by Edie Claire
Ri nodded as she rose and shook his hand. “That’s me, yes.”
“Kai Nakama,” he introduced. “Nice to meet you. You want to come back to my office?”
Ri stood baffled for a moment. He didn’t recognize her name, did he? How could he? “Sure,” she answered mechanically. He gestured for her to precede him the short distance down the hall to an open door, and she walked into a smallish office and sat in the single guest chair opposite the desk.
He closed the door, settled himself in his chair, then looked at her expectantly.
Ri looked back at him. She had never actually planned anything to say. She’d always figured that once she introduced herself as a relative, she would be busy answering his questions. “You don’t seem surprised,” she stated.
He looked back at her, confused. “About what?”
Ri was confused, too. “About some strange person you’ve never met before wandering into your office claiming to be related to you.”
To her amazement, he chuckled. “Oh, that,” he replied good-naturedly. “I have lots of relatives. Where are you from, Ri? How is it we’re related?”
Ri released a breath and relaxed. He was making this easier than anticipated. “I’m from Maine. I just got here yesterday. As for how we’re related, that’s the part I was hoping you could help me with. I don’t want to take up a lot of your time, but you see, it’s like this. I’m adopted, and I know next to nothing about my birth parents. But I had an autosomal DNA test done with an ancestry search site, and the database identified you as a distant cousin. I know that for most people, that’s no big deal. Most people have so many matches show up they don’t even bother with a link as remote as fifth to eighth cousin. And the confidence level was only moderate. But—”
Her confidence flagged a bit. He was frowning.
“Wait. How did information about my DNA get on a website?” he asked.
Ri swallowed. “I don’t— I mean… I assume someone else put it up for you. Your profile has another person listed as administrator. Their username was EllB123 something.”
His brow furrowed for only a second, then he smiled and sat back in his chair. “Oh, I remember. It was Ella! My great aunt. Back when I was a teenager. She was a genealogy buff, and she couldn’t wait to see what ethnicities would show up for me. She asked me if I’d take the test if she paid for it, and I said sure, whatever.” He looked troubled again. “I had no idea the information would go up online, though.”
“Well it didn’t, not really,” Ri explained. “I’m sure your aunt opted you out of any public display of information. Nothing shows anywhere except your name. Not even your ethnicity breakdown. But the database still matches you with potential relatives. I assumed you were part of her family because you were on her account, and you could tell from her family tree that she tested pretty much everybody else she was related to.”
Kai smiled again. “That was Aunt Ella,” he said fondly. “Very thorough. And loyal to a fault. She died three years ago. We all miss her.”
Ri considered. That explained the sudden absence of activity on the administrator account. She had tried to email the woman once, but the message had bounced. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. So how did you find me here?” he asked.
Ri squirmed a bit. “Before you write me off as some kind of stalker, maybe I better explain why I found you.”
His dark eyes twinkled with curiosity. “Okay.”
“First off, I don’t want any money,” she defended with humor.
Kai smirked. “Well, good. Because I don’t have any. I’m getting married this summer. I’m beyond poor.”
Ri smirked back. She liked a guy who was committed to a woman and who laid it all out there within a few minutes of meeting another woman. His fiance was lucky to have him. “It’s like this,” she began, watching him closely. “My entire life, Kai, I’ve spent looking at this face in the mirror and not knowing who or where I come from. Literally speaking, I came from Russia. The adoption agency believed that my mother was Russian and the DNA test seems to confirm that. But up until I took the test, everyone always thought that my father must be either Indian or African.”
She stiffened as Kai sat up straighter in his chair. “Really?” he said with interest.
Her heart thudded against her ribs. “They were only assuming,” she continued. “And the DNA test disagreed. It said I was half East Asian.”
“Ah,” Kai said immediately. He nodded. But then he said no more.
“The thing is,” Ri plowed on, “knowing that didn’t help me much. It only made me doubt what I thought I knew. And then there was the fact that out of all the thousands of people in the ancestry database, there was only one person who showed up as any kind of a match with me, and as far as I could tell until five minutes ago, you were Japanese.”
Kai’s handsome face first broke into a smile. Then, to Ri’s astonishment, he laughed out loud.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, stifling his reaction when he noted her bewildered expression. He cleared his throat and sobered. “Um… I can certainly see why you would think that. But no, I’m not Japanese. My biological father died when I was a baby. I was adopted by my stepfather, who is Japanese, and I took his name.”
Ri considered. His being adopted explained a lot. And to think she’d been twisting herself into a pretzel thinking the test was all wrong because she didn’t look Japanese! How could the thought of his being adopted never have crossed her mind?
“I guess I’ve been making too many assumptions,” she admitted with embarrassment. “I confess I’ve tried to find out more about you online, but you’re like the invisible man. I could tell that you were in school in Utah, but I could never find a picture of you anywhere.”
His smile bordered on smug. “I’m not a social media kind of guy,” he confessed.
