“Boyfriend probably did it.”
“She’s only sixteen. I think her father did it. I told her to talk to the school counselor.”
“She dropped out of school. I talked to Kawasaki this morning. You can’t get involved.”
“Don’t you care? She’ll hit her own kids. It just keeps going. Sometimes it only takes a little to make a difference. Lots of people gave me a little along the way.”
“Jackie was an alcoholic, H. She wasn’t beating you. I don’t want this dragged home.”
“What if she were one of your daughters?” I asked.
“How could she be?” he asked. “You told her to see the counselor, that’s more than most people would do.”
“I feel bad for her.”
“You need to drop it, H. You could end up causing her more problems. Please don’t start going over there and trying to be her friend. She’s not Amy. She hit Megs.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have any idea what’s going on with her. I’ll ask Kawasaki.”
I disconnected and turned to Ed.
“I helped Amy,” I said
“You didn’t have a choice,” he said.
“Neither did she.”
“She could have disappeared into India, never to be seen again. She could have complained to her producer uncle and gotten you fired. She could have done any number of things.”
“Jon says I could cause her more problems,” I said.
“He’s right. Unless you’re prepared to go all in for her, you could make it worse.”
“Margaret went all in for me.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I know you’re right,” I said. “It just makes me so sad.”
He reached over and took my hand, mangled finger and all.
“Be sad for yourself for a change.”
We pulled into the driveway and watched Meggie doing her trikecapades. She was something. I got out and Ed stayed in the car.
“You want to come in?” I asked. “Go for a walk?”
“No. Get some rest. We’ll see you for dinner.”
He handed out the bag with the WD-40.
“Thanks for taking me out, Ed.”
“Sit this girl out, Sweetheart. You have enough going on.”
THIRTEEN
It felt okay when Ed turned out of view. I cheered Meggie on while I pulled dead plants out of pots and stacked them along the house. It felt great to be out in the sunshine working. Wiki came out trying to open string cheese for Meggie.
“There’s a wahine waiting for you,” she said. “Old friend. Jon is on his way.”
Karin! It would be just like her to show up unannounced. Ed and Jon probably kept her as a prize for going back out in the world. She’d take me out in the world. She’d understand about Sandy.
I threw down my purse and rushed to the lanai. It wasn’t Karin. The woman was holding Chance while Meli looked on. It took a beat before I realized who it was; she looked older in person.
“Hello, Hannah,” said Celeste. “He’s handsome. Looks just like Jon.”
I took Chance from her, handed him to Meli and told her to take him out back with Meggie. I turned back to Celeste.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop in.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You skipped Chana’s graduation to avoid us. What do you want?”
“Where’s Jon?”
“He’s on his way. Why are you here?”
“I just thought it was time we met. We’ll be family when our daughter marries your nephew. I’d like it to be nice for her.”
“We all want it to be nice for them. Showing up unannounced is not the way to start.”
Jon’s car pulled up and his feet pounded up the ramp. He threw his keys on the kitchen counter and was breathing fire by the time he got to the lanai. Celeste stood up but she didn’t make a move toward him.
“Hello, Jon,” she said. “Not working late? That was always convenient.”
“What are you doing showing up here, Celeste?”
“You used to call me Celie.”
“Knock off the bullshit,” he said.
Wiki and Meli were standing in the kitchen door with the kids. I pushed them outside and locked it behind them. Celeste was crying when I got back.
“I got a job in Kapa’a,” she said. “I was just out this way looking for a place to live.”
“You come this side of Kapa’a and I’ll burn your place down,” he said.
“You always were good with bonfires, Jon,” she said.
“Someone had to take care of her,” he said.
“I took care of her,” she said.
“No. You didn’t,” he said. “Showing up here isn’t taking care of her either. It’s always about you.”
“I was young,” she said. “I never got to go to college.”
“You were never too young to look out for yourself,” he said.
“Hannah does all right. She got you to have more children after all those years.”
“I wanted children with Hannah.”
“You went along with kids to keep him?” she asked me. “Just wait. He’ll take them and leave you behind, like me.”
I thought Jon might punch her. I knew he’d gotten in her face a few times when they were married. Now I could see how they operated, it was crazy.
“I want this over,” I said. “Celeste, you need to leave. Stay away from here. Whatever you two need to do, do it somewhere else.”
I left them and went out in back to get my hands on my children. I set off down the beach with Meli and Wiki trailing behind. Chance wore the sharp smell of Celeste’s mainland perfume.
The screen door slammed. Jon stood on the steps watching us walk away. Somehow I’d pulled it together when I was standing there, but I was shaking.
Meggie bounced and tugged on my bad shoulder. Chance clung like a spider monkey. We walked on. Meli answered her phone to Jon’s voice.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” I said.
Meli listened for a few seconds and disconnected.
“He’s canceling dinner tonight,” she said.
I didn’t want Celeste to have that kind of power over us.
“Call him back and tell him I want the dinner,” I said.
“Use my phone,” she said.
