The Ohana (21 page)

Han Chaul Roong felt his life slipping away. Death was a mystery to him. He hoped the end would come quickly and mercifully. He thought about the strange experience aboard the ship that brought him to Hawaii. He realized he had been given the gift of life and his path was to learn how to live without the center of his universe. Now he was dying. He wondered if there was anything beyond physical life. Fear of the unknown was as real to him as the pain from the cancer eating away at his body. He wanted the pain to end, but he was afraid.

He dreamed of dancing on Mount Jirisan. How young and hopeful he had been. Everything was possible then. Now he lived a world away from Mount Jirisan and was destined to die in a hospital bed without achieving his dreams. How sad to die in ignominy, his arms punctured with tubes and his frail body shrunken to the bone.

Preachers and priests visited the cancer ward where Chaul Roong had been admitted after he grew too ill to be taken care of at home. One day, a slight
haole
with glasses and thinning hair came to see him as he lay gasping for breath, his lungs on fire. The preacher held Chaul Roong’s hand, bowed his head, and prayed. Suddenly, warmth flooded his body like hot liquid, relieving him of pain.

“What you did?” Han gasped, trying to lift his head.

“I asked the Lord, the Great Healer, to ease your pain through the blood of Jesus Christ,” the preacher took his hand.

“Jesus?” Han asked, "the baby at Christmas?"

The man smiled. “He’s the Son of God.”

Han shook his head. “Can you tell me what you talking about?”

For the next hour, the preacher talked to Han, telling him although he was unable to reverse the mistakes of his past, he could be set free from its bite. He prayed with the preacher and a great peace washed over Han. He now understood what to expect. Fear left him. The pain came and went, but now he was able to tolerate it better. He was going to a better place.

The preacher came almost every day to help him focus on the positive by concentrating on the gifts God had given him in life rather than the disappointments. He talked to him and read the Bible. The lyrical prose and encouraging words calmed his restive soul.

He told the preacher he had once loved as no man could ever love. The preacher nodded and told him God’s book said love was the greatest gift of all. When Chaul Roong heard the passage in the Bible called the love chapter, he realized God had always been with him and loved him enough to brighten his existence with a magnificent present.

He had felt the ecstasy of passion and the exquisite pain of loss. He had lived with much hope and he had lived without any. But in the end, he decided it was better he lived life with love than without it.

He grew so thin he could make out all the bones in his body. His sons avoided looking at him and his daughters cried. His wife sat his bedside for hours, blotting his face and arms with warm cloths. He regretted not loving her. All those years, he thought only of himself and didn’t think of her pain, her unhappiness. Chaul Roong asked God to forgive him for hurting Dok Ja and for killing the Japanese soldiers.

Death no longer frightened him. When his daughters averted their eyes, he knew his time was near. So he closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep whenever they came to visit. He was tired all the time anyway.

One day as he drifted between sleep and wakefulness, he saw a man with long hair and a close-cut beard. He wore a flowing gown and stood beside the ocean. His eyes were the color of the misty clouds around Mount Jirisan. The stranger beckoned with both arms outstretched. When he spoke, his voice was like the breeze. Chaul Roong felt it rather than heard it. “Chaul Roong.” The man smiled and Chaul Roong knew he was in the presence of God. “Come with me, my son.” A brilliant white light enveloped him. Chaul Roong was blinded for a second.

When his vision returned, Chaul Roong saw Tae Ja standing before him wearing the festival gown of red over gold she had worn the day they first met. Her thick, black hair was caught up at the nape of her neck, and her skin was like heavy cream. Smiling, she floated towards him from a ship out in the ocean behind her. She held a letter from the marriage broker in her hand. It confirmed Chaul Roong Han was contracted to marry Song Tae Ja. Joy flooded over him.

“You're here, too?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “Everything is as it should've been from the start.”

He blinked at her for several moments before she moved closer.

“
Yobo
.” She smiled and put her hand out to him. “
Yobo
, now our life really begins.”

Chaul Roong reached for her hand. As he did, he drew his last breath.

Mary felt empty after the death of her father-in-law. He had been kind and accepting of her and her child. He told her of a great love he once had. His eyes watered and her heart went out to him.

“At least,” he said, “I knew love. I was lucky.”

Mary thought of the two men who vanished from her life. Sometimes Mitsuo’s face flashed before her, rattling her peace. As for Sean, he was always with her because of Jackie. There were times when Mary was struck by Jackie’s resemblance to her father. She had Sean’s soft, wide eyes and narrow nose along with Mary’s mouth and color of skin.

Mary liked to play the music box. The swirling figures and the music transported her to that magical romantic moment. The memory of their one night of unexpected passion was indelibly imprinted in her heart. They were passing ships in the night—except she ended up with baggage. Of course she loved her daughter and would not give her up for anything. She wondered why she drifted back to that brief interlude.

Sometimes Mark reached out to touch her and she knew he felt her detachment. Frustrated, he took it out on Mary. She didn’t complain but accepted it as the price she had to pay for being faithless in spirit, if not in body. It was sad her husband loved her too much and she loved him too little.

He often asked, “Was it the
haole
?”

She shook her head. The chasm between them grew and she clung to her children. At times she felt like a baby factory with three kids and a fourth on the way. Her life became one of endless diapers and mopping up after crying babies.

At least her husband was a good provider.

