Diamond Head (10 page)

“Bohai,” I pleaded. “I know there’s something you’re hiding and I think I even know what it is but I need you to say it. Just once, don’t make me guess. Just say it to me, please, Bohai. Please.”

Bohai went quiet. He went still.

“How,” he began, stumbling slowly, “how—do you, I mean, what do you—” He began to panic. His breathing began to quicken. “Does Kaipo know?” he asked abruptly. “Do you think she knows?” His brow furrowed in distress. He looked horrified by the thought.

“Of course not,” I insisted, but then it occurred to me: the enormous discrepancy between our words. It didn’t make any sense. “Wait, what?” I said, but he just stared back.

“Are you,” I tried, but I couldn’t finish the question. I knew it wasn’t right. At that moment, in the middle of my thought, I knew that I had it completely wrong.

“Nanami,” I said, the surprise hitting my mind and my tongue simultaneously. “You like
Nanami
,” I said again, my voice lit with disbelief.

Bohai shushed me. He walked past where I was standing and shut the door completely.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said, pressing his back against the wood, his arms spread outward as if I’d try to escape. He looked intently at me and I stared back. I couldn’t believe it; I really couldn’t. Bohai wasn’t homosexual. He liked Kaipo’s girlfriend.

“No, no, of course not,” I remembered to say. “Of course it isn’t.”

Silence spread between us. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid that if I spoke, I would sound excited, which would seem at once strange and inappropriate. Bohai had to speak first. I couldn’t find a way to do it.

“I’m sick about it,” he said finally. “It’s terrible. She’s sixteen. She’s Kaipo’s girlfriend.”

“It’s normal,” I countered. “She’s a nice girl.”

“Please, don’t say anything, not even to Dad. It’s humiliating. It’s bad enough that you know.”

“I’ll never say a thing,” I promised. “I understand, I do. And it’s not a big deal.”

I caught my reflection in the mirror and realized I was smiling. I immediately stopped. I swallowed, tried to contain my joy. I felt so much hope. For twenty-four years, I feared that my son was devoid of desire. He never showed an interest in girls, not once had I seen him affected by a woman. But there it was: a normal, visceral response to a female.

Bohai would be all right.
It was an amazing, spectacular thought. My son was a late bloomer but with a bit of help, a bit of prodding, he could still lead a normal life. He would date, marry, have a family of his own—for the first time as his mother, I was convinced he was capable, that for the most part my son was a regular man suppressing his desires. A shy boy born to a powerful man, stunted by the burden placed upon him. But he could deny himself for only so long. In my mind, there had to be a tipping point, and soon enough, Bohai would break free of his mental restraints. I hugged him, his wet shirt pressed against mine, and left the bathroom to return to the dinner table. And I never said a word, not one, not even to Frank.

The years slipped by like water from a leaky tap. Year after year, they continued to drip, until suddenly my sons were grown, and Bohai was turning thirty-three.

The number took me by surprise. Its largeness, its significance hit me all at once. I began to recall the years before, the birthdays that had come and gone, feeling like an idiot as I numbered them in my mind, shocked by how much time had passed. In the last ten years, we’d been through so much change. Just as Frank predicted, the neighborhood had filled around us and with it came invitations to parties at the Dillinghams’ La Pietra, to polo matches on Kapiolani’s lawn, to tea on the roof garden at James Castle’s Kainalu mansion. Our schedule was more hectic than it had ever been in Guangdong; the people in Hawaii gathered for any occasion, threw parties simply because it was Friday, because the moon was full, because the weather was pleasant. On the days that we had no event to attend, I began a charity league with a handful of women from the neighborhood. With a monthly allowance from Frank, we threw fund-raisers for the public schools in Kaneohe, for supplies for the local children. I told Hong I understood what she said that day, about being a Boxer, about being a part of something real. It was the first time I had a cause of my own, an opportunity to help my new community, and I threw myself into it, satisfying something within me that running a household never could.

