On Thanksgiving morning my parents and I accompanied Jan on an appointment with her doctor in Bellevue. The doctor wanted to examine her before he went away for the holiday, as she was two weeks past due and was getting rather large. While Jan was with the doctor, I sat in the waiting room with my parents. We thumbed through magazines without reading much and conversed in nervous tones, hoping the baby might, miraculously, be ready for delivery that day.
Presently a long-faced doctor came out with Jan. He told my parents he was afraid to face them, because he knew how badly they wanted to see the baby before leaving, but he had nothing encouraging to report. She was only dilated two centimeters, as she had been for a couple of weeks. It had been more than nine years since the birth of Kim, and with only a hint of a smile the doctor asked Jan if she had forgotten how to have babies.
Mom and Dad were scheduled to board a plane to Hawaii the next morning. Due to the rash of Christmas flights to the islands, it was the last flight they could get on. Otherwise, they would have had to wait until January—and they had to get there before then to supervise house construction. A number of important jobsite decisions had to be made. They planned to return to Seattle in June, and perhaps for a short while in March to see the baby.
Back at our house, we visited for a while before dinner. Mom had lost a lot of weight, and couldn’t seem to stay warm in the cold weather, no matter how much she wore. She kept on a heavy, fur-lined coat indoors and sat by the wood stove in the family room. We also had the thermostat turned way up, and a curtain drawn over a large sliding glass door behind the couch, to retain heat and reduce drafts.
The next day, Dad called from Hawaii to say they had arrived safely, and that the main house was turning out better than expected. The walls and roof were up. The caretakers, a young couple, were living in the residence that had been built for them, so my parents were staying with a friend, Mary Moore, the mother of race-car driver and ABC sportscaster Sam Posey. She owned an elegant waterfront home a mile down the road toward Hana town, and was providing my parents with what she called “the stateroom,” for guests.
Mom was happy and breathing easier in the warm air, but Dad still hadn’t finished The White Plague. He was spending long hours on it.
On Saturday, November 28, 1981, I worked on The Garbage Chronicles until 2:00 A.M. At 5:45 A.M., Jan woke me up, saying she was experiencing labor pains. Margaux Beverly Herbert was born at 10:36 A.M., with no medication. Nine pounds, six ounces! In the past few days we had decided on the French name Margaux (pronounced “Margo”) for a girl, in honor of my maternal grandmother, Marguerite, who went by the name of Margo. With my mother in mind we selected the middle name of Beverly. Of course, Jan and I also had in mind the wonderful bottles of Margaux wine that we had shared with my parents.
Chapter 30
Kawaloa by the Sea
As Xanadu was my father’s place, so Kawaloa was my mother’s place.
—Entry in my journal
ON NEW Year’s Day 1982, my mother telephoned from Hawaii. After static on the line cleared, she said she loved a packet of baby pictures we had sent to her, along with a bag that had the design of a green cat on it. “It’s the most elegant cat I’ve ever seen,” she said. “But can we give it to Mary Moore? She’s been letting us stay with her for a month and a half’s without charging any rent. Bill Ransom is staying here, too.”
“Sure,” I responded.
She said she didn’t want to hurt our feelings.
My solution: “You give Mary the bag. Our gift to you is a month and a half’s room and board in her house.”
Mom laughed. Dad came on the line. He said Bill Ransom had done a lot of the work on their sequel to The Jesus Incident, and that it shouldn’t be too difficult to finish. They didn’t have a title for it yet.
I needed my parents to sign several forms for their property and liability insurance, forms I had mailed to them some weeks before. But neither Dad nor Mom recalled seeing my request. “You have to imagine the confusion here,” Dad said. “Your mother has a little office space in Mary Moore’s house…There are papers all over hell…We’ve lost several pieces of mail.” He asked me to send another copy of everything.
I told him that a friend from Port Townsend called and wanted to know if they had received the smoked salmon she sent.
“What salmon?” Dad asked.
Mom said the house was almost finished, the ocean was blue and it was 82 degrees. “Ain’t it hell?” she quipped.
Dad planned to be in Seattle in April for a second big book tour on God Emperor of Dune, this time for Berkley’s paperback edition. My mother probably wouldn’t accompany him, as it would still be too cold in the Pacific Northwest.
The hardcover edition of God Emperor of Dune was still on national and international bestseller lists, where it had been firmly entrenched for most of the previous year. This was Mom’s favorite story in the series, and apparently she was not alone in her feelings. Because of stronger than anticipated hardcover sales, the mass market paperback would not be issued until 1983.
Dad said they might be in England in a few months, where they were scheduled to begin filming Dune. The producers had decided against filming in Mexico’s Sonora Desert, in favor of Tunisia in North Africa. The base of operations would be in London, with a number of sets built at Pinewood Studios near London, the same location favored by the previous Dune director, Ridley Scott.
At Mary Moore’s house, Bill Ransom worked alone on the sequel to The Jesus Incident, while my father continued to struggle on The White Plague. Shortly after the first of the year, Dad gave the manuscript to Mom and Bill to read, since he valued both of their opinions.
