The Night Marchers rushed by me and enveloped him in a frenzy, like sharks going crazy at the scent of blood in the water. Through the haze of their bodies, I saw him screaming and thrashing, gasping for air as he continued to stagger toward the edge.
I raised a single hand toward him, not sure what to do, as I watched him tumble over the waist-high wall and plummet into the crater below. Then, as though I were in a clandestine dream, the Night Marchers vanished. Princess Popoalaea was gone. Jeff was gone, leaving nothing but an empty gun, a scattering of fallen bullets, and a single pink lily on the ground.
With them gone, their power seemed to drain from me. I could feel the bullet hole in my leg. It burned like a bitch, as though lava had run over my thigh. I staggered over to Calder and struggled to the ground, turning him over until he was lying in my lap.
“Please, no. You can’t die,” I cried. Tears fell from my eyes all on their own. I didn’t will them to fall. They offered themselves up at the sight of Calder’s lifeless body.
I didn’t know what to do. Our phones were locked inside. I searched in vain for Jeff’s car, only to find a motorcycle hidden behind some boulders at the front of the parking lot. Knowing I couldn’t use it to transport Calder, even if I had the keys, I prayed to anyone able to help.
God. Pele. Popoalaea. Maui! I still need you!
With the sleeve of my hoodie, I put pressure on his wound while I leaned my head back, breathing through the pain radiating from the hole in my leg, a painful ribcage, and a sore clavicle, hardly the worst injuries inflicted on me by Jeff Thatcher. But now, finally, to be the last. I cried. My emotions of panic and relief fused together into a profound release. It was over, and if I could get some fucking help, I could start to live my life again.
17
Afternoon 31
Morgues were a strange place to be. I’d never been in one before. I didn’t know what to expect going in. But with Officer Lanna on one side, Tad on the other, and Auntie and my mother waiting out in the hallway, I knew I wasn’t alone in facing down this tough moment.
I couldn’t bring myself to step within five feet of the covered body in front of me, nor was anyone expecting me to. I could feel their concerned eyes on me. They steadied me more than the crutches painfully digging into my armpits, and they offered their support the entire way down to the morgue from my hospital room.
“You don’t need to do this,” Officer Lanna had said only minutes before after I asked her to see his body. “Everyone will understand if you just want to put this behind you.”
And now I knew she was right. I didn’t need to do this. The chill of the dark morgue chased away most of my resolve. But I needed closure. I needed to know for sure that it was true, that the nightmare of the last few years of my life was over. I only wished it hadn’t cost me so much.
Tad caught me as my grip slipped on one of my crutches. I looked back at him and saw a slight smile, a reassuring “you got this, bud,” sort of look that egged me on.
“Go ahead. I’m ready,” I said to the coroner, a slight man in his sixties who proved more than amiable to my request to see the body.
With little hesitation, he pulled the white linen sheet down that covered the remains, only to the neck, and I saw what I had wanted to see since the moment I heard the news.
When Officer Lanna joined my family in the hospital room to let me know the search and rescue helicopter had returned with his body, part of me remained steadfast in denial. They couldn’t be right. I wasn’t that lucky.
But then again, I was. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Jeff’s face, hidden behind scrapes, bruises, and contusions inflicted on him as he tumbled down the steep slope into the basin that made up Haleakala’s crater. With his swelling and bruising and deformity, and his puffy, blue, lifeless skin, his demise was an absolute certainty. I won. Jeff Thatcher was dead. I was officially a domestic violence survivor. Unlike my dear Debbie, I was not a faceless statistic. Now I could start to breathe again. I could begin to live my life.
“Thank you, Officer Lanna. Is there anything else you need from me before I go?”
“Not at all. Is there anything you need from me?”
“Just… Tell Calder’s family I’m sorry, that I wish none of this ever happened.”
She agreed, said her goodbyes, and escorted us out of the room. As I left the dank morgue for the brighter hospital hallway, greeted by Auntie and my mother, I immediately felt restored. My whole family except Maria was with me. And even she was on her way to the island. Tad and I promised each other we would hound her incessantly until she agreed to stay.
As we got into the car, Auntie and Tad in the front and my mother and me in the back, I felt a desperate need to talk about anything else. The Estate Inn came to mind and our outstanding obligation. Ten thousand dollars to pay the tax bill. And who knew how many thousands of dollars in medical expenses I managed to rake in.
“I just can’t wait ‘til Maria gets here!” Mom chimed in as Tad pulled out from Maui Memorial Medical Center.
“What’s the point?” Tad interjected. “We still only a week away to you and Auntie being homeless. Unless she’s gonna bring ten grand with her.”
Auntie slapped Tad around the back of his head to quiet him. I smiled at the sight of Auntie regaining her spirit and assured myself that even if we lost the inn, she would be fine now that our family was whole.
Pressing my forehead into the warm glass, I looked at every shop we passed. Gyms, tanning salons, supermarkets, box stores, and banks.
Banks…. Banks!
“Fuck! Stop the car!”
“Adam, watch your tongue!”
“Stop where?”
“What’s wrong with you, Makani?!”
