by Toby Neal
Lei refocused on the letter in front of her. She realized she didn’t know his handwriting, an unfamiliar hieroglyphic of deeply pressed block letters. She traced the dents on the paper with the tips of her fingers.
November 4, 1989
Dear Lei-girl,
I hope you are okay, and not missing me too much. I sure miss you, though. I wish so many things could be different. I hope you and your mom are staying with your Aunty Rosario. I told your mom to go there because I think you will do better there with her to look out for you both.
I am so sorry, honey. I never wanted you to know about any of this. Truth is, I always meant it to be temporary, just until I could get enough money together for something better, but I waited a little too long. I hope you aren’t too ashamed of your old man. I always wanted you to be proud of me…
Love, your Daddy
Lei refolded the letter and put it back into the envelope. Her eyes prickled with unshed tears but she blinked them away. She went on to the next. His tone grew frantic, wondering why he never heard from them, then fatalistic as Rosario must have told him what was happening with Maylene’s addiction. He expressed his helplessness, worry, sorrow, loneliness and, above all, love for her again and again. At some point, he seemed to realize she was not getting the letters, but he continued to write them every six months or so, telling little stories of his life.
Finally finished, Lei restacked the letters, slipped the old rubber bands back over them, put them back in the backpack. She checked the time on her phone. Aunty would be waiting. Her coffee had gone cold, a milky clot forming on the surface.
People sat at the little tables, reading the paper. The bell over the door dinged with each customer’s entrance or exit. The smell of coffee, the periodic roar of the blender, the bubbling hiss of the espresso machine were all the same as they had been when she came in. But inside Lei something had profoundly shifted.
I thought he forgot me. I thought he never cared. All along he loved me. All along he was missing me, thinking of me. The truth of it pressed on her heart, a message written in deep block print.
She slipped the backpack on, waved distractedly at the barista, and pushed out through the glass door with a ding of the bell. A few minutes later she pulled back into the garage, letting the exterior door rumble down behind her as she went out the side door. The front door was unlocked—and she’d told her aunt to close up. She relocked it and put the chain and deadbolt on.
“Aunty?” she called, heading for her room. She slung the backpack onto the bed, patted it with affection as her aunt called from the kitchen:
“In here, Ku`uipo.” She went in. Her aunt was washing dishes at the sink. She’d always called her “sweetheart” in Hawaiian.
“Why was the front door unlocked?”
“Someone knocked. I opened it and there was a letter there for you on the mat.” She indicated a plain white envelope on the counter, LEI TEXEIRA printed on it. “I hope it’s okay.”
Lei’s heart picked up speed. She’d so hoped the stalking was over, and now he’d come when her aunt was home alone.
“Dammit, Aunty, it was the stalker!” she exclaimed. “There was a reason I told you to keep the door locked.”
“No talk sassy to me, girl.” Rosario dried her hands on the dish towel as Lei went and got a pair of gloves, snapped them on. Got a steak knife, slit the top, took out the trebly folded note, and opened it.
I THINK OF YOU EVERY TIME I TAKE A BATH.
Lei’s stomach dropped and her vision swam. Aunty Rosario reached over her shoulder and snatched the paper up. Her color drained as she read it, hand coming up to cover her mouth. Her eyes were huge looking over her fingers at Lei.
“This must be the guy who did those things to you, Lei! Charlie Kwon!”
Lei got up, fetched a Ziploc bag, slid the letter into it, put it in the freezer between the frozen dinners.
“I don’t know,” she said woodenly. “How could he find me?”
“I don’t know either! This is terrible! He should go to jail for what he did.”
“Believe me Aunty, I’d send him there if I could find him.” Lei sat back down. “Dinner ready? I need something to settle my stomach.”
Her aunt went back to the stove, dished up the ribs and rice. “Aren’t you going to call that Pono or something?”
“No. I just got them to stop staying over here for protection; we’re fine in the house and I’ll take the letter in in the morning. It does seem like it must have something to do with Kwon though. He’s the only one beside us who might know that thing about…” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Aunty set the plate in front of her with a purple poi roll. Her clenched stomach suddenly translated into hunger. The food was hot and savory, and took her straight back to being safe as a child. She ate quickly and wiped the plate with the tender roll.
“Delicious, Aunty.”
“Thanks, Ku`uipo. I’m thinking about anyone who knew what happened to you. I only told the social worker at Child Welfare, and Momi of course. I don’t know if Momi might have told anybody but I don’t know why she would.”
Momi was her aunt’s partner in the restaurant business, a friend closer than family. Child Welfare was supposed to have confidential records.
“Well the stalker’s finally said something I can follow up on. I’ll work on trying to track Kwon down. Now can we talk about those letters from my dad?”
Her aunt looked down at her weathered hands, folded in her lap.
“Ku`uipo, I didn’t want him to hurt you, let you down anymore. When he was arrested I tried fo’ get your mother to come to the Mainland, stay with me like he wanted, but she wouldn’t. I lost you—Maylene moved around so much. Finally I found you and gave you my number in case you needed me ...and I was angry with them both. They’d screwed up their lives with drugs and they didn’t deserve to have a little girl, when I would have loved you so much…”
“They were my parents.” Lei put her hand on her aunt’s shoulder. “But you were my mama.”
