Distant Echoes

by Colleen Coble

  It did no good to dwell on her past failures, she reminded herself. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she whispered.

  Bane blinked slowly as if awakening from a long sleep. “Makuahine?”

  She hadn’t heard the Hawaiian word for “mother” in so long. The melodious sound of it brought tears to her eyes. She blinked her eyes rapidly. “Yes, Bane. I’ve come home,” she said simply. It would be up to him to accept or reject her. She had no power to sway his feelings, no excuses for what she’d done.

  A light crept into his eyes, and he took her in his arms, wrapping himself around her as if she were the child. Her oldest keiki. She remembered when he was born, the way the coppery odor of blood and the salty smell of the amniotic fluid had clung to him and overlaid the sweet scent of his own newness. She held him now and thought she could never let him go again.

  When his strong arms finally released her, she clung to him for a long moment then reluctantly let go and stepped away. Searching his eyes, she found questions she wasn’t sure she could answer. “I’m so sorry, Keikikâne,” she whispered. “I was selfish and willful. I can only ask your forgiveness. I have no excuses for what I did.”

  The light in his eyes faded. “Why did you leave? And why didn’t you take me with you? You took Kaia.”

  She lifted her shoulders helplessly. “It would be impossible to explain how trapped I felt, Bane. And I knew taking you and Mano would kill your grandfather. You keikis were the light of his life. Besides, the man I left with was only willing to take Kaia.”

  “You picked a man over your own children?” A frown wrinkled Bane’s brow.

  “Yes.” The bald truth was all she could offer. “I was young and stupid. I’ve since learned just how stupid. I never got over hearing your voice call for me the night I left.”

  Bane’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his neck, and he ducked his head, but not before she caught the sheen of moisture in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Bane. So sorry. You have no idea how I wish I could go back and change everything.”

  He backed away, then turned and raced down the beach. Faye started to go after him, then she stopped and sank to the sand. She fell face forward and sobbed out her grief and remorse. Her children couldn’t blame her any more than she blamed herself.

  Kaia tried to squelch the excitement she felt as she stood on deck and waited for Jesse to join her. Bane had been quick to agree to accompany them, though his voice had sounded strained when she called. From her perch on the railing of Seaworthy Lab’s boat, she could see Bane’s pickup pulling into the parking lot. He got out with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  Kaia waved to him. He lifted his hand in greeting then jogged to the pier. He tossed her his bag then hopped aboard.

  “Mahalo,” she told him.

  “Hey, no problem.” His strong, brown legs were clad in shorts.

  His eyes seemed dark. Kaia frowned and wondered if he’d had another run-in with Mano. He looked great though. Some girl was going to get a wonderful husband in Bane one of these days. Not that she’d seen him noticing all the lovely women casting glances his way.

  “What are we doing tonight?” he asked, settling into a deck chair. “I brought my GameBoy for later. I’m going to trounce you.”

  “You’ll have to wait awhile,” she told him with a smile. “Until dark, I’m going to work with Nani on learning words, then we’re going to cruise back and forth in the waters off base. Jesse thinks we might see more a little farther out.”

  “Sounds fun.” Bane rubbed his hands together. “I’m surprised you didn’t invite Mano.”

  Kaia hesitated. She wasn’t sure how much to tell Bane, but if he was going to help them, he needed to know the truth. “We think Pele Hawai´i might be involved.”

  Bane stared at her. “You mean Mano might be mixed up in espionage and sabotage?”

  “I hope not. But it doesn’t look good.” She told him what Lei had said at the rice mill.

  “Why are you just now telling me this? I need to have a talk with baby brother.” He sounded grim. “And he hasn’t said a word about being in trouble with the navy.”

  “We can’t tip him off that Pele Hawai´i is under suspicion. He might tell them.”

  “I knew that group was trouble,” Bane muttered. “No good ever comes from that kind of anger.”

  “There’s a guy I saw at the meeting and at the beach. First or last name is Kim. Big Hawaiian with a birthmark on his nose. Ring any bells?”