Honolulu: 1947

Sean knew he had made the right move asking Katherine to the Governor’s Ball when she descended the grand staircase of the Ritchie mansion in a Worth gown of spun gold over emerald green satin matching her emerald necklace. She looked stunning with her red hair swept up in curls falling down the nape of her neck. Until that moment, he had thought of her as handsome, but not beautiful.

The minute they walked into the ballroom of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Sean felt curious eyes on them. Katherine clung to him while greeting her friends and acquaintances. Sean put a proprietary hand on her. As her escort, he was treated differently. The Ritchies were the closest thing to a royal family in Hawaiian society.

“People are staring,” Katherine snuggled closer to him.

Sean bent his head with his lips were close to her ear. “Because you look so beautiful.”

Katherine put her hand to her mouth and giggled. “I never thought of myself as beautiful. Meg’s the beauty in the family.”

Suddenly realizing how difficult it must have been growing up in the shadow of Meg’s brilliant light, Sean patted her hand. “You look magnificent.”

Katherine tightened her grip on him.

It felt good to be treated with such high regard even if it was only because he was with a Ritchie. After his humiliating defeat in the Supreme Court to Diana Towle, he feared the
kamaaina
haoles
would blame him because labor unions were now a reality they had to learn to deal with.

When they danced, Katherine put her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for the most perfect evening in my life.”

Sean stroked the small of her back. How nice to be chased for a change.

Sean rose early the next morning and walked around his neighborhood to think. Asking Katherine to the Governor’s Ball had been a spontaneous decision. His real motivation was to get back at Meg for disappearing from his life. Her leaving had hurt him deeply. To complicate matters, at the end of their evening together, Katherine claimed to be in love with him.

Being with Katherine gave him tremendous status. The Ritchie name opened doors otherwise locked to him. Besides, she looked at him with such fierce adoration that he decided being with her wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

Sean wasn’t amused when Katherine described her parents’ reaction to her announcement that she intended to marry him. She thought it was funny when her mother pretended to be overcome and dropped into a chair muttering her daughter was about to marry a Papist. Her father threatened to disown her. But to Sean’s relief, they both eventually gave in, just as Katherine predicted they would.

It seemed the Ritchies took comfort in telling everyone in their social circle Sean was a Punahou grad and a lawyer. It made Sean somewhat acceptable.

Her parents planned an enormous wedding at Central Union Church to launch their daughter’s marriage in a suitable fashion. The ceremony was to be followed by a reception at the Country Club.

Sean was pleased. He would be a part of the
kamaaina
haole
elite. His children would be accepted in the best circles. They would never suffer the degradation of his childhood. They would never know the Sean Duffy of Boston.

That Sean died the day his brother Jerel died. He never forgave his mother or himself for leaving Boston and refused to visit his hometown again. Instead he shut out the depressing poverty of his youth with its memories of dark, crowded living quarters with walls so thin he could hear voices crying out incessantly. He once thought he'd never forget the stench of packed humanity and the streets filthy with human waste and rotting debris. But in time, even those memories faded.

It was harder to forget the comforting softness of his mother’s arms and the cool, gentle touch of her hand stroking his forehead. At one time, pangs of homesickness for his mother’s feel and scent overwhelmed him. But he shut himself down and blotted out memories of his family. Anger consumed him when he thought of Jerel.

Now he had a chance to be somebody. The stature he would gain through his marriage would protect him from the soot-filled cities across the ocean.

Katherine told Sean Meg was coming to their wedding. She hand-delivered the invitation so Meg couldn’t say no.

How sad and ridiculous it was that he couldn't wait to see her.

It wasn’t until after the wedding ceremony he caught sight of her from afar, fiddling with her beaded handbag as he stood in the reception line with Katherine greeting their guests. Earlier, he’d searched the church, but there were so many people there he didn’t see her. Now she was here, elegantly turned out and looking as beautiful as ever. He caught her eyes and she quickly looked away.

As Meg moved down the reception line, he couldn’t help but notice the anxious looks her family cast her way.

Katherine had no such reservations. She hugged Meg.

“You’ve met my husband?” Katherine beamed.

“Yes.” Meg’s eyes remained on Katherine.

With an elaborate show of politeness, Sean took her hand in his. Meg tried to withdraw but Sean’s grip held her captive.

“Aren’t you going to congratulate the newest member of the family?” he asked, refusing to release her.

Meg didn’t answer.

Sean stroked her hand with his thumb.

Katherine poked Sean in the ribs. “He was just kidding. Weren’t you, Sean?”

“I never kid,” he pulled Meg toward him. Slipping one hand around her waist, he kissed her. It lasted only for a second but the tension was electric as their bodies pressed against each other.

Meg pushed him back, a frozen smile on her face. “As you can see, we Ritchies always do our duty.”

Sean watched her disappear into the crowd. He didn’t see her again that evening.

That night haunted Sean. Years later, he remembered her violet dress clinging softly to the lovely body he knew so well, her hair floating behind like a silvery cloud. As she walked out of his life for the second time, he wondered whether or not he could ever forget the passion they once shared. She had moved out of his life as if she’d never been in it. He felt the ache inside him would never go away. Did he marry Katherine to ensure a connection to her, no matter how tenuous? It occurred to him how unfair it was to Katherine. He really wanted to make Katherine happy. He cared for her, but didn’t love her the way he loved Meg. He vowed to never let his heart betray him again.