…
This time, the house I rented was a bit farther down the beach from George’s place. I had wanted to rent the house I stayed in last time, but it wasn’t available. I was lucky to have found a vacation rental over the holidays on such short notice. Just like last time, the owner had received a last-minute cancellation, and again it felt like it was meant to be.
I had booked the beach house for two weeks, with the possibility of extending my stay. I had no idea how things would play out. Before I left New York, I let Mr. Hatchett know that I might take an extended vacation and that the leadership team would be able to look after things while I was gone. I promised to check my phone now and then should he or anyone else need to get a hold of me.
“Or you might find me back on your veranda again,” Mr. Hatchett had said with a smile. “But for God’s sake, woman, make sure to have something better to serve me next time!”
We both laughed.
“Done deal, Archie!”
The house was cute, smaller than the one I rented last time, but with the same nice Hawaiian vibe. Once I unpacked, I opened the veranda door and admired the beach and crystal blue ocean below. Oh, how I had missed the Pacific Ocean. I took a deep breath. “Yes, I could get used to this again.” The memory of this island had been stored in my heart. It smelled like home.
A large veranda surrounded the house and the big sofa in the corner looked perfect for some serious chill time. But first I had something else to do.
I walked into the bedroom closet and studied my Kaua’i wardrobe. I’d added a few items since my last trip: some new dresses and, of course, a new swimsuit. The Aloha Baby one had turned out to be really good for cleaning the sink and wasn’t really wearable anymore. Thank goodness.
After a quick shower, I put on a casual summer dress and a little bit of makeup, brushed my hair, and smiled at myself in the mirror. “You can do this, Maya,” I said and walked down to the beach and toward George’s house.
The house I was renting was at a crescent-shaped beach, next to the one George lived on, so I couldn’t see Bali Ha’i properly until I rounded its corner.
Even though this time I was mentally prepared to see Bali Ha’i, my reaction was just as strong as the first time. Overwhelmed by emotion, I sat down in the sand and stared at the majestic mountain in front of me. Waves of peace and happiness went straight to my heart, and somehow, at that moment, I just knew that everything was going to be OK.
I saw George’s house in the middle of the beach. “Please give me strength,” I whispered and continued walking. When I got closer, I saw a pair of skinny legs sticking out from a familiar beach chair.
“I knew you’d be back,” George said before I could even say hello.
His voice was weak, almost a whisper.
“Hello, dear friend,” I said and took his hand as I sat down in the sand beside him. His hands were only skin and bone; he seemed to be half the size of when I saw him last time. His eyes, however, were the same: warm, kind—and happy to see me.
“Welcome home, dear Maya.” He squeezed my hand.
I stared back at him, fighting back my tears.
“I am sorry it has taken me so long. I’ve really missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” he said.
I smiled at him. Don’t cry, Maya. Be strong for George.
George lifted his hand to touch my face.
“Let me look at you,” he said. “Just as beautiful as I remember.”
He shivered a bit and tried to pull the blanket that was on his lap up toward his chin, but he was only able to move it a few inches.
I stood up and softly tucked the blanket around him and gave his shoulder a loving squeeze before I sat back down on the beach again.
I struggled to keep the tears back. “I was so sad to hear that you were sick, George. I had no idea. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” George whispered and patted my hand. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
We sat and watched the waves for a while, just like we used to.
“I never get tired of this view,” George said after a while.
“Me neither,” I said with a sigh. “I have missed it so much. I have missed all of this so much.” I softly squeezed his hand.
The lulling sound of the waves was suddenly broken by intense banging sounds coming from the house next door, the house I had rented a few years ago.
“It’s William,” George said softly.
William? At the beach house? I looked over toward the house as George explained.
“When I was first diagnosed with cancer, about a year after you left, William moved back to Kaua’i and bought the house next door.”
“Really?”
George nodded and smiled.
“Since he and Rebecca sold their company six months ago, he’s been pouring all his energy into remodeling that house. That is, when he’s not bothering me.” George grinned.
I was glad to see George still had his sense of humor.
“You should go and say hi.” George nodded toward the beach house. I had a feeling he knew exactly what was going on.
I looked toward the house where I used to stay. I could see William standing with his back toward us, wearing a pair of jeans covered with paint stains. He was hammering away on the veranda steps.
“OK. Maybe just a quick hello.”
George winked and patted my hand as I stood up.
“I’ll be back in a bit to check on you.”
George smiled and motioned for me to go ahead.
“Yes, sir,” I laughed, as I stood up and walked toward the house.
I held my breath as I took in William’s back, shoulders, and hair. Just seeing him sent shivers through my body. I looked around. I could hardly recognize the house I had stayed in three years ago.
“Hi, William,” I said. It came out as a whisper. I cleared my throat. “Hi, William,” I said a bit louder.
He stopped hammering and turned around to look at me. He was just as handsome as I remembered. He still looked younger than his age but had more gray hair than last time, and there was a sadness in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.