  Bane frowned as he thought about it then shook his head. “I can’t say it does. What’s he done?”

  She wasn’t about to tell him about the guy manhandling her. “Nothing that we can prove. But he was a diving buddy to the man who washed ashore on the base, Jonah Kapolei. We’d like to talk to him.”

  “And you saw this guy at the meeting? So Kapolei was a member of Pele Hawai´i too?”

  “He was the treasurer.”

  “Did you ask Mano about him?”

  Kaia nodded. “He wouldn’t tell me much.”

  “Then how are we going to track this guy down?”

  “There’s a meeting of Pele Hawai´i tomorrow night. I’m hoping you’ll go.”

  Bane grimaced. “It would tax my soul to sit there and listen to them spout their treason.” He sighed. “I don’t have much choice though. What if Mano sees me?”

  “Tell him you’re curious about the group. It’s the truth.”

  “Yes, I could do that. Maybe I’ll just ask to go with him. You went once. He probably wouldn’t think much about it other than how he could use the opportunity to convert me.” He sighed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into our brother lately.”

  Bane’s eyes had turned brooding, but for some reason Kaia didn’t think it had anything to do with Mano. “Anything wrong, Bane?”

  “Nope.” Bane shaded his eyes with his hand. “Jesse’s here.” He grinned when Kaia turned to look. “I see you’re very interested in the handsome navy man.”

  “We’re working together,” she reminded him. The burning in her cheeks told her she wasn’t fooling her brother.

  “`e, `ê,`ê,” her brother said, indicating he heard her but didn’t believe it.

  She ignored him and turned to smile at Jesse and Heidi. “Aloha.” She held out her hand to help them aboard.

  Jesse took it and stepped aboard. “Mahalo,” he said.

  Heidi looked around with a bewildered expression on her face. Kaia realized Jesse hadn’t told his niece much about what was happening. “Let me show you to our quarters.” She took Heidi’s hand and led her to the ladder into the galley. They stepped down into the boat’s hold, and Kaia had the little girl stash her belongings in the cabinet in the master quarters.

  “Can I go swimming with Nani?”

  “Not right now. I need to work with her for a little while. She gets too excited when you’re in the water with her to pay attention to me.” Kaia rubbed Heidi’s soft blond curls. “Bane brought some video games. You want to play with the GameBoy?”

  “Okay! Where is it?”

  “I’ll get it.” Kaia went on deck and grabbed the backpack with Bane’s game then went back below. They pulled it out and she got Heidi started on the game. “It’s best to use it below deck just in case a big wave would happen along.”

  Heidi just grunted in answer as she became engrossed in the game. Kaia smiled and went topside. She grabbed her laptop and went to the railing. She attached it to the hydrophone and dropped DALE over the side into the water. She showed Jesse how to use the computer program that translated the words into clicks and whistles that emanated from the hydrophone.

  She shucked down to her modest one-piece swimsuit and put on her snorkel and fins. Jumping overboard, she kicked alongside Nani. The hydrophone was connected to an underwater computer screen that showed four figures. The clicks and whistles coming from the device meant “ball.” Nani poised next to the screen then punched the picture of the ball with her nostrum. A little figure came
onto the screen and began to dance. Nani swished her tail then jumped out of the water with obvious delight.

  Kaia smiled at the dolphin’s joy in choosing the right figure, but though Nani could recognize the picture and replicate the noises for the picture of a ball, she had yet to recognize a real ball and call it by its name. Kaia felt like Anne Sullivan trying to help Helen Keller make sense of language. If she could make the connection with just one thing, the rest would follow, but that missing link still eluded them.

  Kaia surfaced and waved for Bane to throw her a beach ball. “Keep having the hydrophone repeat the word for ball,” she shouted to Jesse.