“Call him,” I said.
She called him and delivered the message.
“He says you call him yourself,” she said. “He’ll be home at six for a swim.”
Damn it! I couldn’t shake the guy. I started to cry. Then stopped in my tracks and sobbed. Meggie froze mid-hop and looked at me, and then she started to cry. Chance broke away from adoring Meli’s face and he started to cry. I started walking again and they fell in behind.
“Auntie make trouble?” asked Meli.
“She’s not Auntie,” I said. “She’s Jon’s ex-wife.”
I turned around and headed back to the house.
∞
I washed Celeste off Chance, and then went in the bedroom to call Jon.
“Did you find a wallet?” he asked.
“Go to hell, Jon. Fuck you wallet. I wouldn’t need a piece of shit wallet if it weren’t for you and your crazy Celie.”
I disconnected, buried my head in the pillow, and poured salt on my wounds with thoughts of him and Celeste, pet name Celie, not really over it. I’d been married. I’d had Steve and Stroud, and men with names I couldn’t remember. None of them gave a rat’s ass about me. Mom still had lunch with David a few times a year. Even drunk, she was that memorable.
I walked out to an empty house. The girls had taken the kids next door to play. I got out the wallet and an X-Acto knife and carefully cut off the gold plastic Hawaii. I transferred the stuff from the checkbook to the wallet, slid the identification card out of the plastic window, and got a pen.
Name: Hannah E. Spring. Address: I used our home
address. We always used the restaurant address. I filled in my cell number. That got me to emergency contact information. I wrote in Anna’s name and number and slid it back in the window. Then I called her to let her know.
“It should be Jon,” she said. “He’s the only one with the legal authority to make decisions about you.”
“I want to change that too. Will you be the one?”
“If that’s what you want. What’s going on?”
I told her about Celeste showing up wanting to be one big happy family.
“She even threw in that she didn’t go to college because of him. It was nuts.”
“Chana told us last night that Glen’s girlfriend is pregnant,” said Anna. “Celeste is the one who told her. Glen is willing to give her everything to get the divorce settled. She wants more. The lawyers could end up owning the bar.”
“Celeste made up the baby part.”
“It’s true. Chana checked with Glen. He’s really happy. I hate to say it, but I feel sorry for her. Now even if it was her problem, it looks like Glen didn’t want children with her. We’re going to have to find a way to get along with her.”
“Let me know when you figure that out. I still don’t see what it has to do with Jon.”
“People get crazy. I have clients who spend years fighting over the kind of worn out chairs other people drag to the curb. It has nothing to do with the issues. They just want a different outcome.”
“What does Celeste want?”
“A rewind. I have a client waiting. He’s stuck on their KitchenAid mixer of all things. I’m tempted to buy him one, but Eric says to just keep billing. It’s paying off Grace’s student loan. I’ll email you new documents.”
I hung up and roamed around the house. I needed to buy a car. I didn’t want a payment if I was going to be living off commercial work and supporting two kids. I looked on-line at used Subarus. Chana loved hers. I called the dealership and told them that I was out in Waimea without a car. They were in Lihue and offered to come get me.
I changed into more rugged clothes in case I got stuck out there, and then walked to the end of the wheelchair ramp to wait. I was already tired.
A young guy pulled in and turned down the blasting radio as I climbed in. He kept glancing at my crazy hair and fading scars. I told him about the accident.
“That was you? Man, that was gnarly. We wondered what kind of car you were driving. Had a pool going. We hoped it was a Toyota or Subaru if you were still alive. Ford or Chevy if you were dead.”
I laughed. He smiled a broad smile. No idea how heartless a dead or alive pool sounded.
“Did someone at least win for dead or alive?”
“You did,” he said.
“There is that,” I said.
∞
I picked a wagon with a standard transmission and brilliant silver paint. Their finance department wrangled with the insurance company, but they finally got it settled and I was on the road in less than an hour.
They’d cleaned the car but somehow missed a spray of something red on the driver’s side door. I thought about calling Stroud, but I didn’t have his number anymore. I was embarrassed by the thought of googling him again; that would be an entirely different phone call. I was embarrassed that I could embarrass myself. I was thinking like Celeste.
I needed car seats but the idea of going to CostCo made me want to cry. I went anyway, and cried my way through the place with people looking at me.
I drove home very slowly. My nerves were jumpy and frayed, my finger throbbed, my pelvis ached, but I’d done it. I’d driven myself. I’d bought a car and driven myself. I’d bought a car and car seats, and driven myself. I was getting better.
I pulled into the driveway to Jon sitting in a sack chair, holding Chance and watching Meggie ride. He looked past me to the car.
“I need you to install the car seats,” I said. “I can’t do it with my finger like this.”
I changed into my suit and went in the water to float. All the sweat and tension from the afternoon washed away. I got out and flopped down on a towel to look at the clear sky. Chance’s weather report: infinite possibilities with occasional self-inflicted showers. I had to remember that. I fell asleep.
