She always picks up when it’s me.
An audible, feminine sigh draws my gaze to the painting. In the middle of the highway’s serpentine curve, something sparkles, something I’m sure wasn’t there before. I maneuver around the couch to get a closer look.
That is definitely new.
The glittering pile in the middle of the road has, curiously, almost a three-dimensional quality, as though something has been added to the paint. I stretch to touch it, but can’t quite reach.
Get the step stool.
Balancing on a stool is a dangerous prospect; if I fall, I could endure another injury, or worse, unknowingly jar something loose. I’ve heard horrendous tales of bone chips breaking off, getting into the blood stream, and causing aneurisms years later.
Is Nariko trying to tell me something?
I set the teak stool in front of the buffet. After several seconds of debate on how to mount the thing, I step up.
The stool wobbles, and I land on my back on the hardwood floor.
Shit.
The wind knocked out of me, I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, thinking just forget it; when I look at the painting again, though, the glittering pile is now accompanied by a trail of reddish footprints.
I try again. This time I press my full weight on the cane, stand one-legged, and use my bad leg as a third point even though I can’t put much pressure on it.
The footprints are sticky, and the glitter pile is sharp; a painful sting makes me withdraw my hand, and there’s a smear of red on the heel and a wine-colored bead of blood on the pad of my index finger.
I recall my wine glass breaking.
Oh my God. The night of the accident I dropped a wine glass on the pool deck, it shattered, and a piece of glass pierced my foot! Yes! I left bloody footprints on the kitchen tiles!
I remember!
My cell phone chimes “Music Box Dancer” and I lose my balance, plunging once again to the floor. By the time I get to it, it’s on its last phrase before voicemail.
“Gala? Oh my gosh, are you okay? Do you need me to come over?” Lani says. “I’m just . . . I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to the phone . . . hold on for one minute.”
I hear the mouthpiece jostle, and she says, muffled: “Stop! Stop.” Now she’s clear again. “Sorry about that. It’s pretty crazy here today. How’s the painting?”
“Oh my god the painting—there’s this woman, Nariko, she has no face, she’s a mujina—the woman in the painting—I mean it showed me something—”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I remember, Lani! I remember something!”
There’s a long silence. “You do?”
“I remember breaking—I broke a wine glass by the pool!”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. And I cut my foot on the glass. There was blood on the floor.”
“Are you sure it’s just not wishful—”
“Oh no, I remember. There’s hope! Eventually everything will come back to me!”
“Gala.”
Her forceful tone stops me. “What?”
“I’m . . . glad you remembered something.”
“I did.”
“I want you to sit down for a second.”
“I don’t want to sit down. This is the best thing that’s happened in months—”
“Gala, what did you mean by ‘The woman in the painting showed you something’?”
I’m suddenly back on Earth, and aware of how insane what I’ve just told her sounds. “I mean . . . I meant. It wasn’t a woman, actually, I mean, she was—like a shadow.”
“Like a shadow you might be seeing as part of your peripheral damage?”
Outside, the distant cries of gulls; a gust of salt-smelling wind rustles the celery drapes.
“Listen . . . I don’t doubt that you remembered something. And I think it’s wonderful, I do. But the doctors said some—odd things could be happening to you for years after. Remember that? I’m just asking you to keep that in mind.”
I look at the painting and discover the glass shards are no longer sparkling in the midday sun; in fact, it’s like the glass was never there at all.
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No.”
I know what I saw.
I know Nariko will give me another clue.
When Lani hangs up, I sit on the couch and wait.
~~**~~
If Michael was a painting, then I was the brush, and we were a masterwork.
We were dirt poor Cranbook Academy art students, subsisting on boxed macaroni and cheese and dollar menu burgers until his parents passed and he inherited their estate. We graduated, married, and pursued his dream of moving to Hawaii and our dream of owning a gallery—Galerie Island.
We spent every day together: he handled day-to-day operations, acquisitions, exhibitions; I planned all the opening events, coordinated staff and did everything else. We were always busy, we won Best in State awards three years in a row, and we were profiled in ARTnews. We’d finally gotten everything in order for a new wing, which would take us down a historic rather than contemporary road, housing pieces related to the folklore of not only the native Hawaiians but others who’d settled here.
In the few weeks before the accident it wasn’t uncommon for him to be working extraordinarily late, and for me to assume the duties of getting dinner on the table. Still, our life together was a Starry Night of beloved art, spectacular fundraisers, and stunning evenings under the Hawaiian moon.
Then came the accident, and it all ground to a halt.
~~**~~
I sit and watch the painting for more signs, for my mujina, Nariko, to speak to me. The dinner hour looms, and I consider ordering out. As it encroaches, however, I realize I shouldn’t do anything of the sort. While dinner isn’t an easy task—doddering around the kitchen with sharp objects in hand is more than slightly precarious—making it is an important step back toward normal.
My legs sore from standing, my arms sore from chopping onions, coring pineapples and sautéing prawns, I put the rice on to boil and sink into a cypress kitchen chair. I notice that on the counter, a bottle of Volcano Red sits next to the last hand-painted damask wine glass I own.
