by Kay Hadashi
“Rooms are awfully expensive, especially at this time of year. I’d enjoy it if you stayed with my family and me. And I’m pretty sure there are no more flights to the mainland tonight.”
The woman looked at Melanie with the eyes of a hurt puppy. “Yes, I’m far away from home here, aren’t I?”
They got the woman buckled into the back seat of Trinh’s car and left for the quick ride home. As soon as they were on their way, Melanie called Josh.
“Hey, are you coming home yet?” he asked.
“Yes, and bringing a guest with me.”
“Trinh?”
“No, a new friend from the mainland. You’ll meet her in just a few minutes.”
She ended the call and sent him a text.
Be nice to her. She just lost her son.
Getting her phone out again, she sent another text.
Put clean clothes on T.
Chapter Six
Melanie led Mrs. Winston up the steps to the back door of her house. She could smell the scents of food even before going inside. One smelled spicy from peppers, something else had too much ginger, and garlic dominated all of it. It was going to be another one of Josh’s adventures in vegetarian cooking, and on a night when they had a guest.
“One thing you need to know is that we’re vegetarians here at home, Mrs. Winston. I hope you don’t mind.”
“How can I complain when you’ve made me a guest in your home?”
“Yes, well, the house might be a bit messy. We have a very busy three-year-old running the show around here.”
“Momma!” was shouted from the other end of the house, followed by the squeaking of a tricycle coming down the hallway.
“See what I mean?” Melanie said. She put her foot out in the middle of the floor to stop the trike after Thérèse made the turn into the kitchen. “Mrs. Winston, this is my husband, Josh, and our daughter, Thérèse.”
Josh gave a little salute from where he was at the stove. Thérèse made a show of sticking out her hand. “Hello. My name is Thérèse Kato-Strong.”
The woman smiled for the first time that Melanie had noticed.
“Well, my name is Adelaide Winston, but you should call me Addie.”
Thérèse glanced quickly at her mother.
“Maybe Aunt Addie would be better,” Melanie said before leaving the kitchen.
“Addie like numbers?” the girl asked.
“Well, maybe. Do you know how to add?” their visitor asked.
When a number game started, Melanie went down the hall to her bedroom, Josh following her. He closed the door behind him.
“Who’s she? We’re bringing home strays now?”
As usual, she turned her back to Josh so he could zip open her blouse and skirt. “Be nice. Yesterday she found out her son died in the ocean and came to take his body home. She just got here this afternoon and doesn’t have a place to stay. I’m not letting her stay in a hotel room that will only rake her over the coals in last minute booking fees. She can stay in the spare room.”
“You just got out of the hospital. You’re supposed to be resting.”
“It’s not like we’re going to be mud wrestling.”
“Tomorrow is your first day off in how long? You’re starting your first vacation in more than a year. Don’t you know what time off is?” he asked.
Melanie began coating her belly stretch marks with hand lotion. “Time off from the hospital but not from the county. This is important, Josh. She’s having to deal with a tragedy on an island I’m responsible for, in a number of ways.”
“But…”
“Don’t you have overly seasoned food burning on the stove?”
Melanie desperately wanted to crawl onto the bed and stay there until the next Friday, her scheduled due date, but having a guest in the house, she put on an XXX-L T-shirt and baggy shorts and went back to the kitchen.
Thérèse and Mrs. Winston were already at the kitchen table, and Josh was setting bowls of food in the middle. Melanie took her position at the end with the most space.
“I hope there’s something you can eat, Mrs. Winston,” Melanie said, filling a small rice bowl for Thérèse, putting steamed vegetables on top.
“It’s all very interesting.” She picked up the chopsticks that had been put out for her and gave them a long look.
“Tay, maybe you could get Aunt Addie a fork.”
The girl hopped down from her chair and went to a drawer, returning with a spoon and fork for their guest. She ate slowly, only picking at the food, steering rice around her plate.
“I could cook some potatoes, if you like?” Melanie offered.
“This is fine. I was just thinking about Kenny. On the ride to the hospital from the airport, I watched the scenery, thinking how Kenny had seen the same sights. I was even thinking of coming for a visit to see him this winter. Now, I suppose it’s pointless, without Kenny here.”
“Who’s Kenny?” Thérèse asked.
“Maybe during this dinner, we can be quiet and let our guest talk?” Josh said to Thérèse, putting her rice bowl back in front of her.
“No, it’s okay. Kenny is my son.”
“Old kind son like Daddy, or young kind son like Wilson?”
“Please pardon my daughter’s inventive grammar. Wilson is Trinh’s son, a few years older than Thérèse,” Melanie quickly explained.
“He’s in between them,” the woman said, her tentative smile beginning to crack.
“Where is he? He no want to eat with us?” Thérèse asked, waving her chopsticks in the air.
Josh sprang from his chair and lifted Thérèse from hers. “Okay, you know the rule. No playing at the dinner table, and Mommy and Mrs. Winston want to talk.”
Melanie listened to her daughter gripe all the way down the hall until her bedroom door was closed. Apparently, Josh stayed with her to keep her occupied with playing games.
“Sorry,” Melanie said quietly.
