognizing anything. Would Tina see something familiar if she came with him? He hoped so, because he had to get back. He’d been flying for a while and the plane was getting low on gas.

  ***

  Defending herself at the doctor’s office left Tina feeling exhausted and empty, like she’d been awake for days. She was tired of the grief, the frustration, and not only the possibilities, but the lack of possibilities. And now she was weary of everyone’s interference. “I’ll call you later, Father.” Tina drove to the shop to collect Obi. “I’m going home for a while, Megan. When Katie gets back, tell her I’m off today.”

  Her feet dragged on the stairs up to her deck and she tripped, catching herself by grabbing the banister. The heaviness was back, like a brick pressing against her chest, her head still fuzzy and weighted. Taking a deep breath was a chore. Dropping to the floor for a nap was tempting. It was a struggle just to get to the bedroom and flop onto the bed. Her mother had just called her cell phone to suggest she take a nap. They’d fly tomorrow to Seattle.

  When she woke up, Tina would make a veterinary appointment for Obi. If she was running out of steam, she had to get one last thing done before she gave up, and gave in.

  “Ti, I want to talk to you.” Noble appeared at the bedroom door just before she dropped off to sleep. He looked like he meant business. “I’m concerned about you.” He moved to sit on the bed beside her. “Did Dr. Chan recommend you take a break?”

  “Did my parents talk to you? They want me to go to Seattle tomorrow.” She looked at Obi. “I don’t know if I can leave Maui. Not even for a week.” Noble stared at her. “I’ll watch Obi, and the house. You have people to run the shop.”

  She nodded, feeling layers of defensiveness drop away. “I know but...maybe you’re right. I’m tired of trying so hard. Blacking out last night was freaky. I can’t remember most of the evening, which isn’t like me. The doctor says I might have blocked it out because things are getting too painful. She says that sometimes people do that to protect themselves from emotions they can’t deal with. She gave me some new pills.”

  Noble stroked her arm lovingly. “Blocking out the bad stuff can be good sometimes.”

  Tina wanted to know that Noble was still her rock, her safety net, when things got beyond the realm of tolerability. “Noble?” She searched his face. “I’m not sure you answered this question, but we didn’t have sex last night, right?” She waited.

  His expression was unreadable. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because I don’t remember most of the night, and I woke up in a sexy outfit…and you were naked.” She frowned and waited for his reply.

  Noble took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to add to your troubles.”

  She waited, her heart sinking. That wasn’t an answer. “Did we?” “You wanted to but no, we didn’t.”

  She’d wanted to. “Sorry, I was so drunk.” At least Noble had done the right thing, not that it was any great gift to have sex with her right now. This current version of herself would be considered clearance material, especially when she was so fragile. “Noble…” Searching for words allowed him time to move in.

  “It’s alright.” He hugged her to him once more. “Just know I’m here for you.”

  Maybe he was right. She was being paranoid. It wouldn’t hurt to lea
ve Maui and clear her head. It would get her parents off her back, and she might just return feeling recharged. Tina hadn’t been away from Maui since before Hank’s death. Afterwards, she hadn’t been able to leave the island, in case he showed up. Tina pulled away from the hug. “Maybe everyone’s right. I need to get off this rock.”

  When Noble left she leaned back against the pillows, remembering another time in her life when she needed to get away. Run away.

  At five-years-old, she’d been invited by her beloved grandmother for a week at her estate. Kristina desperately wanted to go. Her twin brother, Kristoffer, had only been dead a year, and she missed him. Her parents had more rules since her brother went to heaven. Going anywhere without them was not allowed. But soon she’d start kindergarten and they’d have to let her go there. Visiting her grandmother might never come again. Gramma was getting old, and after she finished kindergarten she’d heard her mother say she was leaving for sleepover school.

  “Please?” little Kristina asked her mother, with fingers crossed behind her back.

  “No, not this year,” Elizabeth answered. “Maybe when you’re older.”