Michael won’t be home for another hour, and I contemplate a drink, but then decide against it; the details Nariko has shown me are still too tenuous, not yet fully ingrained, and I don’t want to do anything to erase them. I review them again: the night was cool, and our pool’s green lights had turned it an inviting shade of lagoon. I was on one of our rattan chaises, looking up at the stars. The Cat’s Cradle—what the West called Orion—caught my eye. Cat’s Cradle, where there are no actual cats and no actual cradles, but it fills the time. That was from a Vonnegut story or something, wasn’t it? I drained the wine glass—wait, it didn’t slip from my hand.
I threw it.
I threw the wine glass.
Why?
Now I stare at the painting. Nariko, what have you to tell me? Give me another clue—
When my cell phone peals “Carol of the Bells,” I jump. It’s Michael, and at first he’s talking to someone else.
“Sorry about that, honey,” he says. “Listen, I’m . . . I know you’re probably already making dinner, but I didn’t think they needed me here, and it turns out they do—I’ve just—with the opening right around the corner of the new wing there’s just so much, and . . . ”
My heart hurts. “I understand.”
I hear him lean away and shout, “I’ll be right there!” He’s back with me. “I have to go.”
“I know,” I say. “Go do it. This is a big deal.”
In the background, I hear a woman laugh.
I rise to turn off the rice, and a wisp of a cool breeze kisses my neck.
I turn toward the living room.
The painting.
Nariko has left something for me.
In the middle of the painting’s highway, a note—a
lined yellow Post-It, the kind Michael always uses because without the lines his words are a too-close-together jumble.
I drag the step stool over to the bar and climb up.
The Post-It’s bottom edge is curled so I can’t read it, but I’m scared to pull it off—what if it damages the paint? Just like that, as though Nariko has been reading my thoughts, it slowly unfurls.
It’s Michael’s handwriting.
It reads: Been called to check out some new work. Want them before someone else gets them. Probably out all night. Sorry.
Yes! That night, he left me this note, but it was . . . I had dinner ready, and he was overdue. I called him. He didn’t pick up the phone. He called me back an hour later, citing this note. And then I filled my wine glass, went out to the pool, and looked at the stars.
I dial Lani, who again doesn’t answer, but this time I leave her a message.
~~**~~
“So I’m not understanding this,” Lani downshifts. We are on our way to Safeway; Michael was out all night and is still sleeping, and I want to pick up some coconut pudding. “This ghost—”
“Mujina.”
“Okay, mujina, whatever her name is—”
“Nariko.”
“Right, she put a Post-It on the painting?”
“Yes! I know it sounds insane. But it was right there, the yellow-lined one Michael always uses, plain as day.” We’re passing through a neighborhood of pastel-colored ranch houses. Beach morning glory creeps over white clapboard fences and plumeria trees shade the manicured lawns.
It’s all so deceptively peaceful.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you have the Post-It now?”
“Well, no, I . . . it . . . I never actually had it in my hands. It vanished.”
She nods.
“You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that, it’s—”
“I remember things, Lani! What about these details? I mean, I can’t be making those up!”
“No, of course not.” She puts on her blinker and prepares to turn left onto the Piilani Highway; the landscape is now brown grasses and rocky outcroppings. “I’m just . . . can you trust what you’re remembering? What if you’re confusing what happened that night with a different one?”
“You think this isn’t real. That it’s all in my head.”
She doesn’t respond. We turn onto the highway. Ahead of us, there is the swell of the mountain, brown in the sun, pale blue in the shade of passing clouds.
“I’m not doubting you at all. I’m just saying we both know you had severe injuries, some to your head.” She slows to a stoplight. “To be safe, maybe we have to entertain the possibility that what you’re recalling isn’t exactly what happened on that particular evening.”
“This is the first bit of clarity I’ve had! How can you do this to me?”
She puts the car back in first gear as the light turns green. “I’m just looking out for you.”
I want to scream. Scream at her, maybe even shake her. I press my lips together and we trundle past slopes punctuated by kou trees. “Pull over.”
She glances at me. “What?”
“Pull over.”
“Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”
“No. I’m getting out.”
“What?”
“Pull the fuck over!”
She just glances at me again and keeps going.
I seize the wheel.
“What the hell are you—”
I manage to steer the car into the gravel shoulder, where it comes to rest against a rise.
There is nothing but the whoosh of blissfully ignorant passing cars.
“Are you trying to kill us?” she finally asks.
I don’t answer; I open the door and struggle out.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You can’t walk that! It’s almost two miles back to your place!”
I seize the cane, slam the door, and move as quickly as I can over the gravel shoulder. She’s yelling out the window of her Nissan. Pain wrenches my hips and back, but I keep going.
Eventually, a taxi swings by and offers me a ride.
~~**~~
Michael stands in the living room with his arms folded across his chest; the glass coffee table is littered with empty Pipeline Porters. “Lani called me. That was incredibly stupid. You could have gotten killed. You could’ve gotten her killed!”
