When they left the barn, Maile’s bedroom light was on. Albert hastened his steps to the house. “Do you think she knows we were gone?” he asked, walking ahead.
“I’m sure Maile is just using the bathroom.”
“I shouldn’t have left your dad for so long.” He took the porch steps two at a time.
“We weren’t far. And we weren’t gone for more than a half hour,” Pili called after him, but Albert had already disappeared behind the screen door. Pili took his time walking up the porch steps. He was not going to indulge his fears. He was sure the light meant nothing. But even as he told himself to remain calm, he heard his sister running across the house to the kitchen phone.
“Nine-one-one?” Maile was crying. “I have an emergency.”
Pili managed to sleep for a couple of hours, waking just after dawn with the scent of Albert’s skin still on his body. He got out of bed hesitantly. Maile wasn’t in her room, and the house was silent and tense. At the study Pili paused, afraid to go inside, afraid of what he might see. Would there be blood? Would Harrison look like himself? Would he be alive?
Albert sat in a chair beside the bed, his chin in his hand and his eyes closed. He jolted awake when Pili stepped into the room and then, realizing it wasn’t Maile, smiled sheepishly. Harrison looked like he was sleeping, and for a moment Pili forgot his father was in a coma. Harrison had lost consciousness the night before. “His body is shutting down,” Albert had told Pili and Maile.
The EMTs had offered to take Harrison to the hospital—if he had had a stroke, which they suspected, then treatment might buy a small amount of time—but Maile had refused. “Nomo heroic measures,” she said. “He neva want dat.” The EMTs drove away with their lights off.
In the daylight Pili could see more clearly the changes in his father’s body. The corner of his left eye drooped slightly, and his left arm and leg were immobile in a way that went beyond stillness and veered toward lifeless. The EMT had left an oxygen mask to replace the small tubes for Harrison’s nose. The mask covered half his face.
“Talk to him,” Albert said. “He can hear you. He won’t be able to respond, but he can hear you.”
Pili didn’t know what to say. He wanted to both speak openly to Albert and use the right words with his father. He felt stretched in two directions. He would have liked time to think, but Albert was looking at him expectantly, and finally Pili said, “It’s me, Dad. Pilipo.”
“That’s a fine start.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Just keep talking to him. Let him know you’re here.”
“Can he understand me?”
“Scans show there’s activity in the brain even when someone is unconscious like this.”
Pili took a deep breath. “Dad, one of the EMTs was George Kapana’s son. He remembered you. He said he still had the feather lei you made him all those years ago. Nice kid, yeah? He’s getting married in a few months.” Pili stopped. He felt strange delivering this kind of news to his father. After all, why would Harrison care if George Kapana’s son was getting married? If he could hear Pili and think through what he was saying, then wouldn’t he want to hear about his own family? About his present state? Pili felt immobilized. He wanted to say things that mattered.
He rested a hand on Albert’s knee looking for comfort there, but Albert shifted in his chair. “Studies show that interactions such as these with family and close friends can actually prolong a patient’s life.”
Pili folded his hands into his lap. He felt alone. He thought of those boyhood evenings with his father on their porch when words were unnecessary. Pili stared at his father. The sheets were neatly tucked beneath the mattress and the blue and turquoise saddle blanket was folded over the bar at the foot of the bed. Pili ran his fingers along the blanket’s edge where the fabric was beginning to fray.
In the kitchen a cupboard door slammed. “Did Maile sleep last night?” Pili asked.
“She’s been cleaning since the paramedics left.”
“She’s pissed.” Pili rearranged the saddle blanket so it covered Harrison’s knees and feet.
“Can you blame her?”
“Nothing would have changed if we’d been here, right?”
“I doubt it.” Albert paused. “It’s possible, I guess.” He refused to look at Pili, and finally Pili rose and left the room.
In the kitchen, Tupperware lids were strewn across the table. They looked like oversized jewels, red and blue and green, glowing in the kitchen lights. The mop and bucket leaned against the wall, and the room smelled faintly of bleach. Maile was on her knees, crouched behind one of the cupboard doors. “What are you doing?” Pili asked.
