The Ohana Part 9

Honolulu, 1939 When Katherine Wilkes Ritchie swept into his office unannounced, Sean recognized her because of her red hair. Right away, he knew he was dealing with a kamaaina aristocrat of the worst kind. Her mother Marsha was a Wilkes, the creme de la creme of white society. Her father, Duncan Ritchie, was Marsha's cousin and heir to a fortune in sugar cane fields. In both their veins ran Eastern seaboard missionary blood. Having gone to Oahu College, now known as Punahou, Sean understood how important it was to have that kind of lineage. In Hawaii, to be born one of the missionary alii was to be born the next best thing to royalty.

Katherine vibrated with her own sense of self-importance. Looking at her, Sean remembered all the kids at Punahou who made him feel his own unimportance. He hated the supercilious kids he went to school with, yet he wanted to be them.

Katherine stared. "I feel like I know you."

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

She put out her soft, pink hand. "Katherine Ritchie."

"Sean Duffy." Sean took her hand. "Glad to meet you."

Katherine blushed. "I must have walked into the wrong office."

"Miss Ritchie ..." Sean held onto her hand.

"Call me Katherine."

"Katherine, ahui hou, till we meet again." Sean lifted her hand to his lips. Hers was the hand of the idle rich. He thought of his mother's torn, short fingernails on coa.r.s.e hands roughened by hard work.

Katherine dashed out of the office.

John Williams entered his office and whistled. "Was that the high and mighty Katherine Ritchie you just scared away?" When Sean nodded, he asked, "What was she doing here?"

"She walked into the wrong office."

John elbowed him and snickered. "Did Ms. High and Mighty talk to you?"

Sean smiled. "Yes."

"I just came to ask you if you want to join me for lunch."

"No, go ahead. I have some work to do." Sean returned to his desk and sat down.

"Want me to bring you something?"

"No. Thanks anyway." Sean picked up a stack of papers.

"Don't work overtime. Our bosses have enough money as it is." John laughed as he left.

Sean nodded. After John closed the door behind him, Sean opened the middle drawer of his desk and removed a thin envelope. Opening it, he reread the single sheet enclosed within.

Dear Sean, You may be surprised to hear from us. It's been so long. I don't know how to put this, so I guess I should just come right out and say it. Our mother is dead. On Sunday she was making the family dinner when she said she felt bad. Before we knew it, she was dead. Doctor says it was her heart.

Wish you could have come home to see her at least once before she died. She talked about how she wanted to see you once more. Couldn't understand why you didn't come home. Fifteen years is a long time, and all that.

I guess you won't be hearing from me again, seeing as we're not a writing family. I guess there's nothing left here for you anyhow. You have your own grand life in Hawaii.

Tell Uncle Patrick about our mother.

Your brother Seamus P.S. You owe me $2 for flowers I sent in your name to our mother's grave.

Sean took out five dollars from his wallet, placed it in the middle of a blank piece of paper, folded it, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to Seamus. Then he put his head in his hands and stared out the window towards the pier. He heard the whistle of a boat in the distance. If it weren't for the palm trees, he could have been back in Boston. Instead, he was perspiring in a ridiculous suit in humid Hawaii while his mother lay dead and buried in Boston.

Sean's stomach churned. His eyes turned back to the leather-top desk he was so proud of and the koa wood name plate with gold letters reading "Sean Duffy, Esquire."

That wouldn't have been possible in Boston.

Sean crumpled up his brother's letter and threw it into the wastebasket. Sean of Boston was dead. Nothing would stop him from realizing his dreams.

If he hadn't been looking for it, Sean would have missed the wooden sign nearly buried in lush vegetation with the name "BRANDON." He stuck his head out of the car window and breathed in the mountain air mingled with the cloying fragrance of ginger lingering in the breeze. Thoughts of seeing Meg again made his heart race as he drove the car slowly, purposely dallying to imprint every detail into his mind before he saw her again.