I hitch into the kitchen, because it’s time for that glass of wine I should’ve had last night. “I have to start learning how to get around by myself sometime.”
“This isn’t the way to do it.”
I prop my cane underneath the avocado kitchen counter and press my belly against it for balance. “We have to start somewhere.” I grab the Volcano Red and my glass, then rummage in the drawer for the wine opener.
He comes up behind me, reaches over, and takes the bottle from me. “We need to start with getting rid of that painting.”
The comment hits me full in the chest. “What?”
“Lani told me everything.” He sets the bottle down with a thunk. “She says you insist the shadow that you see is some kind of—woman that’s showing you things. Do you have any idea how that sounds?”
“But I’m starting to remember what happened—how do you explain that?”
He doesn’t say anything; he pulls a church key from his jeans pocket and opens the bottle.
“Lani says she knows the tag sale where you got it. We’ll take it back.”
I grab his arm. “No! No, please.”
He pours me a glass of wine. “How much did you pay for it?”
“I’m so close to remembering what happened—”
“How much?”
“I don’t care what you guys say, I am remembering, and Nariko—”
He puts the wine in my hand and walks into the living room, heading straight for the buffet.
Oh God, he’s going for the painting. I put down my wine and rush to the threshold of the kitchen.
“Wait! Listen, I—you’re right. You’re right, okay? I was thinking on the cab ride home how crazy this all sounds. All of this—it isn’t real, and I’ve latched onto this because I’m so—I’m so fucking desperate to have my life back!”
He looks at me. There is pity in his eyes.
“Do you remember?” I don’t have my cane, but I manage to limp toward him. “Do you remember our lives before all this? How happy we were?”
The quiet is filled with the hum of the ceiling fans. I watch his eyes, and find it strange that he can’t look into mine; he’s looking at the floor. He heaves a deep sigh, and then walks to the sliding door and looks out at the sea.
“Please, Michael. Can’t you just let me have this?”
More quiet.
“I’m sorry.” He turns. “I just—I wasn’t thinking. We’ll keep it. At least for now.”
As he walks past me into the kitchen, I could swear he gives the painting a nervous glance.
~~**~~
For days, I sit on my couch and stare at the canvas, certain that Nariko will give me more.
When Lani and Michael ask me how things are, I affirm their suspicions that what I was seeing was due to the peripheral damage, and Oh, by the way, my doctor’s appointment is soon, and I’ll be sure to tell him about it.
Sometimes I talk to the painting, ask her to come again. But I see nothing new, and I remember nothing more.
By day four, I feel like a fool.
Maybe this is all in my head, and the only pieces of memory I got back were ones my brain was going to recall anyway.
Angry, I stumble to the buffet and grab the step stool. Fuck this, I will give it back to Yellow Blouse. I can’t lift the painting and balance, so eventually I knock it down with my cane. It crashes against the buffet, knocking a crystal vase to the hardwood, and lands facedown on the floor.
I’m stunned by my own actions. What if I damaged it? What if I’ve ruined the ability
for her to communicate?
Then, on the canvas’s brown paper backing, writing appears.
Writing I recognize as Lani’s.
I toss my cane aside and drop to my knees, crawl toward the painting to read it.
It’s a love letter.
To Michael.
I’m shocked and hurt, but not surprised, because I knew this before, didn’t I? Or at least, I suspected. Of course I did. All his late nights—far too many than would be justified for the new wing, I wasn’t stupid—Michael’s guilt gifts, the pair of hand-painted damask wine glasses among them, and strangest of all, Lani ingratiating herself to me, going that extra step even then in that almost forced way . . .
I had no proof of any of it.
Now the night returns.
I made his favorite meal, pineapple rice and prawns. After it sat for about an hour, I decided to open a bottle of Volcano Red and wait. Two more hours went by. I called him. He answered and asked, “Didn’t you get the Post-It I left you?”
I hadn’t seen it because it’d fallen off and slipped beneath the stainless steel refrigerator, probably when I was ducking in and out to get dinner ingredients. A dirty yellow corner stuck out, and when I reached down to pull it free—Been called to check out some new work. Want them before someone else gets them. Probably out all night. Sorry—something else came with it: a gray linen envelope.
Inside was a love letter.
From Lani to Michael.
Making plans for a future without me in it.
I read it three times as I felt my insides turn to stone. Then I opened a second bottle of wine, went out to the lanai, and looked at the Cat’s Cradle: there are no actual cats and no actual cradles, but it fills the time.
My marriage was a fake.
I hurled the empty wine glass, it shattered on the pool tile, and I cut my foot without caring, because I was seething, and I was about to—
“Mujina.”
I’m jarred back to the present. That was a distinctly female whisper, like the hiss of a cobra.
“Mujina.”
The Hana painting vibrates, and a dark head of stringy black hair rises up out of the paper backing; bloody hands emerge and seize the sides of the canvas, and a white-gowned, blood-spattered girl crawls toward me. She lifts an unnaturally twisted arm in my direction, her broken fingers clawing for me. Mujina.
The Shadows Behind Page 15