After reading it, the two readers discussed the book privately, and agreed that it was too long, with excessive detail about the Irish countryside. At coffee, they worried about how to tell Dad. Finally it was decided that Mom would do it.
At the appointed time, Bill made himself scarce.
Upon hearing the bad news from my mother, Dad stormed out of the house and asked Bill if he agreed. The answer was yes. Dad’s shoulders slumped in disappointment, as he realized they were right. He had been attempting to work through too many distractions, and in the process had lost the focus of his story.
He set about a major rewrite.
Later that month Mom called with questions about her insurance policies. She had an agent in Hawaii handling matters over there, while I was taking care of their insurance in Washington State. She was confused about things that she’d always understood before, and this concerned me. I wondered if she was taking on too much for her condition, trying to keep up with the demands of Dad’s very busy and often complex activities.
They had moved into the new main house, where construction was still in progress. At Dad’s request, Bill, a former fireman and CPR instructor, trained each of the workers in CPR, for my mother’s safety. Bill also made up emergency instruction cards for each of the men to carry with them at all times.
As I spoke with my mother, I heard carpenters hammering and sawing in the background. She said she was gazing out at the aquamarine sea, with palm trees swaying in the wind on the lower portion of the property, and could hear the duet of Dad and Bill Ransom typing in the upstairs study. Already the salt air had destroyed two rental typewriters, and they’d rented two more.
Dad’s study was smaller than the one in Port Townsend, Mom said, but with a similar low-slanted ceiling. It had a skylight, and built-in bookcases lined the walls, with shelves even over the doorways. One doorway led to her office and out to an upper mezzanine that looked out on the main level of the house, while the other doorway led to a private bath.
Mom said the weather had been nice, but a “bit chilly” at night.
“What’s your definition of ‘chilly?’” I asked.
“Sixty-nine degrees!”
The house my father designed for my mother in Hawaii had a number of nautical features. Its floors were of rare and
expensive reddish-brown koa wood, known as “Hawaiian mahogany.” A beautiful and durable acacia variety native to Hawaii, it was the wood ancient islanders utilized to construct canoes. The kitchen pantry door had a bright brass ship’s porthole, with heavy glass. A pair of great split posts rose through the center of the home alongside the living room, like pilings by the seashore. A graceful spiral stairway led from the main level to the upper, and in every nook and cranny, as on a boat, storage compartments had been built. It was a graceful, serene home, and with wall louvers open all day, the air from trade winds circulated inside. This was a palace in paradise, built by an emperor for his empress.
In this exotic locale there existed ancient legends and superstitions concerning a vengeful volcano-goddess, Pele, and menehunes—little fairy creatures who played tricks on people or became “night marchers” walking over rooftops in the darkness. Legend said that pieces of volcanic rock could not be removed from the islands, at the risk of incurring terrible bad fortune brought on by Pele, commonly referred to as “Madame Pele.” It was considered bad luck to sleep with your feet toward a doorway, as spirits could force you to walk away from your body. And geckos, little lizards that crawled along the ceilings and rafters, could not be killed except by accident.
My mother learned about malevolent spirits, and how best to remain in their good graces. In this and other ways Kawaloa became a spiritual place for her where she could touch her inner being, as she had not done since she was a little girl and fantasy creatures roamed through her mind.
The sea calmed her, and she remembered the tranquilizing effect of water upon her when she was a child living in the Pacific Northwest. Whenever little Beverly became rambunctious, her mother frequently sent her into the bathroom to stand in front of a sink of water and splash in it, or to sit in a tub of water and let warm moisture soak into her pores.
The new home was right for her and comfortingly warm, so that she could breathe easily. She felt secure here and unafraid, within the protective envelope her husband had designed and built for her. Beverly and Frank became “kama’aina” here, accepted as natives by the local people.
Back home, February 4, 1982, was an off day. It was a Thursday, and at work I commented to people how I felt “out of sync,” but didn’t know why. I was not able to write over the noon hour, even though The Garbage Chronicles had been going fairly well. I didn’t feel like eating my bag lunch, either, and worked on insurance straight through the hour. Gradually I felt worse and worse as the day progressed. At low points, I considered packing everything up and moving my family to Hawaii. Mom had not sounded well the last time I talked with her. Maybe Jan and I could do some of the work that was burdening her.
At 6:00 P.M., I was showering after jogging when Julie ran upstairs to tell me, “Grandpa’s on the phone—from Hawaii!”
I threw on a jogging suit and ran downstairs. Over a static-filled telephone line, Dad related bad news: Mom was in the hospital again, this time Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Honolulu. He was calling me from the nearby Alamoana Hotel, room 1919.
Mom had been feeling very tired lately. Following surgery the prior August, she had developed a number of symptoms, including distention of her jugular vein, increased abdominal girth and liver congestion. A series of medical tests had been run, and her case had been discussed at a special cardiology session involving surgeons from Kaiser Hospital and the University of Hawaii. She had, among other conditions, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, which was an inability to sleep well at night caused by shortness of breath when lying down.
