Diamond Head (25 page)

But Lin Leong is panicking again. Her hands jump from surface to surface, the window, the door, the back of the driver’s chair. She touches these things as if she were blind, desperate to orient herself in a strange new place. Her head follows her hands, jerking in every direction but always returning to the window, where she holds her focus for a moment longer. The driver realizes she’s panting, almost wheezing from effort. A single handkerchief sticks to her bloody palm, trailing her movements like a white flag.

“We need to stop the car,” Theresa tells her mother. “She needs to get out.”

The entrance to the cemetery is thirty feet ahead. The driver’s foot hovers above his two pedals, pivoting on his heel, unsure whether to race through the gate or stop immediately.

“Stop the car!” Amy shouts, and the driver’s foot comes down fast. Lin Leong’s two palms slam against the inside of her window and she screams.

A high-pitched wail, a harrowing shriek from a terrible place. It fills the car like spiders, crawling along the skin, rattling the core. The strength in her voice is extraordinary, bottomless and raw,
expanding into every crevice of the sealed car. The driver turns in his seat, unsure of what to do, and is met by something that rattles him further. Amy Leong, from across the seat, buried beneath the sound, is crying. Her eyes are closed, tears race down her face. She’s whispering.
I’m sorry
, she mouths.
I’m so sorry.

1942

D
IAMOND
H
EAD
, H
AWAII

Two days after the wedding, Frank falls ill. It’s the drinking, I tell him. He has to be careful, he’s no longer young. But he insists it was the fourth course, the shellfish. All that money, he grumbles, and the lobster wasn’t fresh.

The first day, he remains in bed without a fight. Hong makes soup and takes his temperature. He’s running a fever; the heat from his skin leaves signs on his pillow, sunken and damp. On the second day, I find Frank in his office holding his head in the dark. When I turn on the light, he flinches.
Out
, I insist, out of the office and back into bed. He tells me he’s fine, so I point to the bottle of painkillers beside him, the strongest medicine my husband will touch and even so with great infrequency. After that, he agrees, but he brings a stack of papers with him to bed. He ruffles through them to make a point.

Later that evening as I pretend to sleep, I hear Frank vomiting in the bathroom. He’s not getting better, I tell myself. In forty years, I have never seen him ill like this. It’s clear that rest is not enough; it’s time to see a doctor. In the morning, I decide, I must call Dr. Lum.

But the next morning the space beside me is empty. Frank has already risen, so I go to find him, to scold him for his impatience. He’s at the kitchen table eating toast with guava jam, dressed in a suit and tie, ready to leave for work.

“Absolutely not,” I exclaim, removing the jacket from his shoulders. “Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m perfectly well,” he smiles. “The sickness has passed entirely.”

“I’m calling Alan Lum,” I tell him. “You’re making yourself worse.”

Without a word, Frank stands from the table and walks into the
pantry. When he emerges, there is a twenty-pound sack of rice slung across his shoulder.

“Look, Lin,” he says, pacing the length of the kitchen. “Could a sick man do this?”

He squats and raises the bag above his head. His arms barely strain.

I shake my head, but strangely enough, Frank looks fine. He smiles like he’s healthy, like the rest has done him well. It’s a relief to see him like this, after two days of worrying, but still, I feel the need to protest.

“Tomorrow,” I compromise. “If you still feel this way tomorrow, you can go to the harbor. But you need to rest for one more day—just one more.”

“Fine,” he groans, dropping the sack of rice to the floor. “But you’ll wish I had gone!”

He spends the rest of the day repairing anything he can find, leaving messes and making noise with his tools from the garage. Tools I have never seen before, that I did not even know he owned.
Look
, Lin, he says, showing me a chair he leveled. A thin layer of dust covers every surface of the kitchen. The breakfast table is upside down. I know he’s doing it on purpose, to show how healthy he is, how restless he feels. And I must admit, he makes his point.

The next day, I don’t protest when Frank leaves for the harbor. I think of the tools and the mess and I let him go without a fight.

But forty minutes later, as I trim flowers in the basin, Frank returns. He tries to sneak through the kitchen door; he doesn’t see me at the sink. I turn around as the door opens.

“What are you doing back?” I ask, dropping my flowers, walking to him. “Why are you walking like that? Frank, what’s the matter?”