  When she told her Gramma the bad news, the woman said, “I’ll try to think of something, Kristina. Don’t worry. We’ll have our time together somehow.” “How?” Kristina asked.

  “I’ll use my special powers,” Gramma said, patting her granddaughter’s head.

  But Elizabeth would not let her daughter visit overnight. Not even when Gramma asked her son to intervene.

  “Mother, my wife has the final word where Kristina is concerned,” he’d insisted.

  Gramma’s special powers had not worked. She asked about them the next time her grandmother came to visit. “I’m sad I can’t sleepover, Gram.”

  “I’m still hoping to change your mother’s mind,” her grandmother said, picking a daisy and handing it to the little girl.

  “But what do your special powers do?” She needed to know.

  “They help me have nice dreams with friends.”

  “Can you dream with me?”

  “Only if you come to my house, I’m afraid.”

  She had to find a way. Gramma promised to try again for a visit at Easter break, but Kristina couldn’t wait and woke up the next day with a plan.

  When her mother left for a luncheon, Kristina went to their backyard playground with her nanny. The pool had been taken out the year before and replaced with a garden. As usual, Nanny Helen fell asleep in the sunshine. Seeing her opportunity, Kristina snuck through the bushes and out the front gate. She had to get to town a different way so her mother wouldn’t catch her. Kristina took unfamiliar streets, sure that all roads led to where Gramma lived. If she could find the library, she knew how to get to Gramma’s house from there.

  Four hours later, the authorities found a scared little girl sitting at the side of a road, crying, with her tiny jeweled purse full of snacks. When the policeman radioed that he’d found the Greene girl, someone on the other end yelled, “Thank God!” Kristina did not recognize the voice.

  Her father was out of town on business and her mother was too distraught to talk to the policeman back at her house. Left with the housekeeper, she was scooted inside and slapped on the bottom. “Bad girl,” the housekeeper admonished in broken English. “Mama thought she lost the other twin.”

  Nanny Helen was gone forever. Her mother was upstairs, sleeping. After speaking to her father on the phone about what a bad girl she’d been, she was sent upstairs to bed without dinner. The next day her mother carried on as usual, as if nothing had happened and it was never spoken of again.

  Gramma went to heaven before the summer was over and Kristina grieved, not only for her wonderful grandmother, but for the magic sleepover that never was.

  Chapter 22

  After a brief nap, Tina found herself back at the shop. “Oh God!” She held the Lahaina News in her hands, staring at the front page story.

  “What?” Katie looked over.

  “A shark attacked a tourist swimming off Olowalu.” No one would dive for at least a week. Probably two. Activities would suffer until a new wave of tourists who’d never heard of the unfortunate accident arrived. It might be a month before the story cooled off. This would be a good time to escape to Seattle after all.

  Tina read aloud to Katie: “The victim snorkeled into an area filled with sharks feeding on a dead whale carcass. The dorsal fins and thrashing were mistaken by the two women for dolphins at play, according to the survivor.” Tina cringed and continued. “By the time they realized it was feeding sharks, it was too late for one of the women.”

  Nausea rose in Tina’s throat. Another death in the ocean. Another life claimed. The tragedy made her wonder about the friend who’d escaped death. Survivor guilt was a bitch.

  After instructing Katie to tell potential customers that the victim swam directly into feeding sharks, and that boat diving was perfectly safe, Tina loaded Obi into the truck and drove to the vet. She needed to have Obi’s lump examined before she could think about leaving Maui in twenty hours.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, Tina marched up to the clinic’s counter and said in a clear, steady voice, “My dog has a lump on his underside.” She’d rehearsed the words on the drive, but every time Obi looked over and wagged his tail, she wanted to turn around and take him home.

