by Edie Claire
“What’s going on?” Gloria asked blearily. “What was he yelling about?”
“Just a nightmare,” Malaya snapped. “Go back to bed, Gloria.”
Kai scrambled to a sitting position. Dammit. He’d woken them up. He hadn’t had a nightmare like this in over a decade.
Aki returned and placed a cool plastic cup into Kai’s sweating palm. Kai raised the drink to his lips, drained it, and gave the cup back to his father. The cold water felt like a healing balm as it chilled his insides. “Thanks, Dad.”
“A nightmare about what?” Gloria pestered.
“Go back to bed,” Aki repeated firmly.
Gloria frowned, but turned around and closed the door behind her. Not all the way, though. The door was warped, and Kai knew that it was possible to draw it where it appeared to be closed from the middle but still had a gap at the top. You could hear everything that was said that way.
Malaya’s eyes remained fixed on Kai as she rose, stepped backward to Gloria’s door, pulled it shut with a bang, and returned to her station. “I knew this would happen,” she whispered, more to Aki than to Kai.
Aki frowned.
Kai wiped the sweat from his forehead and straightened. “I’m fine, Mom. It’s not a big deal.” He would get up, but he doubted he could walk without his legs shaking, and he would prefer his mother not see that. Two more minutes. Then he’d be fine.
He rubbed his face with his hands. How mortifying. To wake up screaming in a pool of sweat when you were ten years old was one thing. To have it happen in your twenties was another. And to have your mother brush your wet bangs from your forehead only added insult to injury.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Malaya nearly wept. “I shouldn’t have let you get involved in this.”
Kai got up and walked. He wouldn’t shake if it killed him. He made it to the front door, turned around, and leaned heavily against it.
“I am fine,” he repeated forcefully. “I’m not a kid anymore. It’s been on my mind and I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s it.”
Malaya threw a concerned look at Aki. Aki looked gravely back at her.
“We should never have encouraged Maddie to find you,” Malaya mumbled miserably. “It was a mistake, her coming back to Lana'i.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Kai said irritably. “You couldn’t have stopped her. It wasn’t your choice to make!”
“Kai!” Malaya pleaded. “You know I love that girl. We all do. But I’m your mother, and you’re my first priority!”
Kai let out a breath. “I know, Mom,” he said, trying to be patient and sound calm even as his pulse still raced and the nightmare visuals still flashed behind his eyeballs. “And I appreciate that. I do. But I don’t need to be protected anymore. I had a tough time when I was a kid, yes. But I’m over it. I grew up. I’m good. Maddie is the one who needs your concern now. She never got over it because no one ever gave her the chance!”
Malaya frowned. “Her father did what he thought was best for her.”
Aki made a low, rumbling noise in his throat.
Malaya fixed her husband with a resentful look. “It was his decision!” she defended. “We all agreed that at the time, including you. Maddie couldn’t have taken it all in back then. It would have been too much for her. Even Nana thought so.”
“Nana thought, as I did, that it should be explained to her in stages,” Aki said. “Over a few days or weeks. Maybe months. But this…”
Kai stood up straight. His legs were fine now. Thinking about Maddie’s father made him angry all over again, just like he’d been when he’d gone to bed last night. Perhaps it was that emotion that had brought on the nightmare.
“I think he did what was easiest for him,” Kai retorted. He took the cup back from his father, poured himself another glass of water, and sat down at the kitchen table.
Malaya and Aki sat down with him.
Kai breathed slowly, working to control his frustration. Bill Westover knew that his daughter was back on Lana'i. He knew that she was staying with the Nakamas and that she had reconnected with Kai. He knew damn well that anyone in Kai’s family — or any stranger on the streets — could expose his lies at any time, and yet he had said nothing. He had called Maddie back on the phone during dinner last night, and Kai had been prepared. The timing had been perfect; all the family had been on hand to offer their support. She had disappeared into her room with her cell and Kai had held his breath and waited for the inevitable. And then she had popped out five minutes later lamenting that she had forgotten a key ingredient in the potato salad.