“Hi, Maya. Welcome back,” he said. I felt a coolness coming from him. “Ray texted me that you were coming. I’m sure Dad is really glad to see you.”
I nodded. I didn’t blame him for acting cold toward me, but it still hurt. I missed the warm smiles he used to give me. Maybe Rebecca had been wrong about his feelings for me. Or maybe he just didn’t feel that way anymore. Standing in front of him, I knew my feelings for him had never gone away. I’d just become really good at suppressing them.
“How is he?” I nodded back at George.
“He’s in the last stages of cancer. He’s resisted any kind of treatment, except morphine for unbearable pain. The doctor thinks he might only have a few months, or weeks, left.”
My eyes welled up. “I’m so sorry, William.”
He nodded and gave me a sad smile. “Thank you, Maya.”
I looked over at where George sat. “He seems to be in good spirits, though.”
“Yes, that man is a wonderful nutcase. He still sings South Pacific songs with his scratchy voice and looks forward to meeting Mom again. So, it could be worse. But it’s breaking my heart to see him in so much pain, and not being able to do anything to help, except just being here for him.” Now William started to tear up.
I wanted to walk over to him and kiss the tears away. Instead I said, “He is so lucky to have you, William. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Thanks, Maya. I’ll let you know,” William said as he picked up his hammer, signaling that the chat was over.
“The house looks great, by the way,” I said.
He pulled his hand through his hair and smiled. “Thanks. It keeps me busy and helps get my mind off things.”
For a second, I saw a glimpse of the William I remembered, the one with the boyish smile, but then that guy disappea
red as quickly as he’d come.
“We’ll catch up later,” he said and turned toward the steps. He resumed hammering as if his life depended on it.
“OK.” I tried to ignore the pain of rejection. I walked back to where George was sitting. He had fallen asleep in his chair.
The sun had set, and a deep sadness came over me. I adjusted George’s blanket so his feet were covered and then walked back to the rental house. This was not how I had envisioned the evening unfolding.
When I got back to the house, I put on a pair of sweatpants and a cashmere sweater and made myself some tea. I brought the tea and a blanket out to the large sofa on the veranda. While drinking my tea, I watched the ocean and sky slowly turn dark. I was back in paradise, but my heart was heavy. I leaned back on the sofa and looked up at the sky. For a long time I just lay there, watching one star after another light up the dark sky. And when there were millions of them shining down on me, I folded my hands and whispered, “Please show me the way.”
And then I fell into a deep sleep.
…
As the morning light brightened the sky, I woke up, still on the sofa, under the open sky. Birds were singing and a rooster was crowing, but the sound of the powerful ocean waves drowned almost every other sound.
I took a deep breath and stretched my arms toward the sky.
“Good morning, Kaua’i,” I said out loud and smiled. “Today will be a beautiful day.”
I refused to let what had happened yesterday bring me down. I needed to put my personal feelings aside and muster all the positive energy I could for George.
A red cardinal, the little bird with the red Mohawk, landed on the white fence, surrounding the veranda. The way it tilted its head and looked at me, I wondered whether it was my old friend from three years back.
“Hello, little friend. I’ve missed you,” I said.
The little bird flew around and then came back, looking at me as if to say, “C’mon. Get moving.”
I laughed and went inside. I took a warm shower and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and started to head over to George’s house.
George was in his chair, covered with a thick blanket to protect him from the wind. His white sailor hat was pulled over his ears. For a moment I thought he looked more like a little boy than an old man.
“Good morning, my friend!” I gave him a warm hug and sat down in the chair beside him.
He nodded toward the beach bag between the chairs. “Can I offer you some coffee, my dear?”
“Always,” I said and reached down into the bag and picked up the thermos. I recognized the two cups, one of which was Aimee’s.
“May I?”
George smiled. “Of course. Aimee would have wanted for you to have it.”
I swallowed and felt a lump in my throat as I poured us each a cup of coffee.
I carefully placed his cup in his lap between his hands and watched him lift the cup to his mouth to take a sip.
For a while we sat in silence, drinking our coffee, looking out over the ocean and Bali Ha’i.
“It’s so good to be back,” I said after a while.
“It’s so good to have you here,” George said.
Then we were quiet again. Somehow words seemed unnecessary.
William came by to look after his father, but when he saw us sitting there together, he just nodded and went back to the house to work.
After a while, I noticed George was about to fall asleep. I carefully took his cup from his lap, put it down in the sand, and gently put my hand over his. I held it and stroked it gently as I watched him fall asleep.
He seemed so peaceful. In spite of the pain and the inevitable outcome, he seemed to fully embrace and accept what was happening to him. It was almost as if he was already between worlds. I was honored and grateful to keep him company on his journey.
After sitting beside him in silence for a while, I squeezed his hand and stood up. I leaned over, gave him a hug, and I whispered that I would come back later.