I reach out to touch his arm and he releases a sharp, horrible whimper. As if burned by a match, he pulls his arm away, clutching it to his body as he hunches further forward.

“Jesus Christ, Frank,” I breathe, stepping backward. “Get in bed. I’m calling Dr. Lum this minute.”

I try to move my eyes, but halted and alarmed, they will not leave Frank.

“I’m fine,” Frank manages, shifting his weight between his legs, but that’s all he says, nothing more. He moves past me with stubborn determination but even he cannot hide the difficulty in his stride. He handles his legs like toothpicks, as if they could easily snap in two. His arms swing limply. He takes small, swift steps across the living room and when he reaches the corridor, I remember the phone.

“I need you here immediately,” I say to Dr. Lum. “It’s Frank; there’s something wrong. Please, as fast as you can—it’s urgent!”

I hang up the receiver and start for our bedroom. Something tells me to run, so I do. I sprint down the corridor and never has it felt so long, so narrow and dark. I take off my shoes and run faster.

Finally I reach the bedroom door, but on the opposite side, the bed lies empty, perfectly made. I hesitate. The shower is running; I can hear it through the dividing wall.

“Frank,” I call, moving through the room to the bathroom door. “Frank. Alan is on his way.”

I open the bathroom door and step into a shallow pool of water. The shower is running; the shower door hangs open and Frank lies on the floor, completely naked.
Frank
, I scream, kneeling to him. He opens his mouth and little bubbles float through the water that’s collected around his head, his face. In the light, in the water, his scars look swollen and gruesome, brand new.
The bed
, he whispers, so I pull his wet arms around my shoulders. Using my knees and all my strength I heave him to his feet. He cries out, broken and raw. He’s helping the best he can; I feel him trying, can hear him panting in my ear. Our bodies stumble together through the doorway and I release him onto the bed. He falls face-first. His legs stick straight out from the mattress.

My body shakes as I stare at him and I feel like I might vomit.

I flee from the room. I run to find my sons, screaming.

He’s in the bedroom
, I yell as my sons sprint past me. They’re faster than I am and reach him before I do. As I turn the corner, I see their horror. The scars, I realize. They’ve never seen them—not like this. I open my mouth to explain but Dr. Lum’s voice shouts down the hall. A sound escapes me: a scream, a name, I have no idea, but his footsteps grow closer until they’re beside me. He rushes to Frank’s side and holds two fingers to his throat, two fingers to his wrist. He inhales like the air is freezing cold.

“Call an ambulance,” Dr. Lum says, and I hesitate. Not one of us moves. He yells it a second time and I can’t believe what I’m about to say—what I know my sons are thinking too.

“Alan,” I say, “we can’t.” I’m shaking and it shakes the authority from my words. I hear how empty they sound, how foolish.

“He’s losing control of his limbs, Lin! Do you see him! I don’t care what he wants, I want him alive!” He stares at me like I don’t and I almost give in.

“She’s right.” I hear Kaipo’s voice. “We have to take him ourselves. We have to, we promised him—we all did.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dr. Lum says, pounding his fist into the bed, and I know we’ve said enough. Frank would rather die than be forced into a screaming ambulance, his naked body on display, his trauma a spectacle for all the island to see.

“Kaipo,” Dr. Lum commands without looking up from the mattress. “Get something to carry him on and quickly! And for Christ’s sake, Bohai, cover your father!”

They wrap Frank’s body in the bedsheet and like the flip of a switch my thoughts return.

“Kaipo,” I scream down the hall. “The table. Take a leaf from the table!”

Moments later Kaipo returns with the wooden panel beneath his arm. He places the board on the mattress and together the three of them lift Frank on top of it. He cries out in pain, like he’s being
branded with an iron, and it takes everything I have not to run from the room.

“Bohai,” I say, and I feel the bile rise, taste the acid on the back of my tongue, against the lumps that have risen. “You need to stay here until we get him to the car. Dr. Lum and Kaipo will manage. As soon as we leave, get Hong and bring her to Queens Hospital. I don’t want her to see this—do you understand?”

He nods, looking at his father as he leaves the room. Swiftly, I guide Dr. Lum and Kaipo to the driveway and open the back door of Dr. Lum’s town car. They slide Frank along the backseat, the sharp corner of the wood panel tearing at the leather. There are no seats left so I shove myself into the thin gap between the board and the front seats and squat next to my husband, my face hovering inches from his.