“She’s a little cutie.”
“Sometimes. Other times she’s a little precocious. And inquisitive.”
“I don’t mind,” Mrs. Winston said. “Such a clever way for her to get around the house in a little tricycle.”
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea having you stay with us? You might’ve wanted to be alone.”
“Actually, being around people might be the perfect thing right now, even if we’re all strangers. I don’t think I could face being alone. That long flight to get here was horrible, just sitting there with nothing to do but think about Kenny.” She dug through her purse to find her billfold. From there she pulled out three snapshots. “This is Kenny and his father when he was just a boy. Ken senior left us for Heaven about ten years ago. This one is from when he was running on the high school track team. And this was taken here on Maui, just a few weeks ago. I suppose this is the last picture of him that I’ll have.”
She clung to that one the longest before handing it over to Melanie.
Kenny looked athletic, with bright blue eyes, an angular chiseled face, and blond hair that would be the envy of every college cheerleader. “He was very good-looking. In what part of the island did he live?”
“A place called Kihei. I think it’s where the kids like to live. He was never terribly outgoing as a kid, never had many friends. I think that’s why he came here, to start over socially, sort of reinvent himself. Do you know that place? You must, if you’re the mayor here.”
“Kihei is quite pleasant. I’m sure he was happy living there.”
“The police say his…he was found near Lahaina. Am I saying that right?”
“Yes, it’s just down the road from here a few miles. We could go there tomorrow, if you’d like to…” Melanie was lost. She had no idea of how to treat the woman. Most of the time when her patients passed away and she had to break the bad news to families, she left the aftermath of emotions to social workers to sort out. “…if you’d like to go see where he was found.”
“I’d like that.”
Even though the woman looked finished with her meal, Melanie kept eating, if in slow motion. “What did Kenny do for work?”
“Oh, he didn’t really have a career, just odd jobs. He went to college for a couple of years before deciding that wasn’t right for him. That’s when he came here. Every time he called home, he made Maui sound like heaven on earth. He’d made so many new friends, and when I pried hard enough, he said he was dating a few girls. Nothing special he always said, but I guess that’s how kids are these days.”
“People seem to make friends pretty easily here. There are so many outdoors things to do…” Melanie stopped talking. It wasn’t the right time to sound like a Chamber of Commerce advertisement.
“He’d been saving his money to buy a surfboard. He sure was excited when he called to tell me all about the first wave he rode. I guess a lot of people here surf.”
“It’s very popular. Kihei would be the perfect place to learn.”
“It sounds like you know how?” Mrs. Winston asked.
“I suppose it’s my passion also. I don’t have much chance to anymore, being busy at the hospital and now that my family is growing. Did Kenny work in Kihei?”
“He made it sound like he worked all over the island. He waited tables in Kihei, worked on a little farm in some place called ‘Upcountry’, and did odd job types of labor with some new friends. He was hoping that would lead to something bigger, or at least more money. I think for him, the worst thing in the world would’ve been if he came home again because he had to, not because he wanted to. But he never asked me for money, not once.”
“What kinds of odd jobs did these other friends do?” Melanie asked.
“That’s what the police asked when I talked with them this afternoon. They asked if I knew any of their names, where they lived, if they lived with him, if they take drugs. Honestly, I never thought to ask Kenny. I was just hoping he’d bring one of his girlfriends home to Arizona, get back into school, and then who knows what?”
“Well, a lot of people fall in love with Maui when they first come here and decide to stay. It isn’t long before they discover how expensive it is, and how hard it is to find a good job. Most people end up going home again, but they always have good memories of the place.”
Another faux pas. Mrs. Winston would be taking her son’s body back home with a heavy heart, not with fond memories of Maui.
“You’re certain I’m not in the way, Doctor? Or should I call you Mayor? I’m still a little confused about that.”
“I’d like it if you called me Melanie. And you can stay for as long as you want. But I have to warn you, one week from now, there’s going to be a fourth member of the family, and I might just put you to work changing diapers if you’re still here.”
“No, Kenny and I will be home by then.”
Melanie took the woman to the guest room, found towels for her to use in the spare bathroom, and had Josh change the linens on the bed while Mrs. Winston showered. Making a quick call next door, she had Trinh bring some of her oldest daughter’s clothes over, the only things in the house that might fit the petite woman, even if they were for a younger generation. Once their guest closed herself into her room for the night, Melanie and Josh went back to finish their cold meals.
“Tay’s okay?”
“I tried explaining how we had to be extra nice and not ask too many personal questions, but I’m not sure she understood,” Josh said.
“There’s no such thing as too personal to her. Did she go to bed already?”
He shook his head. “I think she’s teaching us a lesson by going on a hunger strike. She said she never wants to eat dinner with us again if she can’t eat with the guests.”
“Fine with me,” Melanie said, finishing her rice.
Melanie heard her daughter’s bedroom door open, followed by footsteps slowly coming down the hall.
“Where’s Auntie?” someone said from the doorway into the kitchen. Thérèse was half hiding behind the door.
“Gone beddy. Are you done eating dinner?”
“Are there still vegebles?”
“Carrots, green beans, and peas.”