“Obviously,” Ri agreed. “I only knew you were here because I got a hit last fall with this law firm. Their website listed you on the staff page as a new intern. I thought that was pretty ironic, since I’d been wanting to do an internship on Maui, too. Yet even when the plane landed yesterday I still hadn’t decided for sure whether looking you up would be a smart thing to do. But then I kept seeing…”
She paused a second and collected herself. She didn’t want to babble. “Anyway, as far as ethnicity goes, I was able to find information about your family in Utah. Or what would be your family if you were related to the woman who listed you. But nobody else on her tree was a genetic match with me, so I thought—”
“All of my Utah relatives are from my birthfather’s family,” Kai explained with a knowing smile. “Call me crazy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if you and I are related, it’s going to be on my mother’s side.”
Ri’s eyes met her cousin’s. A pang shot deep through her middle as she realized that the two of them could be cousins. Feature for feature, she looked as much like him as she looked like anybody, except that she was short and her hair was lighter and curlier. She knew that she was close to an answer, but now that she was here, she grew suddenly afraid.
She sucked in a nervous breath. “You really think so?”
Kai studied her with concern. After a moment he leaned forward toward her. “Finding out about your birthfather — your heritage — it means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
Ri felt hot tears spring up behind her eyes. His voice was so gentle, his eyes so caring. If losing her lodgings in a fire her first night on Maui was bad karma, she was making it up in spades by finding this man today. He was a truly kind person. She had no doubt of that.
Words wouldn’t come. She nodded.
He pulled a tissue from a box on the corner of his desk and handed it to her. “Listen,” he said softly. “I can’t tell you anything for sure. I don’t know if the test is right. But if it is right, I’d be happy to give you my best guess, based on my mom’s history, and the test results I got, and what I see in your features.”
Ri sniffled
and nodded again. “Please.”
“Did you have any Pacific Islander show up in your profile?” he asked. “Any Native American?”
She shook her head. “Nothing but East Asian and Eastern European.”
Kai smiled again. “Well, then. If the test can be trusted and you’re related to me, I’d say there is a very high likelihood that your birthfather was Filipino.”
Ri blinked at a fresh spate of tears. Filipino. The word danced in her brain, tried itself out. She had heard of the Philippines; she’d just never given the country much thought. It was an island in the Pacific… somewhere.
“Filipino?” she repeated stupidly.
“Absolutely,” Kai confirmed. “Can’t you see it in yourself? The Hawaiian Islands are full of Filipinos. I’m surprised you didn’t wonder about the likeness the second you got off the airplane.”
“Like I said,” Ri defended weakly, “I’m from Maine.”
Kai’s dark eyes twinkled into hers. He smiled at her slyly. “So you’re used to standing out, I take it?”
She smiled slyly back and wiped away more tears. “Maybe.”
“Well,” he said with a laugh, “you’ll have to get over that! How long are you staying on Maui? Did you get that internship you were talking about or are you just here for vacation?”
Ri pulled herself together enough to describe her position with the FOM. She was able to do so mechanically, which was good, because most of her brain was still consumed with the one glorious, glowing word: Filipino.
Could it be true? Could she finally know, as of now, today, who she truly was? Where both her parents had come from?
Kai was looking at her expectantly. He had asked her a question.
“Sorry. Head in the clouds,” she admitted. “Could you repeat that?”
Her newfound cousin smiled at her warmly. “I asked if you wanted to come to dinner with me and my fiance. I’d love to hear more about your internship and your plans for the summer, and I know she would, too. Maddie’s an ecologist — she loves anything to do with dolphins. I can tell you all about the family history, too, if you care. Or not.”
“That sounds… perfectly wonderful,” Ri said honestly, rising and heading for the door. “Thank you. But don’t let me interrupt your work any more. Should I meet you somewhere later?”
“Did you drive here?”
“I took the bus.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Kai replied. “I’ll drive you.”
Ri nodded gratefully. “I’ll wait outside.” She closed her cousin’s office door behind her and practically skipped down the hall to the lobby. She smiled at the receptionist, located a women’s room, and rushed straight up to the mirror.
The face that looked back at her glowed with happiness, even around red-rimmed eyes. “I am Sriha Mirini Sullivan,” she said out loud, drinking in her own reflection with pride. “I am Russian.” Her smile widened and her voice grew bold.
“And I am Filipino.”
Chapter 7
“I am so sorry!” a voice called out.
Ri looked up to see one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen — a blazing redhead with the body of a supermodel — weaving through the tables in the outdoor restaurant and heading straight towards them. The woman’s bushy hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing a simple cotton top and capris, but the ordinary clothes did nothing to mask her extraordinary appearance.
“Traffic was at a crawl the whole way past Ka'anapali,” the woman continued as she approached, “or I would have been here ten minutes ago.”
Ri watched, intrigued, as her cousin’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He rose from his chair to greet the woman, and the couple came together with a hug and soft kiss on the lips that seemed involuntary. Their eyes met and held as if they were communicating some secret message, and it was with obvious reluctance that they parted and took their separate chairs.
Wow. The electricity coming off the two of them was enough to frizz Ri’s hair.
“Ri, this is my fiance, Maddie,” Kai told her proudly. “And Maddie, this is Ri, a newfound distant cousin of mine. She’s here doing a summer internship with the Foundation for Ocean Mammals.”