Meanwhile, I realized suddenly, I had neglected my own child.

I looked at my son. I studied his face for traces of change or desire. I watched as he blew out his candles in three timid breaths. He served himself the smallest slice of cake, passing Hong the last fat corner, and ate in silence as chatter filled around him. His body was still thin, his skin still white. His body showed no sign of the island that surrounded him. Even his hair was combed neatly to the side, parted on the right, just as he’d worn it as a boy.

Bohai was on the path to loneliness, it occurred to me for the first time since that night in the bathroom. I felt my heart swell to the size of a melon, heavy with guilt. How had I let this happen? How had I let myself attend parties and fund-raisers, blind to my son as he grew older and more alone? I had forsaken my duty as a mother, as the
person closest to him, who perhaps understood him most. Yet again, I realized, I had failed Bohai.

I retired to bed early that evening, my guilt so large I could think of nothing else. I was sure things would change for him, but they never did, and the only person I could think to blame was me.

Bohai wasn’t mine. It was a thought that occurred to me less and less. I loved him as if he were my own. Still, I wondered if this fact had anything to do with my negligence. I let my mind reel, my thoughts traveling in wasted circles until, at long last, sleep overcame me.

Hours later, I woke suddenly to a face, my hands clutching at the mattress as I pushed myself upright. It rattled me deeply, shook me in a way that no other dream had. The face, it was thin and sallow, flesh sunken beneath her eyes, where her cheeks were meant to be. She lay there expressionless, her skin reduced to a frail wrapping that spread across the bones. She looked used and wasted until she was finally discarded.

It was my fault.
All at once, it came to me.

I had given Frank a concubine. I had let Hailee into our lives, invited her into our bed, tangled her into our fate. And was it not I, too, who had sought her out? After years of misery, of disappointment, was it not I who found her? Hailee, fourteen years old, her body barely a woman’s, had been knotted into our family’s string, and worse yet, that knot had made a child.

Bohai was the product of a knot; he was the result of a mistake; my mistake, my impatience, my desire to please, to distract Frank from my failings. My meddling, it destroyed Hailee. It left Bohai strange and luckless: a clumsy, half-formed version of a son who would later come.

How had I never seen it before? Left alone, Bohai would never find his destined match, because his fate began as a tangle. And if it was I who had tied the knot, it was I alone who could set it right.

How did the story go? Was every person in the world born with a red string slipped around their ankle? Was every man given a
destined match? Or was it possible for a string to become undone, for a person to get skipped in line—sentenced to a life without divine attraction?

Without question, I felt the presence of my own string. From girlhood there had always been something inside me searching for a companion. I never imagined he would be anything like Frank, but I knew he was out there, our fates drawing nearer. Even then, the dark years behind us, I felt extraordinarily blessed by my tremendous fortune.

But what if there was no push and pull at your ankle, no yearning to cross oceans or climb mountains to be with your match? Was it possible I had twisted Bohai’s string beyond repair? Could it be too late, my son’s match come and gone? I shook my head and settled back into bed, careful not to wake Frank.
How ridiculous
. Of course there was a woman for Bohai.

I simply had to find her.

November 1964

H
ONOLULU
, H
AWAII

Theresa watches her mother’s face change. She sees Amy’s features dim, gradually, as if a dial is being turned, lower and lower, that connects to the clarity of Amy’s eyes, to the pigment of her skin, as she takes in the photograph that Mrs. Leong holds out to her. On the floor of the study, the women sit in absolute silence so thick that it slows everything about the room.

Theresa can’t see the photograph. She stands by the entrance, shifting her weight from foot to foot, alternating the pressure on the pads of her swollen feet. She’s thinking. She’s racking her mind for something to say, something with the power to shatter the wall that sprang up before her the moment her mother removed her shoes, the moment she lowered herself to the ground. They’re fading into the photograph. It seems to be draining them, casting a somber spell over them both.