  He nodded and bent back over the computer. Kaia tossed the beach ball to Nani, who balanced it on her nostrum and threw it back to Kaia. They played for a few minutes, then Kaia gave the ball back to Bane for hiding, hoping Nani, in her playful mood, might ask for it back with the right clicks and whistles. Instead, Nani just bumped Kaia’s leg with her nostrum. Kaia tried again.

  She repeated the process for over an hour until she was exhausted, both from the exertion and from the lack of progress. Desperation gripped her. Nani was so trusting, she could easily be captured if Curtis was determined.

  Kaia climbed back into the boat, and Jesse handed her a towel and a bottle of water. “Mahalo,” she said. She took a swig of water then toweled off and wrapped the large beach towel around herself. She sat in the chair beside the captain’s seat then propped her feet on the dash, crossing them at the ankles.

  Jesse drank from his water bottle. “I’ve been thinking while you were working with Nani. We’ve got to find that guy with the birthmark on his nose.”

  “I’ve got it covered. Bane is going to attend a meeting tomorrow night and try to figure out the man’s name. Once we have that, we can talk to him and see what he knows about Jonah’s death.”

  “What did you tell Bane?” He sounded cautious.

  Was he worried she’d told Bane about Jesse’s suspension? All her earlier doubts surged again. Could Jesse be involved more than she thought? She sipped her water and stared out over the blue ocean. The sun was beginning to set behind them, its rays gilding the craggy heights of Na Pali with glitter.

  Jesse leaned forward and started the engine. He steered the boat out to sea a bit then began to troll back and forth in front of the base, just outside navy waters.

  “You never told me what the base commander said.”

  “He thought my taking leave was a good idea.”

  Jesse didn’t look at her, but she could sense the pain in his words. “Aloha nô,” she said, expressing her sympathy the best way she knew how. She wanted to touch him but wondered if it would be too forward. Her brothers hated being pitied.

  “Mahalo,” he said.

  She sensed he’d like to be alone. “I think I’ll fix some dinner,” she said. She went below to the galley. Kaia prepared a quick meal of fish and fruit salad, tossing in papaya, coconut, banana, mango, and strawberries. They polished off the food, then Jesse tucked Heidi into bed while Kaia and Bane cleaned up the galley.

  “I like your Jesse more and more,” Bane remarked as he put the plates away.

  “He’s not my Jesse,” she said.

  “He’d like to be. I think you’d like it too.”

  Bane’s voice was amused, but Kaia wasn’t. She could only hope and pray Jesse couldn’t hear from in the bedroom. She quickly changed the subject. “You’ve been quiet all evening. What’s that all about?”

  “I’ve had a lot to think about lately.”

  “Like what? You’re not questioning your profession, are you?”

  “Oh no, not at all. I love oceanography. I can’t wait to get back to it.” He hesitated and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

  She hung up her dish towel and frowned. “Then spill it. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. I’ve been thinking about what our grandfather said last week. We’ve been too busy to get back together and discuss it, but I think we should find our mother.”

  “He aha ke àno? I don’t want to talk about it.” She grabbed two containers of yogurt and flounced up the ladder. If he was going to talk nonsense, she’d go talk to Nani. She wondered if she’d brought her toothbrush. Had she left it on the sink at home?

  Bane followed her. “We’re going to have to deal with this sooner or later, Kaia.”

  “Then make it later,” she retorted. “I told you I have no interest in finding her. Let her come looking for us.”

  “If she did, how would you feel?”

  “I still wouldn’t want to see her.”

  “Then you’re the one with the problem. You need to forgive her and put it behind you. Maybe you can’t do that until you see her face-to-face.”

  “I can’t do that ever. I don’t see why you keep bringing her up. She doesn’t love us, Bane. She left three kids without a backward glance. For all she knows, Tutu kane died and left us to the welfare system. She never cared about us, so why should we care about her?”

  “We don’t really know anything about it. Maybe she watched us from a distance all these years.”

  “You’re dreaming, Bane. And you know better. If she cared, we would have at least gotten a postcard, a birthday card, something. But there has been nothing for almost twenty-five years. Years, not months or days. What kind of woman would do that? Not one I want to know.” Or could ever trust. Her throat ached.