Maddie turned to Ri with a friendly smile. “Oh, cool! Hello.”
Ri said hello back, wondering how much Kai had told his fiance about her over the phone. Not much, apparently. Kai had invited a virtual stranger, and a woman at that, to intrude on his fiance’s dinner with very little notice. Yet Maddie didn’t seem to mind. Ri studied the two of them closely, although she was careful not to show it. She’d learned the hard way that psychological scrutiny, however innocently academic, tended to freak people out. Still, she really couldn’t help herself. Unselfish love, particularly the rare romantic kind, fascinated her.
“Did you order for me?” Maddie asked Kai hopefully. “I’m starving!”
“Yes,” he said with a smile.
Maddie looked at him expectantly, her stunning gray eyes sparkling. “Did you…”
Kai laughed. “Yes! I ordered your gnarly poi.”
Maddie clapped with glee. “You like poi, Ri?” she asked, putting her napkin on her lap.
Ri had no idea what poi was, but before she could ask, Kai broke in. “Did you notice, Ri,” he said with a grin, “that Maddie just assumes you know what she’s talking about?”
Maddie looked from him to Ri with confusion. “What? Shouldn’t I?”
Ri met her cousin’s eyes and felt a warmth to the tip of her toes. “I see what you mean,” she replied. Maddie had just naturally assumed that Ri was “a local.” Not because she was a relative of Kai’s, necessarily. But because she looked like she belonged here. Because she looked part Filipino!
She was part Filipino.
A rush of emotion swept over Ri, and her eyes began to tear up again.
“What did I say?” Maddie asked again, aggrieved.
Kai took pity on both of them and explained the situation himself while Ri used up a few more tissues. She wasn’t usually this emotional. Her sister was the crier in the family. Perhaps if Mei Lin was here drowning them all now, Ri would be better able to resist the impulse. She looked out over the view of the 'Au'au Channel visible from their table and breathed in deeply of the soothing sea air. It had been nice of Kai to bring her here. The open-air restaurant was lovely, all casual wooden tables and tropical planted flowers, situated right on the southwest coast just north of the port of Lahaina, with a moderately priced menu of local favorite dishes. She couldn’t have asked for a better end to a day that had started out so very horribly.
“Oh, Ri!” Maddie gushed when Kai had finished. “You’ll have to come to Lana'i with us some weekend and meet Kai’s mother and grandmother. You want to hear family stories, they’ll tell you plenty!”
“I’d love that,” Ri said eagerly, happy to hear the invitation come from Maddie, even though Kai had already offered. “As soon as I figure out what my job schedule looks like, anyway.” A pang of worry shot through her middle as she realized to what extent her internship was currently at risk. She had managed not to think much about the fire since meeting Kai, but the truth was that if she and the other interns couldn’t move back into Mrs. Araki’s house, they would be essentially homeless. She presumed that the Foundation would try to help them find someplace else to live. But she was only presuming. The FOM had no budget to subsidize their housing for four months. And her own budget couldn’t stretch any tighter than she was already stretching it without jeopardizing her plans for grad school.
If her only option was to suck it up and pay Maui’s market rate for housing, she’d have no option at all. She would have to resign the internship and fly back home. Because as important as this experience was to her, grad school mattered more. She needed a master’s degree in order to move on in her career.
Don’t think about it.
Maddie and Kai laughed frequently as they told Ri various anecdotes from when they were growing up together on the islan
d of Lana'i. Apparently Maddie had left when they were still children and the two had only reconnected in the past year, but the couple’s degree of simpatico could easily pass for a lifetime project. Studying them, Ri saw any number of similarities between this young couple and her own parents, who had been happily married for well over thirty years. But although she was happy for Kai and Maddie, a niggling sense of disquiet arose in her gut on behalf of Mei Lin, who was also recently engaged but whose interactions with her fiance looked nothing whatsoever like this.
Their dinner was served. Ri had ordered a “mixed plate” of shoyu chicken, fresh fish, and teriyaki beef, all of which looked delicious. Her family had frequently headed for American Chinese food when they ate out, not because of Mei Lin — who hated anything spicy and always lobbied for McDonald’s — but because Ri’s father was crazy about it. Hawaiian cuisine, as Kai explained, had its own twists. Barbecued seafood, chicken, and pork was combined with local vegetables and fruits and seasoned with Asian flavorings. Kai’s plate of mochiko fried chicken looked delicious as well, but Ri could find nothing positive to say about the assortment of pale, limp things on Maddie’s plate.
“Which one is the poi?” Ri asked, trying not to wrinkle her nose. The scoops of white rice and yellow macaroni salad she could identify, but the only other thing that looked even vaguely familiar on Maddie’s “local favorites” plate was a steaming pile of shredded pinkish-brown meat with yellow leaves in it, which she was guessing was pork and cabbage.
“This is the kalua pig,” Maddie said excitedly, pointing to the meat. “And this is the lau lau.” She stabbed her fork at a rolled up leaf that was square and dark greenish brown. “It’s kind of like a tamale,” she explained. “Pork, beef, and taro — kind of like potato — wrapped up in leaves and steamed. So good! You don’t eat the outside leaf though. Just the inside one.”