“Are they friendly?” she asked, stepping out from the protection behind the door.
Melanie didn’t look up at her daughter. “Friendlier than me, right now.”
The girl stood at the table rather than sit to finish her meal. “Daddy, what’s in the big box?”
“I keep forgetting about that,” Josh said. “Your grandmother sent things to us. I think they’re for the baby.”
“Birfday present?”
“I guess it is, yes. Maybe we should open it after dinner?”
“Is it okay with Momma?” the girl asked, looking directly at her father.
Melanie set her rice bowl down, maybe a little too vigorously. “Thérèse, I’m not mad at you. And yes, we can open the box together, okay?”
Instead of the usual ‘Yay!’ the girl normally offered, she only hurried through eating her meal. Once they were done eating, Melanie made a chore of taking the bowl and plates to the sink, making the girl help.
“Okay, little one. You take out the first thing on top,” Melanie said, once Josh had the box open on the living room floor.
“What’s this thing?” the girl asked, looking at embroidered white fabric that was yellow with age.
“It’s a baby bonnet,” her father said.
Melanie snagged a sheet of paper from inside the box, a list of everything inside.
“It’s your great-grandmother’s baby bonnet, Josh.” She took the bonnet from Thérèse, who was close to putting it on her own head. “How nice.”
“Got a big blankie in here,” the girl said, pulling something else out.
“Oh good. Your grandmother’s old blanket. It even smells…used. Leave it alone, Sweetie.”
“Got some books, too.”
Melanie read the titles. “Caring for Your Baby and Modern Child Rearing.” She looked inside. “Oh, look. Published in the 1930s.”
“Good taste never goes out of style,” Josh muttered.
“Josh, what is all this stuff? Why are we getting your family heirlooms?”
“Probably because my brother didn’t want them. Mom has to unload it on someone.”
“We’re already limited on storage space around here, and even if this blanket held up while being cleaned, who would use it? The tropics, remember? And am I really supposed to put a grungy old bonnet on Sofia’s head?”
“Maybe we could say we tried laundering them and they disintegrated?” he offered.
Melanie kept taking things from Thérèse as she pulled them out of the box. “And the antique books?”
“Spontaneous combustion?”
“I’m sorry, Josh. I know this is all very special and heartwarming, but are we really supposed to be the caretakers of old moth-eaten stuff from a hundred years ago?”
Using the tips of his fingers, he looked at the bonnet. “This stuff belongs in a museum.”
“Hey, you’re on to something. We could donate it all to a museum as examples of early island missionary household items. We could even put your mother’s family name on it as the donor. That way it would have a place to go and not here.”
“Momma, what’s this thing?”
Melanie took the thing and gave it a long look. “I’m not sure. Some sort of little toy.”
“Hey! My old pacifier,” Josh said.
Melanie winced. “This thing was your pacifier?”
“And a whole bunch of other Carpenters from my Mom’s side of the family. I think that goes with the baby bonnet and blanket.”
“Actually, it goes in the trash where it belongs, and nowhere near my children.”
***
Josh did the driving the next morning when Melanie took Mrs. Winston to Lahaina. The beach where Kenny’s body was found was not far from the old whaling town popular with visitors. Melanie had been there countless times in her life, and the Pu
amana Beach area was one of her family’s favorite weekend picnic spots. It was as peaceful as always, no indication that a death had occurred just offshore.
While Josh took Thérèse to her favorite area for exploring tiny tide pools, Melanie went with Mrs. Winston for a stroll on the beach.
“Ma’am, this area is called Puamana Beach. As you can see, it’s mostly vacation rentals along one side and a narrow beach in the other direction. It’s a nice place to bring small children since the surf is never very rough.”
“No need to be so formal, Doctor. Please call me Addie.”
“If you call me Melanie.”
Addie kept walking in the soft yellow sand, almost lost in her own little world. She seemed to be paying closer attention to the ocean than to the beach. The only waves were a hundred yards out and barely turning over, the water lapping at the beach the same as it would in a lake. The morning was already warm, the sun bright. A steady breeze fluttered their clothes. At one point, she stopped and gazed out at the giant blue ocean.
“I wonder…”
Melanie knew what the woman wanted to ask, but waited, allowing the woman to have some personal space.
“Such a beautiful place. I wasn’t expecting it to look like this. I hear so much about people coming to Maui for vacations and honeymoons. Honestly, I was expecting something like Newport Beach in LA.”
“It’s very special here.”
“You grew up here?” Addie asked, aiming her face into the sun, closing her eyes against the breeze.
“I grew up in the same house where we live. This is a beach my mom and I often came to. We still do. I learned to surf just down the road a few miles.”
“You’re very lucky.”
“I am. I’m hoping I can bring that same sense of good fortune to my daughters, and their children someday. But we all must find our own way in life. Who knows? They might leave the nest and never come back.”
The subtle smile that had formed on Addie’s face sank when she opened her eyes and looked out at the ocean again. “I wonder where it happened?”
“I spoke with the detective this morning that’s investigating. You can see the edge of the coral reef not far out. Apparently, it was high tide when he was found. His surfboard leash was tangled in some of the coral, which held him underwater.”