  Fortunately, the wait was short at the Lahaina Veterinary Clinic. By the time the receptionist showed her to an examination room, Tina was perilously close to tears. But the vet was a dog lover, and he stroked her dog’s head while they talked. Obi was clearly not happy to stand on the cold, metal table and submit to the examination of his underside. When the needle poked him to extract a sample, Tina buried her face in Obi’s neck and cooed words of comfort. “You’re a good boy, Obi Wan,” she told him. “Mommy’s gonna give you a treat at the house.”

  On the ride home, Obi hung his head out the truck window. “It’s all for the greater good, my sweet dog,” Tina said, reaching over to pat his haunches. That expression seemed to be invading her thoughts on a regular basis. “You are really going to be upset if you have to get that thing removed.” She didn’t dare think about cancer. Not yet.

  Once back at her house, Tina headed for the bedroom, exhausted. She had to lie down for a nap; just an hour or two, and then she’d go back to the shop. Lately, she had no energy. This was more than exhaustion. She was probably fighting the flu or a virus. The last twenty-four hours had been too much—her father and Doc Chan ganging up, Noble agreeing, then the emotion of taking Obi to the vet. Everything had taken a chunk out of her. And now her parents were planning to fly out tomorrow. With her.

  Jamey hadn’t returned her call, but she needed to give him a heads-up about Seattle. Jamey. If she left for a week or two, would he still be here when she returned? The thought of not seeing him again made her feel panicky.

  While Tina and her father had been at Kaiser with Dr. Chan, her mother had packed a bag and left it by the bed with a plane ticket on top. Elizabeth had been confident of her husband’s influence. “Our plan is for you to come with us,” she’d said earlier on the phone.

  “I don’t know if I can be ready to go tomorrow, Mother. Maybe the day after,” she balked. Little did her mother know that there’d been a shark attack and Tina was becoming more available by the hour.

  The small suitcase lay open by the bed, everything folded and orderly in the various compartments. Her mother had included lingerie, jeans, and shirts, several pairs of socks, a sweater and a pair of shoes. Anything else Tina needed, like coats and boots, could be found in the closet of her old room in Seattle. Tina almost smiled to think how out of date her clothes would be. She and Hank had never visited Seattle together. “Too rainy, maybe someday,” he’d said.

  In the bathroom, the medicine cupboard was open. Before closing it, she noticed that her pills were out of place. Although mayhem ruled her life in many areas, Tina was fastidious about her medications, e
specially lately. With three pills to take at bedtime, it was imperative to have a system. She kept the birth control pill dispenser on the right and the others on the left. Always. When Hank died, and her hope of having a baby was obliterated, Tina began taking birth control pills again to keep her painful periods under control. But something was askew with the dispenser. For one thing, it was on top of the Lexapro bottle. Had she drunkenly moved it the night before? Tina checked the dates on the dispenser. Tuesday’s pill was gone. Yesterday. That was good. But tonight’s pill looked different. She popped it out a little too easily. Thursday’s too. And Friday’s. She was at the end of the foil packet and had no others to use for comparison. It was possible that in her drunken stupor she’d taken out too many pills and then put them back in. She didn’t remember. Trouble was, she didn’t remember. From now on, she had to pay closer attention at bedtime. Maybe buy one of those day-of-the-week pill dispensers.

  “I’m a mess, Obi.” The dog followed her into the bedroom. Her eyelids felt like lead weights and she had to lie down before she fell down. Exhaustion was winning the battle.

  Obi snuggled into the bend in her body, his blocky head on her arm. Until she got the pathology report that told her Obi’s lump was benign, her heart would be heavy with worry. She couldn’t leave Maui until she heard, could she?

  Tina would talk to Jamey later, maybe even divulge that her father was threatening to get power of attorney over her. Even if he had proof she wasn’t making sound decisions, he’d only said that to scare her. But first she needed a quick nap and then she could think clearly. Her last thought before she succumbed to sleep was that she hoped when she woke, things would look brighter. This mood resembled a rainy November day in Seattle, when the sky turned dark at four p.m. and months of rain were imminent.