Theresa’s immediate burden is clear; she repeats it to herself in steps. First, she must get her mother off the ground. Second, she must return the day to her father. A series of steps, a mission, a final obstacle course—Theresa thinks of the day as such. Stricken with intention, single-minded, in the preceding days Theresa’s anger has eclipsed her grief. It’s wrong, she tells herself, she knows it is. But until she finds her answers, Theresa can’t relent. She needs to know how much she must hate her mother, needs to understand to what extent she is responsible for the day, culpable of wasting a life so much worthier than their own. Theresa’s anger brings her
strength; it separates her from them; it acts as a higher power, a catalyst to shake the truth from a family she barely knows. A family who makes her feel at once childish and irrelevant. Her fear remains the same, compounded within the mighty house. What odds, what
tiny
chance did she expect, competing against a thousand ghosts?

Speak up
, Theresa commands her father, sending her words down the corridor, closing her eyes and trailing behind to ensure their safe arrival.
Just this once, Maku, you have to speak up!

“My son,” Mrs. Leong says, turning toward Amy for the first time. “He never learned to ride a bike.”

“What?” Amy says softly, lifting her eyes from the photograph.

“A bike. He had one, but he never learned.”

“Oh.” Amy pauses. “I didn’t know.”

Theresa opens her eyes and watches Mrs. Leong nod as her mouth forms a frown. Wrinkles, thin yet deep, extend past the corners of Mrs. Leong’s lips, so that her sadness drags to the bottom of her face.

“Mom,” Theresa says, but it goes unanswered. She tries again, her voice lingering in the silence. Amy does not look up.

Steadying herself, Theresa counts to five and tries to visualize a pool of cool, fresh water. She lets it fill her, and when it reaches her fingertips, Theresa pushes herself from her spot near the archway. Her father’s day will not carry on like this, she tells herself; she must move it forward. For once, she will not allow him to be lost among her family’s psychoses, their voices always louder than his, their shadows forever larger, more important.

Theresa walks swiftly past the women, taking large strides toward the desk behind them. Without a word, she lifts a trash bin, and with her free hand, Theresa begins to tidy the room. She doesn’t know how else to start, how else to clear the space of its stubborn clutter. She grabs a piece of white paper from the desk and throws it into the bin, followed by another, crumpling it between her fingers. She reaches for a third and then a fourth, smashing the paper and shoving
it deep within the trash can, letting the sound fill the room. Theresa looks to the floor, where the women still sit, and sees that her movement makes no difference to them. They sit motionless, as if they are the only people in the room, completely blind to her effort. She needs something louder to shake them, something disruptive to break them from their trance.

With an outstretched arm, Theresa heaves her torso across the desk and sweeps all the paper into the basket, knocking over a paperweight and a stapler, sending loose pencils flying off the edge. The pencils click against the floor, one after the other, as they scatter in different directions.

“Theresa!” Amy exclaims, turning around. “What are you doing?”

Theresa does not respond. Instead, she follows the trail of paper away from the desk, bending over and filling the bin. She collects the photographs as well, holding them to her chest and replacing them backward, quieting their voices. She’s making noise now, plenty of it, ripping the paper before throwing it away, punching it down into what she’s accumulated.
Go
, she orders the ghosts, shaking the bin into the air.
Leave him alone.

“Theresa,” Amy whispers sternly, reaching out her hand as her daughter passes, trying to slow her down. “What are you doing? What’s gotten into you?”

“Hand me that,” Theresa says, pointing to the picture her mother now holds.

“Theresa—”

“Hand it to me,” she repeats. Theresa’s voice is harried, agitated but not unkind. Hesitantly, Amy gives her daughter the photograph.

“Do you think she looks okay?” Theresa asks, nodding at Mrs. Leong, who is staring at a patch of carpet near her foot. In her right hand she holds a pencil that has rolled beside her.

“What?” Amy says, shaking her head.

“How does she look,” Theresa repeats. “That’s why we’re here. Do you think it’s okay?”