Tad turned the wheel and pulled into a plaza made up of a small food market, a few restaurants, a hardware store, and the only federal credit union on the island.
They all began pressing me for answers, but I tuned them out as I pulled out my phone, opened a browser, and used my precious data minutes to log into my joint checking account with Jeff, something I had practically ignored for months while I hatched my plan for my clean escape. I didn’t want to use it for anything, even emergencies, since he would be able to immediately find me.
But I did remember my username and password. The data indicator spun for well over a minute owing to a weak signal. I held my breath as the page loaded, inch-by-inch, to reveal our multiple accounts until there it was. Joint Checking… $373,023.42.
“Yes!” I dropped my phone and reached over to hug my mother. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“You go crazy, cuz? What’s going on!”
“Jeff never took me off our joint checking account with the Credit Union!”
“And?” Tad asked.
“And there’s THREE-HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS IN THERE!”
I fished my phone from the seat and waved it in front of Tad’s face, leaving him, my mother, and Auntie all dumbstruck, and while they were as shocked as anyone would be, I grabbed my crutches and started hobbling into the bank as quickly as I could.
I only realized once I got inside that I had no clue what I was going to do. Should I withdraw the money? Could I close the account? Cashier’s check? I knew I had to speak to a banker but also understood my rights. To direct deposit my paycheck in Atlanta, Jeff added me as a joint holder of the account. That meant I had equal access to the money. In fact, a small chunk of it was already mine. I considered the rest just reimbursement for the bullshit he put me through.
“Sir, can I help you?” an employee asked me, a young woman standing near a podium by the front door. By that time, Auntie and Mom made their way in behind me.
“Yes,” I said. “I need to speak with one of the bankers about making some changes to my account.”
“Very well. Have a seat. Somebody will be right with you.”
I found I didn’t even need to sit down. Very quickly, a man met us by the seating area and calle
d us into his private office. Spread out on the table was the morning paper. I cringed at the headline, a picture of me from my social media account, and a lousy photo of Jeff taken from his.
“Mr. Frost, thank you for coming in. I’m Harry Miller. What can I do for you?”
“Adam, please.” I cleared my throat, nervous that what I was about to do would raise major red flags.
“I’m here today to figure out my options in regards to my joint account with my now deceased…” I cleared my throat. “Joint-account holder.”
“Very well. Do you have the account number and a photo ID?”
I unlocked my phone again and squinted to read the account number listed, but it was incomplete.
“Umm… can I give you my social security number and ID?”
“Yes, that will work.”
After I gave Harry the requested information, he tapped it out on the keyboard, gasping when he saw the amount. His forehead started glistening. Beads of sweat formed on his browline. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get the bank manager.”
Harry power-walked out of the room, leaving Auntie, Mom, and me alone. The two of them appeared just as nervous as I was. Mom tapped her foot incessantly. Auntie pulled out her silver flask, taking a large swig from it, offering it up to me. I could feel my mom’s judgmental eyes as I swallowed the potent, sickly sweet rum down.
“Sorry! I’m nervous.”
“Your father was a drinker too, you know. You’re not turning into him, are you?”
“I actually think I’m turning into your sister. She’s been a terrible influence on me. You should have never let me come here.”
Auntie playfully slapped my arm, then took the flask away and hid it before Harry and another man came back into the room.
“Hello, Adam. Alana and Luana, it’s good to see you again.” A much older portly man, obviously also a native-Hawaiian, sat down.
“Haka! You still working here? I thought you died years ago!” Auntie perked up at the sight of the old man, then hiccuped, her cheeks already turning flushed from the rum.
“Well, I see you’re just as charming as ever.” He winked at her, then turned his attention to a paper he set on the desk.
“My employee has told me about your request. And, well, considering what’s in the papers and how respected your family is in the community, there’s no reason why we can’t assign full ownership of the account over to you. So long as you’re willing to sign this paperwork confirming the death of Mr. Thatcher?”
He turned the paper around for me to sign. I didn’t read much of it. The first few lines summarized that I was stating the truth, which I was. But as I went to sign, my fingers trembled at the thought of such a vast sum of money, an amount I couldn’t dream of making in a decade or more.
A few minutes later, we were all back in the car with a slip showing me my account number, a temporary checkbook, and the promise that I would soon receive a checkbook and debit card in the mail.
The four of us sat there in silence, completely unable to process what had happened. No one in my family had ever had access to that much money at once.
It took an hour more to get home, after a quick stop at the tax office to pay Auntie’s balance in full. Auntie also insisted we stop in the business registrar's office and add my name to the business registration, making me part-owner in the Estate Inn.
After that, we were both somber and cheerful. I thought about what we had gone through, what losses we had suffered. I was also conflicted because of how happy I was after saving our home.
I thought about the Wright family and wondered what they were doing now. None of this had been easy on them. They were kind people. They didn’t deserve any of this.
Our attitude changed when we drove into the parking lot to the sight of my father’s white van parked in the same spot as always, halfway between the end of the lot and the door. My asshole of a father leaned against the van, dressed in a suit that made him seem worthy when I knew he was absolutely worthless.
Tad stopped the car near the front door.
“Go inside,” I said to Auntie and my mom. “I’ll take care of him.”