Aunty threw her arms around Lei and tucked her head against Lei’s shoulder. Lei folded her aunt against her, stroking the long, thick braid of her hair. A kaleidoscope of feelings swirled through her, but she just pressed her cheek against her aunt’s head, realizing she was taller, realizing she was stronger too. She had never known that before.
Her aunt pulled away, tore a paper towel off the roll on the wall, honked her nose loudly.
“I’m sorry,” Aunty said. “I kept those first letters because I didn’t know where your mother had taken you, then because I didn’t want you to be upset by hearing from him. I didn’t think he deserved you. And later, I didn’t know how to tell you I’d been keeping them all these years.”
“It’s okay,” Lei said. “It’s just that it would have made a difference. It would have helped me, to know he was thinking of me, that he loved me.”
“I couldn’t be sure what was in there. I was trying to protect you.”
“You could have read them.”
Aunty Rosario sat back, drew herself upright. “That would be wrong.”
“Aunty, listen to yourself! It’s wrong to open someone else’s mail but not wrong to keep it from them?”
“It’s complicated,” Aunty said. “Anyway, what’s done is done. What you going do now, is the question.”
“I’m going to visit him,” Lei said. She clapped her hand over her mouth as if to take back the words, but then slowly lowered it as she realized, yes, this was what she wanted to do.
Her aunt looked at her. Sighed. Picked up the sponge and wiped the table.
“I’m not surprised. Wayne always had a way with words.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The bus bound for Halawa Prison on Oahu was a huge Greyhound, and Lei felt like she was in an ocean liner, gliding and swaying far above mere mortals fighting traffic in the narrow double lanes below. She snuggled into her comfortable seat, look
ing out the window as steep jungled slopes streamed by. She’d got going early that morning, flying out of the Big Island to Oahu, her stomach knotting every time she thought of meeting her father. She pulled the photo her aunt had given her out of her pocket.
In it her father smiled a handsome, square-jawed smile. A toddler Lei sat on his shoulders, her hands buried in his dark curly hair, her grin as big as the moon.
“I don’t have anything more recent,” her aunt had said. “I couldn’t stand to take a picture of him in that orange jumpsuit. But he’s aged, honey. Prison life hasn’t been that kind.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Lei whispered, touching his face. She slid the photo back in her pocket and looked back out the window. According to her aunt, he’d been recently transferred to Halawa from Lompoc in California, with another year on his sentence.
Her phone rang, vibrating against her side. She pulled it out, flipping it open as she looked at the plaque attached to the seat in front of her: NO CELL PHONES.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“Lei?”
“Yes? Who is this?” she flipped the phone over to see the screen ID: Unavailable.
“Me. Your special friend.”
Lei sucked in her breath, held it. Every hair on her body stood on end. The voice was loud but muffled. She couldn’t tell gender, age, anything.
“How did you get this number?”
“That doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that I haven’t forgotten you.”
“I haven’t forgotten you, either,” Lei said, her whisper vibrating with rage. “I’m going to find you and make you pay”
A long pause.
“I hope so.” Then laughter, a low rumbling chuckle. “I like a challenge, Lei.”
Click. Dead air.
Lei snapped the phone shut and pressed the power button to turn it off. She stood up and stepped into the aisle, scanning the people in their seats for any unusual activity. There were only a few other passengers, hunched over portable video games, or tucked dozing into corners. She walked to the back of the bus and into the closet-like restroom and locked the door.
She took some relaxation breaths. Splashed water on her face and hands. Did a nervous pee. Washed her hands again. Splashed water again. Nothing was helping to diffuse the adrenaline that had pumped into her system. She went out, scanned the seats again. No activity. She walked down the aisle, touching a few seat backs for balance as the bus swayed. She walked back and forth a few more times until her heart rate was back to normal and the trembling of her legs had calmed. She sat back in her seat and took a few more relaxation breaths, longing for the familiar weight of the Glock, which she’d left at home due to airport hassles. All she had with her was the black lava stone from Mary’s memorial.
She rubbed it, and then flipped open her phone and texted Stevens:
Stalker called my cell. Can you trace my phone activity? Anything new your end?
She’d called him and Pono the night before to let them know about her plans to go to Oahu, and he hadn’t had any more overtime authorized for her Saturday so she’d gone ahead with the trip. A few minutes later the phone vibrated with his phone call.
She didn’t pick up, texted again: On bus so can’t use phone to talk.
A few minutes later, he texted back.
No action here. Will put in trace paperwork. Will check records for caller number. You ok?
Shaken up but ok.
Why you on a bus?
Going to Halawa to see my dad. He’s in prison there, told you yesterday.
Think he knows anything about the stalker stuff?
