by E. Coulombe
“Right,” Kerri smiled, and continued her train of thought. “The mother is trying to reach food, her muscles are weak and tired from unsuccessful attempts….”
“Oh no. No science talk allowed today.” Waielai interrupted. “Today just for play, okay Andrew?” He laughed, and quietly agreed.
“Did you hear about the pig, the family pet that was brutally murdered over on Kauai?” Waielai asked the group.
“What?” Emma asked.
“Yeah,” I did hear that, Nani said. “Kalani told me,” she added, for in Hawaii the bearer of the news was almost as important as the news itself.
“It was awful,” Waielai said, “they’d raised the pig since baby, and someone came in their yard and shot it.”
“Hunters?” asked Grant.
“Nobody knows, but they no take the meat,” she answered.
“Whose pig was it?” Grant asked. And Waielai told of the victim, which was just what the Nakoans were waiting to hear. Talk story had begun. For the next fifteen minutes, back and forth the banter smoothly glided, about the aunties, and uncles, the neighbors to whom the victims were related, the children, whether they were blood or hanai’d, adopted, who the daughter had married, what family he was from, where’d they decided to live, and so on and so on, and eventually connecting the victim to the group of Nakoans seated around the table.
Andrew smiled. He’d forgotten the Hawaiian passion for ancestry, family, and the pleasure of the recital, and how he’d never felt alone in Hawaii, always discovering new relatives in every conversation. In this way, Hawaiians defined provincial. News was mostly of interest because they were connected with the noteworthy. If it happened elsewhere, outside Hawaii, or even a few islands over, if the connections stopped, it didn’t get much play in talk story.
Grant stretched out on the tall grass nearby, picking at his teeth with the straw blades. Waielai scraped the plates into the grass behind him. Annie took the dishes down stream to rinse them in the running water. Her hourglass figure was accented by the cloth wrapped round her waist and knotted on her hip. She placed her bare feet on two flat, basalt rocks, and squatted to rub the dishes with her fingers.
“She must be finishing high school soon,” Kerri said, pointing to Annie. “Do you know where she’ll be going to college?”
The group hushed. Waielai who’d been chatting with Emma as they repacked the leftovers was suddenly silent.
“What did I say?” Kerri asked defensively.
“Nothing,” Andrew said. “It’s just that you’re making assumptions. Not all teenagers go away to college.”
“And she didn’t go to high school, as you call it,” Waielai sneered. “There are many things a woman can learn that are not found in text books, you know.”
“And there are even more things found in text books that can’t be learned anywhere else,” Kerri snapped back. “A young mind especially that of a woman, should never be denied the freedom that comes with knowledge.”
“Freedom from what?” Emma jumped to Waielai’s defense. “No one is denying her anything.”
“Freedom from having to do the dishes, for one thing,” Kerri said.
“You’re kidding right?”
“Well sort of, but…. I mean she should at least be given the option of college, don’t you think?”
“Well, after watching Emma heal the sick, she did say she might be interested in nursing school,” answered Nani.
“It’s not just from Emma that she has learned,” scoffed Waielai. “You know her middle name is Ka-wai-ona’e. Because she would often go with Kalena Pu’uku to help her deliver babies since there are no hospitals on Nakoa, and she learned from her things like how if they were “blue” babies she should keep the blood in the honua, the placenta, flowing for a while before cutting the navel cord away. Annie learned to deliver babies and help them stay alive at a very tender age here on the island, and that is an incredible reality of experience and wisdom. How many students enter college and know nothing of the sort nor are they allowed to know? Human birth is not taught unless you’re planning to become a nurse or a doctor. That’s so wrong. For what is more real than giving birth and being born? Your entire society prides itself on not knowing unless you become a doctor or a nurse! Ridiculous. And come to think of it, how many of those university students could tell me why the earth, called honua, is a placenta or to whom the placenta belongs, the mother or the baby?”
“Probably none, including myself,” Kerri whispered.
“She can’t go.” Grant spoke. “For the simple reason that she is needed here.”
His words unbridled Kerri. “Oh well, nursing school wouldn’t make much difference anyway. It’s just glorified motherhood. I was thinking of something more intellectually challenging for her.”
“Hey, don’t say that. Emma went to nursing school,” Andrew scolded.
Showing a great deal of discomfort in her expression, Kerri immediately apologized. “Please forgive me Emma. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that stupid remark. And nursing would be a fine career for Annie.”
“Well,” said the outspoken Waielai, “there may be many things you learned at school, but for sure, one thing you didn’t learn was how to make friends in far away places.”
Single file, for over an hour they walked the overgrown path across the low rising hills, heading west towards the compound. Diffused light came around the bend of the island, the pastel colors a silent drapery.
Emma loved this time of day. The muted sounds of sunset allowed for reflection, time to straighten out her head the way she would the house, tidying up and putting away the clutter from a day well lived. Today had been a great day, she thought, if only Michael had been here.