I hopped out of the car and did my best to crutch my way over the deteriorating parking lot, a great deal of it washed away by the hurricane. This left potholes and chunks of concrete scattered everywhere.
My dad immediately noticed my mother. He was obviously unaware that she was on the island and called out to her as she made her way inside, Tad remaining on the porch with his arms folded like an angry, good bodyguard.
“Come on, Luana, don’t be like that!” he yelled across the lot. “Come out and say hello!”
The way he spoke to her infuriated me. He sounded just like Jeff. At the same time, he wasn’t Jeff. If anything, I could be glad that he left us alone. The only redeeming quality he had in my eyes was that he never laid a hand on us.
“I’ve told you before, Dad, get off our property, or we’ll call the police! You’re not welcome here.”
He didn’t even stop to consider the fact I was on crutches. He showed zero concern whatsoever, despite obviously knowing what had happened considering the rolled-up newspaper sticking out of his back pocket.
“You’re kidding me. I just came here to offer your aunt one more chance to sell. Otherwise, it’ll be my property to demolish as I see fit.”
“That’s what you think,” I said as I pulled out the tax receipt and handed it to him. He hesitated, but took and read the paper. As he did, all color left his face. He clenched his jaw and crumbled the paper in his fist before tossing it to the ground.
“No, no, no. It’s not possible! How the hell did you come up with the money to pay this off! I worked too hard to lose this property. Alana, Luana, come out! Let’s talk this over!”
My dad tried to push by me, but after my encounter with Jeff, I knew I was strong enough to fight back. Despite the throbbing in my leg, I balanced on both feet and pushed him back with as much might as I could muster until he was pressed into the van. He certainly wasn’t Jeff. He was much older, much weaker, and much, much lighter.
“You don’t even care, do you? That Mom almost had to bury her son? That I got shot. That my boyfriend—”
I choked back the words. Flashing back to what happened on Haleakala was still too raw for me.
“Get off our property before I do something I’ll regret.”
My father, fists still curled, did not back down. He tried to push past me again. I didn’t know what he was expecting. Even if he had managed to get by me, he would have had Tad to deal with, not to mention a pissed off Auntie with a cane and my mother with a pocketbook so heavy I thought she kept bricks in there.
It was over in a flash. My father was on the ground, gripping his groin and dry heaving after I whacked him between his legs with my crutch with all my might.
“Way to go, cuz!” Tad cheered from the porch. “Hit him again!”
So I did, sort of. I pushed the bottom of one of my crutches into his shoulder with just enough force to cause him to topple over. Not because I wanted to hurt him again, but because I wanted him rolling around in the dirt in his new, shiny suit. I wanted him to go back to wherever he came from covered in mud and explain to his boss and his boss’ boss how he failed his months-long attempt to secure them a multi-million dollar property. Most of all, though, I just wanted him to feel, for one moment, inferior to the family he abandoned.
“Now, before I call Tad over here, I’m going to tell you this one more time, as a new owner of the Estate Inn: Get. The. Fuck. Off. My. Property.”
My father scrambled like a pathetic man-child to the driver's seat of his van. I fake-jabbed at him with my crutch. Once he got in, he cursed under his breath, turned the car on, and sped away.
I said a silent prayer to myself that it would be the last encounter with my father for the rest of my life. For my sake, and for my mother and sister, I hoped I was right. I also hoped my jab to his nuts rendered him impo
tent, so he couldn’t inflict his failure on any more children.
I smiled at my mother standing in the doorway, her hand over her heart and her eyes full of pride and love and joy. I knew I didn’t need my dad. She was already more than enough parent for me. When Maria arrived, my whole world would once again be on Maui where it belonged.
After days in the hospital, I didn’t want to go inside. Instead, I hopped around the side of the house toward the beach. Kicking my shoes and socks off, I carefully stepped across the sand, putting as much weight on my splinted leg as I could. The doctors and nurses instructed me to use my leg more and more every day.
One step after another, my bare feet dug into the white sand until I reached the waterline, and let the warm ocean waves wash over them.
I half expected to feel more messed up than I was, but now, in my paradise sanctuary that was the Estate Inn, I had everything I needed to thrive.
I felt the sand shift. A gentle hand landed on my shoulder and, as the next wave washed over my ankles, two feet filled the void behind me, then to my left side. I finally saw the face I had been waiting to see since I woke up in the hospital. By the time I was walking again, Calder had already been discharged, only he had been airlifted to an orthopedic surgeon on O’ahu at his father’s request. I had to wait until he got back to Maui.
“We’re quite the mess, aren’t we?” he said with one arm in a sling, sporting quite a bruise on his forehead.
I laughed and wanted to hug him desperately, to show him the newfound strength and confidence I had discovered. I was no longer the timid, frail young man he met a few weeks ago. But with my leg and his shoulder, he was right. We were quite a mess.
Tossing one crutch aside, I wrapped my arm around his for support, leaned into him, and stood there, silent, watching the sunset. As the last sliver of golden light slipped over the horizon, I held my breath and silently thanked Princess Popoalaea for giving me my spirit back. She helped me find myself. And she helped me save the man I now realized I truly loved.
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