Kai couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that Bill Westover would take such a chance, expose Maddie to that kind of emotional risk. Kai had even called Nana on the phone from his parents’ house later, asking if Maddie had gotten another call. Nana said she hadn’t heard any. Maddie was in her room already. Probably asleep.
“I don’t believe Bill has any intention of telling her the truth,” Kai proclaimed to his parents. “Not now. Not ever. Not if he can get away with it.”
Malaya shook her head. “You don’t know that. He could have made plans to call her in the morning. It’s his business, and his place to do it.” She eyed her son intently. “Not yours.”
Kai held her gaze. He understood that she wanted to protect him. If he had gone through hell in the aftermath of the Westovers’ exodus from Lana'i, she had ridden there right along beside him. He was sorry for that.
But on this, she was wrong.
He started to speak, but stopped when his father laid a gentle hand on top of his.
“Malaya,” Aki said quietly. “The boy is right. Bill Westover was a kind-hearted man, and I liked him. He was good with people, and he was a hard worker. But he was a coward. He was afraid of conflict. Afraid of any sort of confrontation. Anything that was potentially unpleasant, or hurtful, or messy, he ignored and hoped would go away. If he’s been avoiding this for fifteen years, it’s likely he’ll go on avoiding it.”
Kai threw his father a look of gratitude, and Aki nodded back.
But Malaya only wound herself up tighter. “Well, fine then! Can we not just agree that the woman died from a heart attack and leave it at that?” she exclaimed. “Maddie was fine with that before she came here!”
“That’s not an option,” Kai argued. “You can’t make the whole island lie to her!”
“Nobody has to lie!” Malaya shot back, rising from her chair. “They just have to shut the hell up about it!”
“Malaya,” Aki reprimanded softly. “Gloria is listening, I’m sure. As might be others, at this hour.”
Malaya sat back down.
“Kai is right,” Aki continued. “It would be unkind to Maddie to let her hear it on the street. And that is what would happen. Sooner or later.”
“Thank you, Dad,” Kai said, exhaling with relief. He had already made up his mind. But having Aki agree with him did wonders to strengthen his resolve. He rose, walked over to where his bag lay on the floor, and rifled through his clothes.
Malaya stood again. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed,” he answered. “I’m going to Nana’s to wake up Maddie and tell her the truth.”
“Now?” Malaya protested.
“Mom,” Kai retorted, grabbing his jeans and a fresh tee shirt and heading for the bathroom. “I’m not going to let Maddie find out about her mother from some guy walking his dog tomorrow morning. Or some smart-mouthed kid riding his bike past the ‘haunted house.’ Or from some nosy old woman pretending to need to borrow something from Nana at the crack of dawn.”
“Kai,” Malaya reasoned. “Surely, after all this time, a couple more hours—”
“Besides,” he finished, pulling the door closed behind him. “The stars are out.”
Chapter 21
Plunk. Plink.
Maddie’s eyes opened. She stared up at the ceiling of Nana’s extra bedroom and felt a sense of deja vu.
Plunk.
Sh
e smiled to herself. Then she looked at the time on her phone and groaned. “Are you kidding me?” She rolled herself off the thin mattress and stepped over to clutch at the window sill. She peered out between the open glass louvers and through the screen, hoping that none of the holes therein were big enough to let the next pebble hit her in the face.
The scene that met her eyes in the dim light made her laugh out loud.
“Nakama, you idiot,” she giggled. “You could have just reached up and tapped!”
Kai stood on the ground outside her window, his adult face silhouetted not that far below. The boy Kai hadn’t a prayer of reaching her old window, but he had snuck out of bed and tossed pebbles at it whenever he couldn’t sleep, which had happened a bit too frequently for Maddie’s tastes.
“Old habits,” he quipped.