I came to, confused about my circumstances. Jon had covered me with a sheet and set up an umbrella. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I packed up and went back to the house. He was in the kitchen feeding Meggie dinner. Chance was asleep in his basket. I took a shower, and then looked at flight information for San Diego.
Jon continued with their evening. He sent Meggie out to say goodnight then tucked her in. He picked up a book in the living room and headed back to the bedroom.
I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I picked over Meggie’s leftover chicken and carrots, and then opened the refrigerator door and stared like Eric used to do when he was a teenager. Mom claimed there was a dent in the floor in front of the fridge by the time he left for college. Chance would leave a dent someday. What floor was the question. I grabbed a yogurt and turned around into Jon.
“Jesus! You scared me,” I said. “Don’t sneak around behind my back.”
“Don’t ever say that to me again.”
“Fuck you, Jon. Get out of my way.”
I tried to brush past him but he moved in front of me.
“Oh, what? Now you’re going to keep me from leaving?”
He tried his hard stare and didn’t move.
“Is this how you got in Celie’s face? I’m not her, Jon. When I leave, I will be gone. And I won’t be leaving my children behind in some store room to be molested.”
There was a whimper at the kitchen door. Meggie was watching, thumb in mouth. He moved aside.
“Oh, Angel,” I said. “Can’t you sleep?”
She shook her head.
“Come on,” I said. “You can sleep with me tonight.”
I turned off the lights in the kitchen and left Jon standing in the dark backlit by the rising moon. We climbed into bed and I stroked her curls and hummed to her until she dropped off to sleep.
∞
Sunrise came and I was alone. I got a jolt of fear about Meggie. The screen door was still latched. I tiptoed into the bedroom and found her draped across the pillows, hand on Jon’s neck. His eyes were open, chilly. Like I was a stranger.
I made coffee and went out to sit on the beach. When I went back to the house Meli and Wiki were making breakfast and Meggie was chirping at them.
“Your phone rang,” said Wiki.
Ed had left a cheerful voicemail saying he hoped I was feeling better. That maybe our trip to town had worn me out. He wondered if they were going to be able to see us today. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that we kept cycling back to this place. Life interrupted by Celeste was getting old.
Jon came out ready for work.
“Will you walk out with me?” he asked.
I followed him out to the car. He assembled and installed the car seats.
“You want the head rests out?” he asked.
“In,” I said.
He broke down the boxes and put them in the Durango for the dumpster at work. He started to get in his car.
“Jon, I’m sorry I said that. It was rude of me.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I blame me. I don’t like that person. I don’t like the person I’m becoming with you.”
We stood looking at each other.
“I’m going to take the kids with me to California,” I said. “Eric and Anna are going to line up some help.”
“Celeste won’t be on Kauai,” he said.
“I don’t care anymore where Celeste is. It doesn’t matter where on earth she is. You two have unfinished business and I don’t want to be here for it. We can see how we feel about things when you’re done with that. How to untangle all this, if there is a this. I need your help until I get the surgery behind me so I can go back to work.”
“We don’t have anything
to finish. We didn’t have anything to finish twenty years ago. She’s leaving Kauai.”
“That’s probably best for now, but I’m still taking the kids with me.”
“Can we talk about this later? I have a management meeting this morning.”
“We don’t need to talk. Ed wants to get together today. I’m going to do that. Keep up appearances a little. I’ll let you know if we go out.”
I walked back in the house as he drove away. I forced myself to keep walking and not look at the empty space he was leaving behind.
I called Ed and made a plan to meet at Salt Pond Park for lunch. Nancy wanted to put together a picnic. We talked travel plans home. They would change their flight to San Diego to keep me company.
∞
We loaded the back of the station wagon with towels and chairs and diapers and what seemed like half our worldly possessions. Wiki wedged herself between the car seats and Meli road shotgun. Meli’s mother had been nervous about them riding with me, like I went over a cliff every day.
We arrived in one piece, unloaded, and set up in the shade of palm trees while Meggie chased chickens. I texted Jon. I had no intention of playing games with him. The beach bordered the same small airport that launched tourist helicopters.
Small planes approached low over the water, power throttled back to burbling engines, full flaps. Wings tipped back and forth like gulls when they hit the fluttery updrafts from the waves at the end of the runway. Watching planes land is great sport for pilots. Meggie stopped chasing earthbound chickens and watched each one land.
“Looks like she got her grandfather’s flying genes,” said Ed.
“She could do it,” I said. “She has the nerves for it.”
He was standing over me, tan legs in shorts. That was new. Nancy was smiling at his side. I had imagined a cotton-headed blonde with Christmas ball earrings. She wasn’t that, she was sporty in loose crop pants and a loose cotton top over a bathing suit. Her naked legs were athletic and sun freckled, her bare feet were tan with soft pink nail polish. Salt and pepper hair was pulled into a ponytail under a straw hat. I thought New England. I jumped up as she stepped forward and took my hand in her firm grip.
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon Page 24