Lei paused, looked out the window at the lushness of remote Halawa Valley rising around her in sculpted beauty. Her eyes hardly registered the scenery. Could her father be connected to the stalking campaign that had been going on? It didn’t seem possible.
Don’t think so. Unfinished business. She clicked the phone shut. It vibrated once more:
Call me when you can.
Will do, she texted back, unaccountably warmed.
She sat at the battered Formica table in the communal room, waiting for her father. It had been an ordeal getting in. She had been able to get on the schedule for a visit but only because of her police and daughter status. She hadn’t known what to expect. The prison was medium security so the visiting could have been anything from plastic windows and phones to this open setting.
He must have some privileges, she thought, looking around the room. Couples and families clustered around battered tables, playing cards or talking. The spacious room was bathed in sunlight from high windows shadowed by safety wire. Lei sat facing the door, and when he came in, she knew him instantly.
He walked slowly toward her. His curly hair was shot with silver, and his face reminded her of a cigar-store Indian she had seen once, all craggy cheekbones and deep furrows. His dark, hooded eyes were wary.
“Lei,” he said, looking down at her. She’d forgotten how tall he was, the rack of his shoulders seeming to block out the light. She stood up.
“Hello.” Touching wasn’t allowed so she did an awkward little wave. Her smile felt like a tic.
“Lei.” he said again, this time his voice soft. “You came.”
“Yes, I did.”
They sat down at the table. Wayne took out a little spiral notebook.
“Do you have a pencil? I’m not allowed to carry one.”
She dug one out of her backpack and handed it to him. She felt the round eye of the surveillance camera watching them. Wayne took the pencil and began sketching quickly, and she saw her face emerging on the little lined pad: upturned nose, square jaw, full mouth, curly tangle of hair, wide tilted eyes, sprinkle of freckles. Only when he was satisfied with his drawing, and the swift glances he stole at her to complete it, did he hand the pencil back to her.
“Helps me remember things,” he said, flipping the notebook shut and slipping it back in his pocket.
“You seem to have a knack.”
“Something to do with my hands.”
The awkwardness choked Lei. She cleared her throat.
“I bet you wonder why you never heard from me.”
“I used to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I figured you had your reasons. Probably good ones.” This so closely echoed her own thought about Aunty Rosario hiding the letters that she cocked her head, smiled at him.
“Until recently, I thought you forgot about me when you were taken away.”
“Why?” His brow furrowed.
“I mean...I never knew you wrote to me.” She looked down at the table, unable to bear looking at his eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“Please don’t be too mad at her but...Aunty Rosario never gave me your letters until just recently.”
The silence stretched out. She sneaked a peek at him. His carved face was still.
“That explains a lot,” he finally said. Lei nodded.
“Anyway. She brought them to me. And I realized what I thought was true, wasn’t true.”
“Which was?”
“You know. That you forgot me.”
“Never,” he said, leaning forward with sudden intensity. “I never forgot you.” Lei blinked, eyes swimming.
“I wish you hadn’t gone in here,” she said, her voice small.
“You and me both.” He set his hands on the table, as close as he could get them to hers. Lei stared at them and the tears fell, running down her cheeks like wax.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’ve had it rough.”
“Not so bad.” She sniffed and dashed off her cheeks. “After Aunty took me in.”
“I’m glad she took you in, but I still get some things fo’ to say to my sister.”
“She was nothing but good to me. She thought she was protecting me.”
“From the big bad drug dealer?” Her father had been given a maximum 20 year sentence without possibility of parole for heroin and cocaine
dealing in an era of severe sentencing.
“I guess.”
“So you read the letters. Then you know I never meant any of this to happen.”
“Nobody ever does.” Once again, the long silence. Finally Lei said, “Did she tell you I’m a cop?”
“Yeah.” He laughed, a rusty chuckle. “Proud of you too.”
“It makes me feel good to make the streets a little safer, to help people. I’ve had some trouble lately, though.”
“What’s been happening?” He frowned, dark brows snapping together.
“Long story. I’m being stalked. Do you have any enemies in here? Anyone who knows about me? One of my cop friends thought there might be a connection somehow. Sketchy, I know.”
He stared at her, eyes hard. She wasn’t afraid of him but knew others could be.
“Get me up to speed.”
She did, filling him in on recent events.
“He called me on the bus on the way down here.”
“I have some enemies. You can’t avoid it, being in here. I had to kill a guy a few years ago.”
“Great, you’re a murderer.”
“It was self defense. His name was Terry Chang, he was a serious player in Hilo and we tangled in the game back in the day. Then he got convicted and tried to shank me in Lompoc. I ended up getting him. Added some years to my sentence.”
Lei lowered her head. What do you say when your dad tells you he killed someone?
“I don’t think his family’s letting this go. That or his connections. I’ve been getting threats.”
“What kind?”
“Just rumors. People saying the Changs are looking for payback.”
Lei looked at her hands, squeezed the web between her forefinger and thumb. Terry Chang. The name was familiar.
“I think I know that name. Pono told me his wife is the player now.”
“Healani? Wouldn’t surprise me. She’s one tough lady.”