“Choke lids but I neva find one fo’ fit my Tupperware.” She threw a handful of lids into the sink and went back to pulling plastic containers from the cupboard. She moved quickly, constantly, like a waterwheel. Pili wanted to wrap his arms around her and force her to be still.
“How about I help you with this?” He gathered the lids in the sink and laid them with the others on the table. “Dad could use some new company,” Pili said, smiling.
“He awake?” For a moment her movement ceased and she looked up at him with hope, but when he shook his head, she returned to the cupboard.
“Albert said we should talk to him.”
“Albert like tell a lot of tings.”
“Maile, don’t be mad at him. I was the one who insisted on going to the barn. I was showing him Dad’s blankets and the photographs of Joe’s daughter and everything else.”
She pretended to ignore him, but Pili saw her jaw throbbing beneath her cheek and knew she wouldn’t stay silent for long.
“Albert feels terrible. The one night he agrees to go down there with me, and this happens.”
“You like try tell me was one night, Pili?” Maile clambered to her feet to face him. Her hands were clenched around two lids that reminded him of green cymbals, and for a moment he wondered if she would try to clang them around his ears. “You tink I stay blind? You tink I neva see you and Albert go da barn evry night. And evry night, you gon long time. So I go sit wit’ Dad. I wake up, and I go sit wit’ him, and where you?”
Pili was bound in place.
“Tell me, Pili. Where you? You tink I no know?”
Pili tried to speak but faltered. All this time he thought he had hidden himself from her, and she had known. She knew about him. He was terrified, ecstatic, relieved.
“He woke up last night, you know. Dad woke up, and he wen aks where Albert stay and why I dere, and I tell ’im you and Albert go talk story, and he wen frown. ‘Why dey no talk story hea?’ ‘ ’Cause,’ I tell ’im, ‘Dey no like keep you awake. Jus’ on da porch, dem.’ See, I cover fo’ you. But Dad know I no tell da trut’. He say, ‘You look tired, sweetheart. Why you always do tings fo’ Pili?’ Das what he tell me, and den he wen close his eyes. So I fall asleep and when I wake up his breathing not right, and I tink, Why he look so heavy? And dat was it. He was gone in da coma.” Her voice petered out along with her anger. Her shoulders slumped. Her bare arms, usually defined and muscular, seem to atrophy in front of Pili. He walked to her and pulled her to him. He wished to lift her into his arms and cradle her. She began to cry.
“I cover fo’ you fo’ years, you know.”
“Covered for me? What do you mean?” He could feel her tremble against him.
“When Dad aks why you neva bring home one wahine, I tell him you work so hard no have time fo’ date. Or I say you jus’ broke up wit’ one. Hard fo’ find da right one. Das what I tell ’im.”
Pili pushed Maile away from his shoulder and gazed down at her. “You told Dad those things?”
“What? You tink I like lie to him? Suppostu say what?”
“Say nothing.” He released his grip on her and stepped backward.
“No, Pili. I haftu say someting. I haftu protect you, and him.”
Pili felt his face grow hot with anger. “Protect us from what?”
“Each uddeh.” She held open her hands as if a better answer rested there, and then she closed them into fists. “From hurt each uddeh. Das why you neva wen tell ’im, yeah? Or me. Das why you neva tell me? Neva like hurt me?”
“No. That’s not why. I was just scared. I was protecting myself. Until this visit, when I began to think it was better if I came out to Dad. Then I wouldn’t be scared anymore.”
“Good you neva tell Dad. Fo’ once you tink of us and not yoaself first.”
“I never think of myself first,” Pili protested weakly.
“Bulai you,” she snapped. “Who flew to California? Who wen college? And who wen come hea in time fo’ meet Albert?”
“I didn’t know I was going to meet Albert here.”
“You don’ know what it’s like fo’ me.” She bent over the sink as if an explanation lay in the pile of plastic lids. “All dis time, I take his jokes and his criticism and I neva complain because if I do den maybe he go turn on you and he question you and den it all gon fall apart.”
“What would fall apart?”