He stopped at the wrought-iron gate and a Hawaiian man waved him through. He was surprised to find the grounds unkempt. Huge kiawe, monkey pod, and banyan trees erupted from the damp earth, its ma.s.sive trunks thickly entwined with vines. Hapu ferns and banana trees abounded alongside fragile white ginger and flame-red torch ginger. Looking like an exotic bird in flight, orange birds of paradise grew in lush profusion throughout the hilly surface.

Beyond the primeval jungle, a lava-rock house loomed like an ogre's sinister abode. Surely Meg couldn't have had anything to do with building such a house. But then, of course, he had heard the rumblings on the coconut wireless.

Rumor had it she'd had a disastrous love affair with a handsome sailor off a merchant ship. The Ritchie family paid the unacceptable suitor to leave the Islands forever. It was the scandal of the year in Honolulu.

After that, he heard nothing for several years until her wedding picture appeared in the newspaper next to her rich, much older groom with impeccable bloodlines. She was Meg Brandon now. For years Sean combed the local newspapers looking for pictures and gossip about the couple in high society columns. But the couple had vanished from Honolulu society. Then one day, a few years ago, an obituary appeared about the death of her husband. Meg Brandon was now a reclusive widow, locked in the monstrous edifice before him.

He got out of the car and was about to lift the bra.s.s knocker when a j.a.panese housekeeper opened the door. "Mista Wilkes send you?"

"Yes."

"Missus waiting for you. Follow me."

He followed her through dark halls to a room lined with bookshelves around a ma.s.sive lava-rock fireplace. Meg sat on a lounge chair reading, her silvery hair loose and flowing. She wore a dark blue dress that clung to the rounded curves of her body, showing her calves and thin arms. Her face was so still it looked as if it were carved from stone.

"Missus, bank man stay here," the housekeeper announced, then left.

When Meg looked up, he fell into eyes he had dreamed of since he was a boy. "I'm sorry. I feel like I should know you, but I don't."

Sean swallowed, wondering how long he had been standing there like a tongue-tied schoolboy. "I met you once a long time ago. My uncle is the plantation manager on your father's Kohala plantation. My name is Sean Duffy."

"Of course." Meg knitted her brow and tapped her book with her finger.

Obviously, she didn't remember. "I have some papers for you to look over and sign." He handed her a thick manila envelope.

Meg took the envelope and gestured to the chair across from her. "Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?"

He shook his head and sat. "No, thank you."

"Where do I sign?" she asked as she removed the legal-sized sheaf of papers.

"Don't you want to read it first?"

"Why?" Meg tossed her head and reached for a pen. "It was prepared by my uncle. I don't have to read it."

"It's what everyone normally does, family or not." Sean clasped and unclasped his hands.

"I don't really care about money." Meg found a pen and rifled through the papers, looking for the signature pages.

"Is money of so little consequence to you?"

"Money's an impossible tyrant that dictates your life." Meg paused and stared through him for a second. "Sometimes, I think it's a curse." She signed the doc.u.ments. When she was done, she laid down her pen and peered at him. "Duffy, are you originally from the islands?"

Sean looked into her violet eyes. She almost shimmered in the dark room. "I moved to Kohala from Boston when I was a child."

"I see." She nodded and handed the papers to him. "You want to be one of us, don't you? Hawaii's elite."

"I want to succeed." Sean looked through the papers to make sure they were all signed.

She shook her head. "Don't let them corrupt you."

"I won't." He put the papers into his briefcase.

She stood abruptly, and without a word, left the room.

Sean thought of what a colleague had said to him before he'd come. "Rumor has it she's mad, you know. She's a recluse, completely crazy."

As he slipped in and out of consciousness, Patrick heard low whispers around his bed. "Call the nephew. It's very bad. He probably won't last long."