Grant, who was probably the fastest hiker amongst them, and in excellent shape from years of working the ranch, had detoured for awhile to check on a fence line. Eventually she spotted him catching up to the group, and she slowed, waiting to talk with him. She wanted to talk about the boys, to see if he’d heard any news from Ko`olau.
“You probably think I’m silly, like Andrew and everyone else, to be so worried.” Grant didn’t respond. “It’s just that there’s been so much going on the last few days, and I’ve never lived on an island before and ….oh, I don’t know why I’m saying all this. I shouldn’t be bothering you. You probably wish we’d never even come to Nakoa.”
“No Emma, you’re wrong. I’m glad you came, no matter what happens. Andrew needed this.” He stopped, but Emma knew he had more to say. She was a good listener and often people would confide in her, especially those who were reluctant to talk at all, like Grant.
“He’s not the same,” Grant went on, “none of us are the same. We’re not the boys who left the islands to go to the mainland for school. We’ve both changed, but Andrew stayed away so long he forgot what he had changed from. When the three of you came back, and I met you on the shore of Kauai, I didn’t even recognize him. His face was hardened, like a head carved in stone, teeth clenched, eyes sharp, suspicious. That was not the face of the man who left this island.”
Grant looked down at his feet as he walked, giving her the path so she could more easily tread beside him. Emma spoke little. “I protected him at St. Steven’s, more than he even knew, and he folded himself up into the books and blocked out the world. Why not? It was a horrid, hate filled place, at least to us. We were so young, and afraid. He found a small desk in the library, tucked in between rows of books, with one lamp and one chair, and he moved in. He basically lived there, coming out for classes, food, and sleep. He liked to sleep, and told me once that his dream world was far better than the real world.”
“After our mother died, and the funeral, when we went back to school, he didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t play any games, didn’t engage in any way other than with his books and his professors, and with what he called his dream world, whatever that meant. Finally he stopped talking even with me. Said he had too much work to do. Made nothing but
A’s all four years. Hundred’s on every test. School valedictorian when we graduated, but of course we didn’t even stay for graduation. We came back here, and this is where he should have stayed. He could have healed here. I tried to get our father to force him to stay, but dad had no control over Andrew by then. Seventeen years ago he moved further away, to Boston…and the best thing that ever happened to him was you. I believe, you alone, are what saved him Emma.” Grant took a deep breath.
“So to answer your question, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you brought Andrew home. He needs to be here, this is his place, for better or for worse, and this is his heritage. And maybe,” Grant looked at her and smiled, “if we have more days like today and less days in that damn lab, just maybe, we’ll see that boy again.”
“Oh yeah right,” Emma laughed. “You mean the one who nearly killed himself proving his prowess on the rope swing today?”
“Yeah, definitely,” he said, and Emma saw a light in Grant’s eyes she’d never noticed before. He smiled and nodded. “That was the old Andrew. That’s the one I’ve been missing.”
Chapter Forty Three
As soon as they returned from the trip to slippery rock, Andrew headed for the lab with Kerri right behind him. Under the microscope, Andrew examined the bacterial cultures again, looking for evidence of DNA transfer, and Kerri took control of the dissecting scope to follow the progression of her fish embryos.
“These aren’t ready yet,” he said across the lab to Kerri, “looks like maybe one more day. How about yours?”
“No change here either.”
He started towards her, but took a seat half way. “Sorry about the incident at the picnic today. Hope you weren’t too offended.”
“I’m fine. But maybe now we can finish our Lamarckian giraffe? It was a bit difficult to talk around all those lay persons.”
“Love to,” he laughed. “Okay, let’s see, she is starving in the presence of unattainable food, the highest leaves just out of reach….”
She smiled. “Her neck muscles are weak, tired from so many unsuccessful attempts. Maybe that builds up a lactose concentration in her neck, or some chemical signal, which triggers the DNA in her neck region to send some kind of signal into her blood stream. This signal eventually crosses into her uterus—”
“Exactly! And into the developing embryo. And the signal is unique to the neck region because it came from the neck of the mother.”
“And just when the baby giraffe needed a longer neck…”
“It binds to the DNA in the embryo’s neck region, and changes the timing, causing the genes to stay turned on a little longer, thereby increasing the number of vertebrae from say seven, to ten.”
The enormity of what they’d just said hit them both. For a moment neither of them spoke, the sound of children playing on the lawn outside filtered into the void.
“By god, Kerri, is this possible?”
“Yes, it is,” she nodded her head slowly, equally stunned. “And what about the mutatorsome?”
“Well that has to kick in at this point, doesn’t it?”
“Or else the change will only occur in the fetus and won’t be transmitted to the next generation.”
“Oh my gosh, I think we’ve got it.” She shook her head, still bewildered. “You know Andrew, this is what the Christian right is calling intelligent design.”
“You mentioned that before. What do you mean?”
“Well, they say that it’s all too beautiful to be coincidental, it’s all too perfect.”
“I agree.”
“And since it cannot be explained, it must be the hand of God, directing the evolution of all creatures.”
