Part 18 (1/2)

”Katherine.”

”Don't feel sorry for me.” She stood. ”I really must be going now.”

Sean escorted Katherine toward the door.

”I know the way out.”

Once outside, Sean watched Katherine slip into her distinctive green Jaguar. After she had driven away, he sat down on a rocker on the porch and waited for Meg. He wondered why she was late. Had she seen her sister's car?

An hour later, Sean walked back into the house and phoned Meg.

But the phone rang and rang. Finally, Sean hung up.

Sean pounded on the door to Meg's house in Tantalus. Two weeks had pa.s.sed since he had seen or heard from her. He thought she loved him. But she disappeared as mysteriously as she had reappeared in his life.

Fumi opened the door a fraction, but kept the chain lock on. ”What?”

”I want to see Mrs. Brandon,” he demanded.

”She no stay here.” She started to close the door.

Sean pushed against the door until the chain was taut. ”Where is she?”

”Missy not here!” Fumi tried to push the door shut again.

Sean held his position. ”I don't believe you,” he said.

”I no lie! I tell you, she no stay!” Fumi wrung her hands.

”Where is she?” Sean grabbed her wrist through the opening in the door.

Fumi tried to pull free from his grip. ”I said she no stay.”

”I have to talk to her,” Sean insisted.

”Missy went mainland,” Fumi said. ”She stay sick so she go away.”

Sean let go of Fumi's wrist and shook his head in disbelief. ”When is she coming back?”

”Missy no say, but long time, I think,” Fumi said.

Sean blew out a breath. ”Thank you, Fumi. I'm sorry I frightened you.” Slowly, he walked back to his car.

Several months later, he received a garbled letter. It was over. He was not to even try to see her again. She was terribly sorry.

And for a while, Sean Duffy felt like his life was over.

Chapter Twenty-five.

George Han rarely came home anymore. He lived with his family, his pregnant sister-in-law Mary, and her firstborn child in a small house in Kaimuki. He slept on the bed in the screened-in porch or on the couch in the living room when it was too cold.

Every time he looked at Mary and her swollen belly he felt ill. He avoided looking at her, even when they spoke to each other. His brother had won again. Sometimes George imagined he could hear them loving each other at night through the thin walls. Just thinking about it drove him to bars and good time girls.

He never found himself alone with her because there were always a lot of people in the house. So when he returned home at noon one day after an all night binge, he was surprised to find her curled up and alone on the couch in the living room. She was pale and trembling.

Alarmed, he crossed the room and asked, ”Mary? What's wrong?”

Mary's face was pinched; her breath came ragged and sharp. Her big eyes looked hollow and perspiration beaded her brow.

George knelt beside her and took her hand in his. ”Is it time?”

Mary pointed to a pool of water on the floor. ”My water bag burst,” she gasped. ”Dr. Friedel, Kapiolani Hospital, please hurry.”

”Is no one else here?” he asked. Surely this was not his place.

Mary shook her head, no, and George knew she was now his responsibility. He took her by the elbow and said, ”Don't worry. I'll get you to the hospital in time.”

The nurses swaddled the new arrival and slipped his name card into place at the foot of the ba.s.sinet. ”Boy. Han.” George stared first at the words, then at the baby who looked like all the other Oriental babies in the nursery with angry, red skin beneath a shock of black hair sticking straight up from his head. George tried to get rid of the anger, frustration, and jealousy rising up in him. He should have been mine, he thought. Then he turned and left the hospital.

The birth of his grandson filled Chaul Roong with optimism. Great things were happening. The war was over and the first grandson to carry the family name was born.

”I teach him to read and write Korean,” Chaul Roong said as he tickled his grandson. ”My children speak bad Korean. They no like learn. But this one smart boy. You see, I teach him everything.”

Mary smiled, then asked, ”Have you heard from George?”

Chaul Roong frowned. ”That one nevah home.”

Three months after the baby was born, George showed up with a wife. While visiting old friends in Hilo, on the Big Island, he met Sarah Miyamoto, a shy j.a.panese girl without a family. Her mother died when she was two years old, her father when she was thirteen. A resentful aunt and uncle had raised her. She was now twenty-three years old. They married a month after they met. She quit her job and joined him in Honolulu.

”Where are you going to live?” Dok Ja spoke to her son in Korean while eyeing her new daughter-in-law. Dok Ja had never learned to speak English. She only knew a few words, mostly Pidgin English, along with some of the words common to the people of Hawaii, a mix of Chinese-Hawaiian-j.a.panese and Filipino.

George stuck his thumbs in his belt. ”If Mark can stay here without paying rent, so can I.”

Dok Ja sputtered.

Chaul Roong silenced her with a look and turned to his oldest son. ”I won't put my grandson in the street. Why can't you get a job?”

George crossed his arms. ”What about your other grandchild?”

”What grandchild?” Dok Ja shook her head.

”The one my wife is having,” George grabbed Sarah's hand and squeezed it. Sarah smiled. As everyone had been speaking in Korean, George knew Sarah hadn't understood a word said.

Chaul Roong pursed his lips. ”When are you having this baby?”

”Soon,” George looked his father right in the eye.