“But you live and breathe for that job. You can’t leave it.” I would rather remind him of work than tell him that I was overcome by his proposal, but fearful of what it might bring. Michael had lost his first wife in an airplane bombing, and I knew how long his mourning had lasted. I was afraid of him dying in his work for the government, leaving me behind.
“You’re wrong about that, Rei. I live and breathe for you. Even if you just want me for one thing.” And with that, Michael went out to the balcony and stared intently at the sea-so intently that I got the message, got dressed, and went downstairs, where I did happen to go to the gift shop, and bought an overpriced pair of yoga pants and a Hawaii-themed T-shirt, because I couldn’t bear to go home in the clothes I’d worn the night before.
I was relieved that he joined me for breakfast. We didn’t share many words, but we did share a basket of warm popovers and massive amounts of tropical fruit. There was a hole in the popover the waiter served me, and as I bit into it metal clinked against my teeth. I extracted a square-cut diamond solitaire ring.
“Sorry. I arranged for this to happen yesterday evening, when I booked the room. But I can probably take the ring back.” He sounded glum.
“Is it the ring from the Exchange?” I asked as the waiter who’d served us hovered on the periphery, beaming.
“I returned there when you were sick and swapped it for a real one.”
I held the diamond ring in my palm and looked at it, thinking of the beautiful vintage emerald I’d flung back at Hugh, and the ring that had never come from Takeo. Was I about to throw away the best thing I ever had, just because I was afraid of loss?
“Michael, I feel all choked up. I want to cry.” I laid the ring on the table, still studying it. I imagined all the happiness the ring could bring me, if I were brave enough to take it.
“Please don’t. We’ve already attracted enough attention.”
“Marriage is a lifetime, Michael. Won’t you give me time to think about this?”
“Of course I will. But I’m telling you now, when I drop you back at the resort today, I’m going to investigate whether it’s possible to book one of the wedding chapels. Half your relatives are here already, and it won’t be hard to get mine to turn out on short notice. They’ll be ecstatic.”
“You’re leaving in one day, Michael.” As I spoke, I remembered that I’d almost gotten married in Hawaii once, to Hugh. Perhaps this meant that I was actually fated to marry here, just like my ancestor Harue.
“Yes, and it’s unfortunate. So we won’t get married today or tomorrow, but I think within ten to fourteen days is reasonable. I can get things done quickly.”
“Not everything quickly,” I reminded him, and was rewarded with a look so fond and knowing that I threw caution to the wind. “Michael, we still have our room until noon, and I don’t have to be home until around two.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Rei,” Michael said. “This morning, I will bow to your wishes. But the next time will have to be within this hotel’s wedding suite. Do you read me?”
“Roger that.”
30
WE MADE THE most of every last moment to love each other, then drove back to the Leeward Side, holding hands most of the way. When I arrived home, my father greeted us cordially, and did not say a word about the missing night. I was grateful for Japanese discretion-the art of ignoring the obvious, and for letting water wash everything away.
I swung into dutiful-daughter mode, preparing a luncheon salad of local cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce. As I started chopping, my father invited Michael to stay to eat with us, but he begged off because of a lunch appointment at Pearl Harbor. It was probably just as well because right after he left, my father dropped the information that Uncle Hiroshi and Tom would meet Hugh for a round of golf at Turtle Bay on the North Shore.
“Otoosan, I guess you’re the only one who’ll be able to come with me to see Harue’s cottage,” I said ruefully. “That is, if we can still go. Won’t Hiroshi and Tom need the minivan?”
“We can drop them off, and then use the car ourselves. And thank you for including me, Rei. After all the research we’ve done, I’d very much like to see the house.”
As we washed dishes, I relayed what Josiah Pierce had told me about Harue’s brave and painful family history, and how he’d found confirmation of the sale of the house-a sale that could never have been legally made because of the military maps that included the house.
“When are you going to tell Yoshitsune?” my father asked at the end.
“I thought I’d wait until I had the written documents,” I said. “Then, Yoshitsune will have as much of the story as exists and can draw his own conclusions. This afternoon I just hope the house visit will allow him a bit of closure.”
COURTNEY WAS FEEDING the fish in the koi pond when we pulled up in the minivan, a few minutes before the time Uncle Yosh had suggested. She cocked her head and looked me up and down.
“You look good for someone who’s been sick. It’s like your face is pinker, but it’s not sunburn.”
“Thank you, Courtney.” I wasn’t about to tell a teenage girl my personal recipe for glowing skin. I felt different inside, too, thanks to an extra two hours in bed with Michael.
“You want to try?” Courtney asked, handing my father the box of fish flakes.
He shook a few in the water, and we all laughed as the patterned orange and cream fish swarmed to him. It was fun to watch them, and sent me back to memories of similar ponds in Japan. I said to Courtney, ‘I can’t tell where the extension is that Braden’s digging.”
“That’s because it’s finished! Look over there-he did nothing but dig the last several days. Dig, and cry.”
“Oh, Courtney. He’s really worried about his future, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t show it to people. But when he’s alone, I see it. He’s very scared.”
When Braden and Yoshitsune came outside, I left the fish and opened up the Odyssey, requesting that Braden sit next to me and read the map. I explained, ‘These maps are really complex, and I don’t want to strain the older gentlemen’s eyes.”
“I could do it, too!” Courtney piped up, from the very rear of the minivan, where she was sitting with Tom.
“I know that, Courtney. You may navigate for us on the way back.” Truth be told, I was going to use the handheld GPS once I arrived there, and mark the point as a way station. I would bring Michael back to see the place at sunset that evening, perhaps with a bottle of champagne.
“OK.” Braden shrugged, and took the first map I gave him. “So we go into Barbers Point, huh? That’s simple. The guard booths are always empty.”
Braden knew his way around Barbers Point better than Uncle Yoshitsune, because in his day it had been closed. Yosh told us, ‘Planes taking off there, day and night. Never know exactly what’s going on.”
“Who was Barber, some famous American Navy pilot?” I asked, looking around at the ink-black, burned fields.
“No, no,” Uncle Yosh said. “He was a very bad sailor.”
“Like a pirate?” Courtney asked.
“No. I mean he was an English captain who tried to land ashore in bad weather. Everyone on the ship told him, don’t even try, too dangerous, but he was in a hurry and wound up wrecking his ship here. Everybody died.”
As I was thinking, how could anyone know what the people aboard told the captain, if they’d all died?, Courtney asked, ‘Do you think we can find bones, Jii-chan?”
“No, Courtney. It was long-ago times, maybe 1600s. Bones all gone by now.”
Don’t let the house be gone, too, I thought. The picture that Edwin had taken to an appraiser had been about ten years old, and the place had been a wreck then. Winds could have finished it off.
“I don’t think we can go any farther,” Braden said, pointing to a Pierce Holdings sign about fifty feet ahead, with No Trespassing written underneath.
“Sure we can,” I said.
“The boy has a point. We could get in trouble.” Uncle Yoshitsune sounded regretful.