I’m here, Frank
, I whisper to him.
I’m right here.

He opens his right eye halfway and wrinkles the right side of his mouth, as if he’s trying to smile. I bite down hard on my lower lip and taste blood.

It makes me think of red strings. The copper taste fills my mouth and I swallow it, feeling a strange, divine strength enter my bones. We’re connected, I tell myself; we always have been. And if he is slipping away, being pulled into another world by an act of fate—I’ll be right here to pull him back. I know the strength of our fate, and I’m certain it’s enough to keep him here with me.

Just relax
, I say.
We’ll be at the hospital soon, and look, Frank, no ambulance.
I press my lips into a tight smile, my tongue running along the cut that I made, feeling fiercer with each sharp taste of blood. Frank squeezes his eye shut and tries to nod but his neck is too stiff. We race to the hospital, stopping at red lights only when absolutely necessary.

Through the back door of the emergency room, Dr. Lum sprints into the hospital and emerges with four men in blue scrubs pushing a stretcher. They pull Frank’s body from the backseat and wheel him into the building, Kaipo and I chasing behind. At the end of the
hallway, they push my husband through a heavy set of double doors, and when we try to follow, a man stops us. He holds out both arms like he’s trying to catch us.

“Please have a seat,” the doctor says, motioning to the waiting area. “You can begin to fill out the paperwork until we know what’s happening.”

I’m breathless and barefoot. I left the house without shoes and the linoleum floor is cold on my feet. I don’t have time for this.

“Do you know who I am!” I yell at the doctor, pushing myself up to my toes. People in the hallway stop and stare. I have never once said these words but I don’t know what else to do. I need to get through those doors, so he needs to know who we are. The doctor looks at me uneasily, like he should know but does not.

“My name is Lin Leong, wife of Frank Leong, the man who just went through those doors,” I say, my voice lowering as my tongue clicks on each syllable, “and if something happens to him and I’m not there—”

The doctor is already punching his code into the wall. The double doors swing open. He says something but I don’t hear him.

We run from door to door, pressing our faces to the tiny windows until a nurse points us to Frank’s room. It’s the last one on the hall; the blue door, she says. When we enter, Frank is in a hospital gown. He’s sitting upright and his right eye is open again. They’ve already attached him to several machines, each one beeping at regular intervals. The room feels like gelatin. The air resists with each difficult step.

“I’m okay,” I think he says, but it could be anything. Only part of his mouth moves.

“Mrs. Leong.” The doctor in the white coat turns to me. “I’m Dr. Harris. Your husband appears to be in an early stage of paralysis. He’s currently stable, but after these tests we hope to know more.”

I say something back and walk farther into the tiny room. Kaipo is behind me and Dr. Lum is reading one of the machines. Dr. Harris is haole. He has light brown hair and blue eyes.

“I’ll take these over immediately,” he says, holding up three vials of dark blood, “and we should have word within the hour.”

I nod my head and the doctor leaves. I turn to Kaipo and tell him to find his brother and Hong. I tell Dr. Lum to begin the paperwork. I want to sit alone with Frank and feel just him. I need to try to understand what is happening to my husband.

Alone, I sit in the metal chair by the bed. Frank’s eyes are closed again and the room is still except for the beeping of the monitors. Softly, I touch my finger to his wrist and hope he doesn’t cry out. The lids of his eyes are heavy and drooping; they look a hundred years old. When he doesn’t respond to my touch, I place the palm of my hand against his. It’s warm and swollen and feels like a stranger’s hand—someone who’s been sick all his life. I want to pull my hand away but instead I close my eyes. I leave it. I slowly wrap my fingers around Frank’s, waiting for him to come alive for me. But he continues to lie motionless in his upright position—like he doesn’t sense me at all. I squeeze and release, my entire body clenching as I do, but nothing happens. He doesn’t know I’m there.

“Frank,” I say like a tunnel of wind, lungs collapsed. He lifts his head suddenly, and slowly he peels his lips apart.

“I’m okay,” I think he says again. His eyes are still closed.

I haven’t cried yet but I know it’s coming. I look out the window and focus my eyes on the sun, trying to dissolve the tears.

“Frank,” I whisper, lowering my eyes again to his face, “you’re going to be fine.”

It sounds empty, meaningless.

“You have to be fine,” I try again, my fingers still touching his, “because—”