Doctors were working to remove fluid from her liver, and she would have to go on a strict low-salt diet that also involved water management and the use of diuretics to remove excess fluid from her system. He mentioned what I already knew, that she had heart muscle damage, but added a new and disturbing twist. Her diminished heart condition was not holding. She was suffering from degenerative heart disease, and if her life was to be saved this condition had to be stabilized. They wanted to keep her weight down in order to take a load off her heart, so it wouldn’t have to work so hard.
She would have to follow a new routine. In addition to a low-salt and fluid-management diet, for every two or three hours of activity for the rest of her life she would need to rest an hour. She would weigh herself several times each day, and if she gained two pounds one day she would have to lose it within twenty-four hours.
I asked how long she could be expected to live, and Dad said the doctors were not giving estimates. “She could live five or ten years,” Dad said, “or she could go tomorrow.”
My father was exhausted, and asked me to call Bruce and Penny, but to tell them not to call and not to rush over to Hawaii for a “big deathbed scene.” He said Mom was strictly against that, and so was he. Everything was under control, he assured me. He expected to be back at Kawaloa with her by Tuesday.
I told him my thoughts about Hawaii, that perhaps we should come now and help Mom with her work. He said we should wait a year, that Hana was not a metropolis and not a good place for kids. He liked the idea of us helping—but Mom didn’t like to delegate it. He felt her work sustained her, gave her a reason for going on.
Dad said it was difficult living in such a remote location for more than a month or two a year. In recent weeks he had been considering replacing the Port Townsend base with one in San Diego or Santa Barbara, California, where the weather was warmer and Mom wouldn’t feel such a pressing need for the warmth of Hawaii.
Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, he would be her superman, obtaining it for her, comforting her. He would set his writing aside entirely if necessary, sacrificing his hard-earned career—just as she had set aside her own creative writing efforts in the 1950s and 1960s and took jobs in retail advertising while he wrote. In effect she had put him through writing school, loaning him the better part of her life. Now he was repaying the debt.
“Please don’t tell your mother I called,” he said. “I don’t want her to think I’m worried.” And he concocted a subterfuge, asking me to say I had phoned Bill Ransom in Hana and learned about Dad being at the Alamoana, and about Mom being in the hospital.
As we closed our conversation, my father asked me to fly to Hawaii in April while he was away on a book tour. I mentioned the possibility of Jan going instead, since Jan had become like a daughter to Mom.
“That or get some psychological help for your fear of flying,” he said.
I knew he hated leaving Mom, and I wondered if he would even make the book tour. I was nervous after the call. Despite being a couple of pounds heavy, I went in the kitchen and gorged myself on oatmeal-raisin cookies until I felt an odd swooning sensation from excessive sugar.
In my youth I had felt certain extrasensory powers of my own. Little occurrences, nowhere near those experienced by my mother. Frequently I sensed things about people, almost read their thoughts and concerns—and they were accurate readings, from indefinable sources. After meeting and talking with a person for only a short while, I picked up things about their nature, took readings on them, and understood their motivations. My ability came and went, but at times its accuracy astounded me.
I used to think my intermittent ESP was inherited from my mother, but after I was married it seemed to lapse and I thought anything I had perceived in the past might have been coincidence. But now as I considered the events of the day a chill coursed my spine, and I shivered. Could my feelings of depression all day have been a sympathetic reaction? Did I sense my mother’s anguish from thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean? I so hoped she would live to be at least seventy. She was fifty-five, and deserved time to enjoy Hawaii.
When my parents returned to the Hana house, there were huge changes. Dad went into a tirade in the kitchen and ransacked the cupboards, throwing out every can and package of food that wasn’t low in salt. “This is the enemy!” Dad said angrily. “We’ve brought the enemy into our house!”
It saddened Bill Ransom, almost
to tears, that my father felt betrayed by food, something he and my mother loved so much. Bill thought back to happier times in Port Townsend only a short while before, when they picked fresh vegetables and combined them with clams and oysters from nearby beaches to make elegant, simple meals.
During this period I made a number of calls to Hawaii, checking on Mom. Under the new regimen her condition improved. She was a survivor, a fighter, and bounced back yet another time. And my father, ever her protector, continued to guard her so closely that he didn’t allow her to ascend or descend stairs alone, not even when she was feeling better.
In one conversation, she and I talked about Margaux, Kim, and Julie, and she said she wished she had the opportunity to know them better. I said she was doing fine as their “Nanna” and told her how much Julie and Kim appreciated receiving postcards and notes from her whenever she traveled. She sounded pretty good, all things considered, and nothing was mentioned about her trip to the hospital in Honolulu. She said she was sitting on the couch with a pair of binoculars on her lap, looking for whales.
“I saw two yesterday!” she exclaimed happily.
On a Sunday later in the month, Dad called, and as usual there was a moment of fuzzy static, followed by his voice: He said that The White Plague had finally been dispatched to New York after two rewrites, one of which was major, cutting more than a hundred pages from the manuscript. The hardcover edition was due out in September, and a paperback would be published the following year. “This one will make waves,” my father told me. “It’s a real shocker.”
The book with Bill Ransom was also going well, and they would call it The Lazarus Effect. Dad told me he had been derailed from the work by the close attention he had to pay to Mom, and he still was not back on track. But Bill had been picking up the slack.
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