“It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,” he said. “Will you join us for dinner?”
“I would love to, George,” I said and held his hand. “I’ll bring dessert.”
On my walk back to the house I wondered how William would react to the fact that George had invited me to join them for Christmas Eve. It felt a bit awkward, considering his rather cold welcome back.
Large waves hit the shore. I thought of something Ava once had said in yoga class—that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.
This would be George’s last Christmas, and he wanted me to be there. Everything else was irrelevant. Nothing else mattered.
William would just have to deal with it. And so would I.
THE HIKE
The next morning, Lani and I met for coffee and a hike to one of the waterfalls.
“Have you seen William yet?” We were walking side by side up a steep hill, surrounded by a lush, tropical landscape. As I struggled to keep up, I realized that Lani was in much better shape than I was.
“Yes, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me.” I told her everything, including the meeting with Rebecca at the airport and how I realized how stupid I had been. “But from what I can tell, William doesn’t have any feelings for me. He doesn’t even seem to want to be my friend anymore.”
I leaned forward and motioned to Lani that I needed to stop for a rest. It was exhausting trying to climb and talk at the same time.
Lani stopped and looked at me. She didn’t even seem affected by the hard climb. “Listen, Maya. If someone had left you without saying goodbye, not answered your calls, ignored your texts, and canceled your dinner date, how would you have felt?”
I looked down at the ground, embarrassed. “I haven’t really thought about it that way,” I said, and looked into Lani’s smiling eyes.
“William is probably just trying to protect his heart,” she said. “Just like you have been doing all this time.”
I nodded and remembered what Rebecca had said, about giving him time.
We started walking again.
“What do you think I should do?” A small seed of hope was planted in me.
“I think you should tell him how you feel. Tell him you are sorry. Dare to be vulnerable. I think that is the only way to find out how he really feels about you.”
The thought of sharing all of that with William had me near panic. Telling him how I felt was just as scary now as it had been back then.
“You know what I always tell Liat?” Lani asked softly.
I shook my head.
“That when something really scares her, it’s probably a sign that she should do it. Because when we are scared to do something, it usually means it’s something that’s really important to us.”
I smiled. Lani was so full of wisdom. Liat was lucky to have her as a mom, and I was lucky to have her as a friend.
Lani took my arm, and together we walked up that last bit of the hill. Suddenly, right in front of us was a breathtakingly beautiful waterfall, rushing down the hillside to the ground far below.
“Yay, we made it!” Lani said and clapped her hands. We sat down on a large rock to drink some water and rest for a bit, while admiring the view in silence.
It felt good to be back together with my dear friend. We had become close over the last three years, as she had stayed with me in New York every time she went to visit her friends in Harlem, and as I had become more involved in her Rainbow Children Foundation. She and Lisa had also become close friends, which I always knew would happen.
On our way back down the hill, Lani asked when I was planning to talk to William and reminded me to not fall into the same trap as last time.
“Someone has to say it first, Maya. And I suggest that someone is you.”
I nodded and promised to do it. But the idea still scared the living daylight out of me.
…
When we got back to our cars, I thanked Lani for a great hike and drov
e back to the beach house. The hike had made me sweaty, so I decided to cool off with a swim. I changed into a bathing suit, grabbed a towel, and went down to the beach. The waves were still big, so it wasn’t ideal for swimming. Instead, I tried to do some body surfing.
It had been a while. The first wave that came pulled me under and I panicked a little. The second wave didn’t work out much better.
Then I remembered William’s advice: let go of control, just go with the flow, and have fun. And with that, I was able to surf on the third wave, all the way back to the shore.
Afterward, I dried off and lay down in the warm sand. I took some deep breaths and felt the softness under my body. It felt like the sand embraced me, as if it was welcoming me back. Oh, how I had missed this! The feeling of total relaxation.
As I was lying on my back, the waves put me in a dreamlike state. Suddenly, I heard a voice I would have recognized anywhere.
“Wow, girl. You’ve come a long way.”
I shot up and turned around.
“Josh?”
I looked around, but no one was there.
I stood up and brushed myself off. I needed to go and find Josh. I had to tell him about everything that had happened since the last time we spoke. And I had to thank him. There was so much to thank him for.
A PLACE WITH A VIEW
The waves at Kealia Beach were some of the biggest I’d ever seen. The ocean was packed with surfers, lying on their boards outside the break, waiting for the perfect moment. I watched, fascinated, as one surfer after another caught a giant wave.
I looked around, but I didn’t see Josh. I was hoping someone out there might know him, so I sat down on the beach and waited patiently for one of them to take a break.
I had waited for more than an hour by the time a young surfer followed a wave all the way to shore. I watched him jump off his board and walk up to the beach. He was soon followed by another young man. I gave them a few minutes to dry off and drink some water before I got up and walked over to them.
“Wow, guys,” I said, sounding a bit cooler than I actually felt. “Nice surfing out there!”
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