Maddie laughed again. “What do you want?”
“Let’s go stargazing.”
She stared at him with disbelief.
“I’m serious!” he insisted. “It’s a beautiful night for it. What, you have something better to do?”
“I always have something better to do!” she retorted. “Sleep!”
“That is so boring,” he taunted.
How many times had they had this conversation? As far as Maddie could remember, he’d always won. She could never resist a challenge. “Fine!” she replied, feigning peevishness. “I’ll meet you out front.”
She turned from the window, realizing that she had just had a complete conversation with a man without even thinking about what she was wearing. She glanced down in a panic and was relieved to remember that since the nights were chilly on Lana'i, she’d worn a tee and sleep pants instead of her usual skimpy fare. Thank goodness. She ran a brush through her hair, pulled it back with a band, threw on a jacket and shoes, doused herself in insect repellent, and headed for the door. Then she remembered she wasn’t alone in the house.
She crept back to the kitchen and looked for something to write a note on. She had just located a pad when she heard a noise from the other bedroom. She walked over and rapped gently on Nana’s door in case she was already awake.
A loud sigh echoed from within. “I may be old, child,” Nana mumbled. “But I’m not deaf. Just go on out, will you? And tell that grandson of mine I’ll be having a word with him in the morning.”
Maddie smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”
She went out the front door and found Kai leaning against the porch post. “Still fighting that insomnia, huh?” she asked, turning on her flashlight app.
“Put that thing away,” he chastised. “I’ve got my penlight. You can follow me.”
Maddie narrowed her eyes at him skeptically. They’d always taken at least one flashlight, unless there was a full moon. Tonight there was none. “You do realize we have to cross a bunch of new streets that didn’t use to be there?”
“You afraid of stubbing a toe?” he taunted again.
She set her phone down on the porch, then stepped behind him and gave a playful shove to his shoulders. “Just start moving Nakama. If I fall, you can cushion the blow.”
He chuckled, his adult voice deep and wholly appealing, and another ripple of anxiety shot through her. She hadn’t just uttered some weird double entendre, had she? Crap, this was complicated. They had so much fun when they were pretending to be kids again… except that pretending could only go so far.
Kai started off down the street as if to pass her old house and follow their traditional route, but after a few steps he hesitated and went the opposite direction. “New plan,” he announced.
Maddie couldn’t care less which direction he led, but she got the feeling — again — that he was hiding something from her. Was there some reason he didn’t want to walk by her old house?
If so, she didn’t want to know it.
They made their way uneventfully the few blocks to the “new” edge of town and then plunged into the bushes and weeds beyond.
“This is going to be a shorter trek in the wilderness than it used to be,” Kai commented, looking back over his shoulder at the silhouette of the mountains to get his bearings. He forged ahead through a few more clumps of grass and then suddenly, straight ahead, there it was.
The Rock. Or better put, their rock. Once located “way out” in the old fields, it now stood a less scandalous couple hundred feet from the nearest new construction. But thanks to the overgrown bushes, it was still well hidden from view.
Kai hustled up to the boulder and leaned against his favorite spot, which was slanted the perfect amount to let him put his head back and see the stars. “Whoa!” he complained, as the once-comfortable “pillow” jabbed him in the back. “It shrunk!”
“Yeah,” Maddie laughed. “That’s what happened.” She’d never been able to lean comfortably against the rock, and hence had wound up either sitting on it or lying on the ground nearby. Tonight she chose to hop up on it, and Kai soon gave up trying to get comfortable leaning and joined her. Indeed, the rock had shrunk. They could not both sit on it without their shoulders touching.
But that was okay. The middle of the night was always chilly on Lana'i, and every now and then a cool wind kicked up as well. They sat without speaking for a moment, and as the last of the dogs disturbed by their journey decided to get over it, a silence fell over the field that was near to absolute.
Maddie breathed in deeply of the quiet. How nice.