“Us. Da tree of us. You, me, dad.”
“You think I would make us fall apart? If I were myself, if I were out, we would all collapse?”
Maile stuck her chin out at him, defiant.
“How dare you. All these years you’ve thought if I came out, was open with him, it would be the end of everything. But you know what? I think you’re wrong. I think Dad would have accepted it and we would have been better, stronger. Him and me. Maybe not you, but I don’t care. If I could come out to Dad right now, I would.”
Maile threw a lid across the room and it sailed like a Frisbee, landing on the floor beside the kitchen table. “Yeas ago, one ting. But now? What, you tink he want accept dis now? Good ting you no can tell ’im.”
Pili slammed his fist on the countertop. “Can. Right now.” He marched from the room. In the study, he lifted the turquoise blanket from the foot of the bed and held it in front of his father, as if Harrison could see it. Albert stood up from his chair, confused, and when Maile appeared in the doorway, he looked from Pili to her and back.
“Dad,” Pili said. “You know how much this blanket means to me. Mom’s blanket, the blue one. And I remember what it once meant to you and her.”
Pili paused. He sensed his anger with Maile was driving him to act, and he wondered if he should give greater thought to the moment, but he suppressed these doubts. “I’d like to give this blanket to Albert. I want him to have it. I am giving it to him.” Pili rested the blanket in Albert’s arms.
“Why you gon do dis?” Maile whispered.
“Thank you,” Albert said to Pili. He sounded surprised but pleased. After a moment he took Harrison’s hands between his and pressed gently. “Thank you,” he repeated, speaking this time to Harrison.
Maile remained in the doorway. “How can you?” She looked stricken, more shocked than angry. “Not even yoas fo’ give away.”
Albert looked at her, confused and scolding at once. He clung to the blanket proudly. “Your dad means so much to me,” he told her, and she shook her head. She looked ashamed or embarrassed or both, and Pili wondered if she felt guilty, or if the embarrassment was for him and Albert alone.
Pili no longer cared. He walked to the right side of the bed and rested his head on the pillow beside Harrison’s. “I love you, Dad. You were a good father and a good man. And you have taught me to appreciate the goodness in other men.” Pili didn’t move then for some time, but remained with his head beside his father’s. Albert continued grasping Harrison’s hand, the blanket tucked beneath his arm.
Pili listened to his father’s labored breath. He smelled his father’s skin, redolent of Old Spice and age and death. He hadn’t felt this much love for his father since he was a boy. He looked across the bed at Albert and smiled.
At last Albert smiled back. “I’m so proud to have helped your dad these last few months. This blanket is such a gift.” Albert reached across the bed with his free hand and rested his hand on Pili’s wrist. “You’ve been a good son.” He spoke as if giving a benediction. Pili saw Maile turn and leave the doorway, but Albert never noticed.
The plastic lids were still strewn across the kitchen table when Harrison died. Eventually Pili put them away, not in any particular order, though he did try to keep the small lids stacked together because they were so easy to misplace. Maile wasn’t speaking to Pili or Albert except to give them orders: call Auntie Inez, visit the mortuary, confirm with the florist. If Albert had thought his employment would end as soon as Harrison passed away, he had been mistaken.
Pili tried several times to apologize to Maile, but she only answered with more demands. “Need call Uncle Kawai in California,” she said when he asked if she had wanted to keep the saddle blanket for herself, or “Dad like hea some Hawaiian songs, so bettah choose ’em,” when he attempted to tell her he hadn’t meant to be so angry.
Pili didn’t feel remorse for coming out, but he knew his argument with Maile had driven him to it, and for that he was sorry. Her protection of him had hurt. In the end, both Maile and Albert were right. His coming out had less to do with his father than he had expected.
On the day of the funeral, family members flew in from Honolulu or drove over from Hilo or up from Kona. Joe and Keo were both pallbearers. Joe’s middle daughter sang “Kuʻu Home O Kahaluʻu,” and her clear, youthful voice lilted over her dad’s guitar picking.