Together, they turn and look at the old woman.

Mrs. Leong is dressed in white, as she should be. A linen blouse stretches across her front, pulled tight across her chest—so tight that the material gathers beneath her armpits in distressed wrinkles. Her shirt creases along the soft folds of her middle, and Theresa can tell by the stiffness of the lines that she’s been in the same position for some time. She sits in cropped pants, also creased around the width of her hips. They’re loose, like men’s pants, and they cinch at her waist with a drawstring that’s come undone. Her hair is long and limp, falling around her face in a thin sheet. It has more color than Hong’s but it lacks all signs of life. The tone is patchy and dull. It has none of the magic Hong’s possesses.

“She was never like this,” Amy whispers, rising from her spot on the floor and turning away from Mrs. Leong. “Even at her worst, she was still so beautiful.”

“I know,” Theresa says, her mind pushing forward her earliest memory of the woman, of the small room with the single bed, the single dresser. The old woman had sat in a folding chair wearing a navy pantsuit, emerald earrings, her hair pulled into a neat chignon. When Theresa hugged her, quickly, clumsily, she’d held her breath. Her NaiNai smelled of smoke and heavy rose perfume.

The women pause. They both know the answer, but neither can find the solution.

“She can’t go out there like this, can she?” Amy asks.

“I don’t know.” Theresa shakes her head. “Does she have anything else here?”

Amy frowns, looking past her daughter.

“If Kaipo would have said something earlier . . . I could have gotten something for her—I could have made her something.”

Theresa breathes, her head growing light. She feels the irrelevancies of the day crawling along her skin, threatening to get below it. She’s upset with Kaipo for not saying something earlier. She’s angry with herself for forgetting an iron. The creases on Mrs. Leong’s
clothes seem insurmountable, as if her crumpled appearance could deny her father the peace he deserves.

“Really, though,” Theresa stammers, getting ahold of herself. “She looks fine. She’s a little wrinkled but it’s a funeral, for God’s sake, it’s not a—”

“I have an idea,” Amy interrupts, raising an open palm. She turns to her daughter. “Stay with her a minute, okay?”

“Mom, it’s fine,” Theresa insists, but Amy is already walking toward the archway.

“I’ll be right back,” she calls over her shoulder. “Stay right here.” She’s gone before Theresa can refuse.

Alone with Mrs. Leong, Theresa is met with a silence she feels somehow obliged to fill. Recently it’s unnerved her—a complete absence of words or sound. Whenever she’s alone, Theresa plays the radio. The sound it makes doesn’t matter—advertisements for soap or a dozen wind instruments, it makes no difference, she’s not listening. When there’s no radio, Theresa will run a faucet. She’ll flush a toilet. Silence is her greatest regret. It reminds her of her father and all the spaces she never filled, of all the words she wishes she had said but now must keep to herself.

“Don’t listen to my mom,” Theresa says to Mrs. Leong, pacing the space in front of her. “You look great. You’re almost eighty, for God’s sake, we should be celebrating, not trying to get you into a pair of heels. It’s just that there’s going to be press here and I know Uncle Kaipo and my mom want you to look perfect, you know? Like how you were before—”

Theresa’s eyes dart toward Mrs. Leong. She shuts her mouth and swallows. A moment passes and nothing happens, nothing changes. Mrs. Leong sits with her knees to her chest, her expression the same blank sorrow, as if watching a tragic movie she’s seen a thousand times, during which she no longer feels the need to cry. It occurs to Theresa that she has never been alone with this woman, her NaiNai. It occurs to her that her NaiNai may have no idea who she is.