  “Well, I want to know her.”

  He set his jaw, and she recognized the stubbornness in it. “Fine, go find her. But don’t bring her around me when you do.” She wanted to burst into tears. She still remembered crying for her mother in a strange house with people who yelled at her all the time. By the time her grandfather had found her, she’d been a timid child who barely spoke.

  Mano and Bane had escaped that part. And while she was glad they hadn’t had to go through it, a part of her wished they had so they could understand how she felt. But they would never fully comprehend what their mother’s desertion had done to her.

  “You think you had it so bad,” Bane said in a low voice. “Have you ever stopped to think how it felt to me and Mano to know that she loved you more? She took you.”

  Kaia’s eyes widened. The thought had never crossed her mind. “That’s not true, Bane. She left me with strangers. At least she made sure you were with our grandfather.”

  His dark eyes bored into hers. “That’s the trouble with being a human on this earth. We can never fully enter into how another person feels.”

  She wished there was someplace she could go to escape this conversation. She was too cold and tired to go back in the water. It was going to be a long night.

  Bane’s hands touched her shoulders. “Just as you don’t know what Mano and I went through, we don’t know what she went through either,” he said gently. “But you have an unforgiving spirit, Kaia.”

  “I don’t.” She batted his hands away.

  Jesse’s head poked up from the galley below. “Sounds like you two are having an argument.”

  “My sister has a hard head.”

  “I have the hard head? It’s the other way around.” She handed Jesse a container of yogurt.

  He accepted it and pulled off the foil top then sat beside her. “What are you fighting about?”

  “Bane is on a quest to find our mother.” She inwardly winced at her shrill tone.

  “You’re impossible. I’m going below.” Bane stood and disappeared below deck.

  Kaia knew she should go after him and apologize, but she stayed put. He was the one who had brought it up.

  “I take it you don’t want him to look for your mother?”

  “I have no interest in dredging up the past.” She took the foil top from him and tossed it in the trash bag hanging from a hook beside her. “What about your family? Did you have a good relationship with your parents?”

  Jesse shrugged. “Yeah, I still do.”

  “You grew up here, didn’t you?” Kai
a asked.

  “Yep. My parents were church-plant missionaries. Me and my sisters always felt part of something big. My parents are in Indonesia now.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” She heard the harsh tone in her voice.

  “Your grandparents must have been kind.”

  “They were. But it’s hard to live in a place that prizes family and know your own mother hated you so much that she left you at the mercy of strangers.” A lump formed in her throat. She should be able to put the past behind her. Why couldn’t she? It’s not like her mother had the power to hurt her anymore.

  Maybe Bane was right and she had an unforgiving spirit. She found it hard to overlook slights, and staring into Jesse’s face, she realized she still blamed him for dragging her away from her research when she should be grateful for his help extricating Mano from his trouble.

  Jesse squeezed her hand. “I’m sure your mom didn’t hate you, Kaia. That would be impossible for anyone.”

  The air suddenly seemed more fragrant and silky. Kaia couldn’t look at him. The earnest tenderness in his voice made her feel like a dolphin on land. “Tell me about your wife,” she said.

  The feel of the air changed. She could sense Jesse’s withdrawal.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How did you meet?”

  He sighed and rubbed his head. “You sure you want to hear this?”

  She nodded. “Go ahead. Maybe it will help to talk about it.”

  “It was a typical girl-next-door thing. She lived right here on Kaua’i. She was best friends with my sister Jillian. I fell for her the first day I saw her and we were married fifteen years later. I thought I knew her. I didn’t.”

  “You sound a little bitter.”

  “Maybe I am. Killing your wife will do that to a man.” His gaze never left her face as he said the words.

  “If you’re trying to shock me, you’ll have to do a better job than that. Heidi already told me she died, and you think it’s your fault.” His rueful grimace stopped the rest of her words.