Keo hosted the reception—for once Maile could not bear to put the house in order—and the party lasted well into the night. Everyone wanted to meet Albert, who was a kind of hero, and many of the older women wrapped their arms around his neck and cried softly on his shoulder. He held them. He wasn’t shy with the family or embarrassed, and he let himself be kissed and questioned and patted on the cheek.
At one point Maile turned to Pili and smirked, “Well, I guess he gon be a hit if you decide fo’ marry.” They were the first personal words she had spoken to him in six days, and they felt oddly good.
Sometime around midnight Albert said he had to drive home, but Pili could tell he had had too much to drink. Maile was asking to return home too, exhausted from the day, so Pili urged both of them into her truck. Keo was reluctant to see the three of them leave, and when Pili pulled out of the dirt roundabout that served as a driveway, the elder paniolo walked alongside the car. Finally, he shook Pili’s hand and told him to drive safe. When Pili looked in his rearview mirror, Keo was watching them. He looked small in the glow of the house lights, standing alone in the center of that dark road. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets and he was hunched into himself. Pili and Maile weren’t the only ones who had lost a father today.
Albert was laid out in the back of the cab, his head resting against the window and his legs slung on the bench seat while Maile curled up on the front passenger side. Albert fell asleep, but Maile stayed awake, staring at the car’s ceiling. “Dis day wen jus’ how he like it.” Her voice echoed in the cold cab. After a moment, she said, “I happy it’s ova now.”
“The funeral?”
She shook her head.
“Dad’s dying?”
“Us, I mean. Da way we had fo’ be. Das ova now.”
Pili wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she turned her face away from him and pressed her forehead against the window.
When they pulled into their driveway, all the lights were off, even the porch light, and the darkness emphasized the emptiness of the house. Maile said something about the horses needing to be fed, and as if on cue one of them whinnied, but neither she nor Pili made the move to head down to the barn. Pili knew the horses would have to wait to be hayed and watered until the morning. At least they had eaten well earlier in the day.
Inside, Pili pulled back the quilt on his bed and laid Albert down. Only three months ago this was Harrison’s bed, before he’d become too weak to move and the hospital bed had been ordered.
Pili stepped
into the hall. Maile was in the bathroom with the door closed. He flipped on the hall light: he was afraid to walk past the study when the lights were off. The hospital bed had already been removed, sent back to the hospice center from where they had rented it, and the two chairs that had once flanked the bed were now pressed into the corners of the room. The desk had yet to be moved back, and the room looked empty of life.
Maile stepped out of the bathroom, her face scrubbed clean except for the remnants of mascara that ringed her eyes and emphasized their redness. She came to stand beside Pili and stared into the dark study with him. He rested his hand on the small of her back and left it there, and eventually he realized she was crying quietly to herself. He drew her to him then, and her tears soaked through the thin cotton of his undershirt.
Pili was set to fly back to San Francisco in two days. He had invited Albert to join him, but Albert was hesitant and Pili suspected, despite their hopes for the future, that Albert would fail to depart the islands. Still, for some reason Pili couldn’t articulate, he felt generous in the face of losing Albert. He hoped Maile and Albert would remain friends, or maybe he felt he owed Maile that friendship as some kind of apology. He wondered if, in time, Maile’s allegiances would shift, and she’d tell Albert how Pili had betrayed him to Harrison.
Pili wanted to believe he would one day return to Big Island to stay. Perhaps by then Albert would be ready to come out to his family, and Maile would have remarried. Her kids would fill the barn with their laughter and their games and their thumping as they leaped from the hayloft rafters into the hay. Pili smiled to himself. His and Harrison’s dreams for the ranch weren’t different at all.
“Time fo’ get some sleep,” Maile said, pulling away from Pili. She patted his cheek, then took a step toward her bedroom.
He wanted to follow her, to sit beside her and lightly scratch her back. She had done this for him after their mother died. For weeks she remained with him until he fell asleep, even though he felt himself too old for such pampering. Years had passed since he had remembered her devotion during that period in their lives, but now he could suddenly feel her nails on his shoulder blades, the slow circles she drew as the heaviness of sleep overtook him.
This Is Paradise Page 17