Kai put his hands behind him, tilted his head back, and began searching the sky. It was big and deep and never-ending, strung with a chaotic splash of sparkly stars.
“Well?” she prompted.
He looked at her questioningly. At least she thought he did. The light was dim, but her eyes were adjusting.
She smirked. “You brought me out here to bore me stiff again, right? Make up all kinds of names for constellations that don’t exist or that you can’t actually see. Pretending you’ve actually studied all this stuff. I know the drill. Go ahead.”
He smiled at her. At first, it seemed like a playful smile. But then it turned into something horrible. It turned sympathetic. “Maddie,” he began earnestly. “I brought you out here because there’s something I need to tell you. I wanted to—”
Maddie hopped down off the rock. Her gut twisted and her cheeks flared with heat. “Kai Nakama!” she chastised. “You stinking rat! You tricked me! You got me out here under false pretenses!”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I do not need your help,” she retorted. “I know what you’re doing. You think I need to know all about the past. But I don’t. I’m fine with the way things are!”
“It’s not a matter of whether or not you hear about it,” Kai said sternly. “It’s only a matter of when. And from who. And how.”
Maddie thought about that. Her pulse sped up. She felt like running away.
She decided to go with that.
She turned and started walking toward town.
“My dad told me that your dad was a really nice guy, but that if Bill had one flaw, it was that he couldn’t face any situation that was emotionally uncomfortable,” Kai called after her. “If there was conflict, or confrontation, if it was going to hurt or even be unpleasant, your father would just turn and walk away.”
Maddie’s teeth gritted.
“Like a coward,” Kai finished.
Dammit! Maddie’s feet halted. Her head was so full of hot blood it felt like it would explode. Kai was playing her ego and he knew it and she knew it and she was absolutely one hundred percent powerless to do a thing about it.
Because Madalyn “Tomato-Chan” Westover was Not A Coward.
She whirled, stomped back to the rock, and launched herself up on it with so much force she nearly knocked Kai off the other side.
When he resettled himself she was inappropriately close to him, but she didn’t care. Aside from the fact that her face was on fire, the rest of her body was cold, and his warmth felt good. “I am not running away from anything,” she proclaimed
, sounding even to her own ears as though she were trying to convince herself. “Lay it on me, Nakama.”
She crossed her arms under her chest, blew out a breath, and waited.
Kai said nothing for a moment.
She shivered.
He sighed. “Maddie,” he said, so close she could feel his breath on the side of her neck. “If I put my arms around you, are you going to injure me?”
“No,” she replied. “You may proceed.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said wryly. He squirmed around until he was sitting behind her, then wrapped his arms around her middle. He gave her a friendly squeeze, then laid his chin on top of her shoulder.
“Your mother didn’t die of a heart attack,” he said slowly. “Your father told you that because he thought it would make it easier for you to deal with. But the truth is, she committed suicide.”
Maddie went numb. The blood in her face seemed stuck there, pulsing.
Suicide? But why?
Her mother had wanted to leave her.
“Maddie?” Kai whispered.
“I’m fine. How did she do it?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His chest was pressed against her back and she could feel his heart pounding. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she replied, her voice clipped.
The breath Kai released sounded ragged. “You probably should know, because it’s likely to come up.” He gave her another squeeze. “She hung herself, Maddie. That’s why, even today, you may hear kids calling the place you used to live ‘the haunted house.’”
Maddie was glad Kai couldn’t see her face. She sucked in a breath sharply and tried hard not to make any embarrassing noises. Oh, God. It couldn’t be. Her own mother? But why?
She left you, Maddie. You weren’t worth living for.
“I’m sure your father thought that you were too young to understand about depression,” Kai was saying. “He probably thought that you would take it personally, assume there was something wrong with you, that she didn’t love you enough.”
Did she love you, Maddie? Did she really?
“But of course it wasn’t about you, or about your father,” Kai continued. “It was about her. It was a mental illness.”