Carefully, Theresa closes her eyes and sees a yellow building, a porch, a warm can of guava juice. She was young, maybe six, no older than seven. Her mother had promised her a day at the beach, the best beach she knew of on the North Shore of the island, but before they could swim, they had to make a stop. An hour later they slowed before a yellow building, and outside on the porch sat Mrs. Leong,
her NaiNai
, Amy told Theresa,
Maku’s mother
. Her NaiNai was very sick, Amy explained; she had been sick since before Theresa was born. They approached her slowly, Amy introducing them both by name, and for exactly one hour they sat with the old woman, Theresa fidgeting in her chair, her sweaty palm warming her can of juice. Her mother talked for the entire visit, about what Theresa has no memory, but her NaiNai didn’t say a word—that, she remembers. The old woman’s lips, as if sewn together, never moved, never opened to take a single breath. Afterward, they drove straight home and Theresa didn’t ask about the beach, rattled by the smell that still clung to her skin, by the silent old woman who lived all alone. As far as Theresa remembers, after that visit, they never went back.

Quietly, Theresa opens her eyes and studies Mrs. Leong’s face, her heart beating softly in her ears. She lingers on each of her deteriorating features, first her chapped mouth, then her nose, sprinkled with age spots, tracing the woman’s face upward with difficulty, a conscious effort to keep them steady. None of it is familiar to Theresa. Whenever she saw her NaiNai, just once a year in this very house, Theresa could look for only so long. The tall, waxy-skinned woman smelled so intensely of a small room, of old belongings and the sickness her mother had yet to name. Every New Year, as soon as she could, Theresa retreated to the kitchen with Hong. It was barely her on that porch all those years ago, her young memory so faint it seems almost dreamlike when she recalls it now, always in tableau, never in film. Theresa finds she has no memories attached to the old woman’s eyes; she remembers nothing about her skin. And as she allows herself to finally blink, Theresa finds that the thought calms her. She
finds that their total strangeness is encouraging. It grants her some bravery. Theresa takes a breath and reaches inside herself once again, extracting everything that she feels for this woman who sits on the floor, this woman whose life Theresa now knows intimately without having exchanged a single significant word.

“Um,” Theresa says, clearing her throat. Her voice sounds brash and childish. She hates that it’s her, making such a sad attempt—that she’s this nervous before an audience of a single stranger.

“I want to say that I think you’re an extraordinary woman.” She pauses. “I know that doesn’t mean much, coming from me. In fact, you probably have no idea who I am and I hate that.” She shakes her head. “I hate that I was scared of you. That a part of me still is.

“But I’m learning a lot this year,” Theresa whispers, afraid that her voice will break. “I’ve learned a lot about opportunities and what happens when they go unused. I know we don’t have a lot of time before my mom comes back, so here it is, my opportunity to say that I admire you. Your story, your strength. I wish I could hear it from your mouth.”

The woman has yet to look at Theresa, to recognize that she is speaking. Theresa fights against her instinct to give up. In the silence, it’s easy to see her NaiNai as a piece of furniture, a lamp or a chair to which words make no difference. She fumbles through the quiet and finds her mother’s voice, hears her simple advice.
Just speak.
To be acknowledged, she told her. That’s all her NaiNai wants. Theresa breathes.

“I’ve been thinking about you since Maku died. I keep coming back to you, thinking that you might understand.” Theresa looks at the old woman, barely able to dress herself, and searches for a way to say it.

“I spent my entire life with him and it’s as if I never knew him, like I never tried. This whole time I thought he was fragile but that’s bullshit.” She shakes her head. “Maku was a thinker. My father was a mathematician. There was nothing
wrong
with him, not like people said. He gauged his decisions with logic, he chose with numbers.”

Theresa steadies herself. She feels the heavy beat of her heart, tries to slow the pace of her breathing. When she speaks of her father, it happens intrinsically. In her defensive approach, her aggressive tone, she feels the need to preserve her father as the man she sees him as now: wronged, his life far worthier than his end. But more than anyone else, Theresa thinks sadly, as she has often in the preceding days, the woman who sits before her—this vacant, broken woman—understands something of her father’s burden. Even now, twenty years later, her NaiNai has not been released to death. To this day, she endures a penance so much larger than her crime.