“Just because something is unexplained, doesn’t mean it’s inexplicable. Someday we’ll know how the genetic system works, at all levels. You and I are making a huge leap right here.” He fell silent for a moment. “But you know, if we can prove the genetic program does have a feedback mechanism to respond to the environment, to change itself and survive…”
Kerri cut in, “…then that’s an incredible system. And how it came to be, we don’t know, and maybe that’s the hand of god.”
“As long as there is mystery, there is god?”
“Something like that.”
“Doesn’t matter. The important question is can we prove directed mutations?” he asked definitively.
“Well, let’s just see what happens in your cultures. If you are able to repeat what you did before, and recreate the organisms that have long been extinct….”
“But still that only showed that the genes could be prompted to mutate down the same path they took the first time. But not that the changes are designed to fit the need.”
“Correct. But, you would at least eliminate the first major obstacle – the mutations were never random, but were internally controlled. Otherwise a whole collection of new creatures would arise, not a repeat of the process the way it occurred the first time. And it’s too early to say for sure, but from your photos it looks like we may very well see the exact same organisms.”
“It does, doesn’t it.” Andrew glowed with excitement. “God I’m glad you’re here. No one else could possibly believe this. And if I were doing this alone, I don’t think I’d believe it myself.”
Kerri looked out the one small window, debating whether or not to say more. She decided to chance it. “You know Andrew, as nice as it is here, that must be something which really bothers you. Being cut off from the intellectual community.”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“And you gave it all up for Emma?” He didn’t answer. “Was she worth it?”
He looked hard at her. “Of course she was worth it,” he said emphatically.
“Really? I mean come on Andrew, I’ve only known you a little while, but I feel like I understand you, maybe better than anyone else here. Your work is your life. You may pay accolades to your family, say they are your world and everything that’s important to you. But then, you’re always in here. In this lab. So let’s be honest. What’s really most important to you?”
Again he didn’t answer. She went on. “Your work. Just like mine is to me. I’m just a little bit more honest with myself than you are. I don’t have a husband, and most likely will never have children because I don’t want anything to interfere with my work. I love being in the lab. I love working in genetics. The discoveries we’re making, they’re phenomenal. And it’s not just that. It’s the way it makes my brain tick, kicks in my endorphins, like nothing else.” She hesitated. “Well, almost nothing else.” She looked directly into his eyes.
He stared back. Started to move closer. He wrapped his hand around the back of her head. She could barely breathe. He pulled her in. She heard a pounding noise in her head. Was that her heart, she thought? He pulled her closer, and the pounding grew louder.
Grant was at the door.
Emma had dinner ready, he said sourly, and left.
“Shit. That was stupid.” Andrew berated himself.
“Why? What do you care what he thinks? What anyone thinks?”
“Because I care.” He snapped. “I care about them. So much so that I don’t want to hurt them. Is that so very hard to grasp?” he shouted as he left the building.
“Not anymore,” she huffed, and slammed the door behind his retreating figure.
Chapter Forty Four
Finished with the evening meal, George, Lono, and Michael sat around the campfire. They’d spent the day fishing and gathering food for their meal. Kala, the unicorn fish, which he preferred because they were easy to prepare. With a tough outer skin and no scales he only had to throw it on the coals and it turned inside out – ready to eat. He added the edible seaweed called limu, and made tea from leaves of the ko’oko’olau plant. They even had a dessert – akala, the native raspberries and, much to George’s surprise – popolo berries, a federally listed endangered species.
George had helped with the limu gathering and once Lono had shown him what
to look for he had picked most of the berries, but he soon proved useless with a fishing pole as Lono and Michael caught three kala each to George’s none. A cursory examination of the nearby shoreline didn’t reveal any more of the Ediacarans, but he did find an unusual four inch long conical shell.
It had been a good day. And it felt good just to be away from Kihei and the stink-eye from Grant’s men, something which George only now realized was bothering him a great deal more than he’d let on. He pulled his ‘resting log’ away from the fire, and sipped from his tea, leaned back and grinned at the semi-opaque canopy of stars overhead which looked like a cloth of shimmering lights.
“Well boys,” he sighed, “we may not have found the world’s most unusual creatures, but we have definitely found the world’s most incredible camping spot.”
As usual, Michael sat gazing out at the sea, and suddenly, he interrupted George’s musings, “Hey, did you guys see that?”
“See what?”
“There’s a light out there. A boat or something.”
“Yea, looks like a boat.” Lono stood up. “Must be someone from the village.”
“Maybe something’s happened,” said George, who was always quick to worry. He joined the boys at the water’s edge.
Michael pointed to the left. “Look, it’s leaving. Didn’t even stop.” They all watched the light slowly motor away. “Can only see the shape of it in the dark, but that looks like a good size boat. Doesn’t it Lono?”
“Thirty footer at least.”
“The barge?”
“No, wrong shape.”
“Thirty footer’s big enough to cross the channel from Kauai?”
“Or even from Oahu. Either way, it’s definitely not one of ours.”
“That was weird,” Michael said. “Why would a boat come way out here? And at night?” The three men watched until the light was out of sight, after which George and Lono went back to the fire. But Michael stayed and continued to stare at the darkened ocean.