He took to talking to himself. "Aye, and it's an old man I am. I've lived enough for two lifetimes? How many men can say they've traveled the world? And lived in bonny Ireland, where life was hard but the land so beautiful, the memory of it still lives in my bones, calling to me even now."

He thought of Boston with its ugly tenement houses with rats and children running wild. The smell of p.i.s.s and vomit in the streets didn't stop people like him from dreaming. They were free to speak out. And there was always the hope of rising above if one had the luck, the spirit, and the mind to do it.

"Hawaii no ka oi," he murmured, "Sure and it be a raw, wild, and savage testing ground for the good Lord himself. So many different kinds of people, all testing one another. Aye, the world's changing faster than I like-especially Hawaii."

Patrick coughed, and pain filled his lungs and throat. Breathing became difficult for him. Seeking to escape the pain, he drifted back to the happiest time of his life.

"Kehau, my bonny, bright girl," he reminisced, "so much love for one as undeserving as me. Is that why the Lord took you away? I dinna appreciate you. But Lord, I loved you. Not in the way some men love their women, but I loved her as much as I could love any woman."

Tears came to his eyes and he touched them with a finger. He looked to the ceiling in wonder, "Is it crying, I am? Me, a grown man! What am I complaining about anyway? I lived a good, full life."

"T'would've been nice to have a child-a girl as pretty as Kehau, but with a wee bit of me. But I had me Sean, and right proud I am of him with his fancy schools and fancy clothes. He's a gentleman."

Patrick opened his eyes and saw his dead sister's face floating before him. "I did good by him, Sis. T'would have made you proud. I guess I'll be seeing you on the other side. T'will be like old times when we were kids and dumb to the ways of the world. Oh, we had some good times together, now didn't we?

"Wished I could have made Sean go to see you before you left this world. But he's a strange one. Still, he loved you, don't you go believin' otherwise."

Patrick closed his eyes in pain. So tired. Must sleep.

Sean sat in his uncle's favorite koa wood rocking chair on the veranda and mulled over his uncle's life. Uncle Patrick, that genial, generous man with l.u.s.ty appet.i.tes, was dead. Sean was consumed with guilt. He could have shown Patrick more affection, more appreciation. His life would have been so different without him.

His uncle's will made him feel really conflicted.

After providing for his faithful housekeeper and his long-time mistress who was a surprise to Sean, Patrick had left the rest of his estate to Sean. Most of his investments were in real estate. Some were almost worthless, but other pieces here and in Honolulu, had great potential.

The last line of his uncle's will was a challenge. "I leave all the rest to my nephew, Sean Duffy, because I know he'll do what's right. I place the burden and responsibility in his hands."

Patrick must have meant for Sean to provide for his brothers and sister out of the estate. He used to say, "Sean, and you'll not be forgetting your brothers and sisters. You're their blood. They're not as lucky or as smart as you. It's you that has the luck of the Irish. I did what I could for me sister. If I had been a millionaire, I would have taken care of her whole brood. But you have the education and the smarts to become what I could not."

At first, he wrote letters to every single one of his siblings with the intention of selling the land and disbursing the money equally. Patrick would have expected him to be fair. But he rationalized it was a bad time to sell land. He foresaw better times and tremendous profits in the future. Hawaii was the new frontier, and being so small, land would be everything. He wrestled with his conscience. Patrick had been clever. He wanted Sean to vindicate himself of the callousness he had displayed toward his mother and siblings since moving to Hawaii.

Sean would have been a hero to his siblings if he sold the properties and divided the money. They would have venerated him at first but might have ended up despising him. But they would have spent it carelessly. They did not understand inherited money was a sacred trust to be treated with the utmost respect and put to use to make more money.

In the end, he gave in to avarice and vowed he would make ten times the original amount and then give his siblings their shares. Still, the selfishness of his deed haunted him as he wrote to his brothers and sisters and enclosed a small amount of money to each of them.

"It's not a proper Irishman you be," Uncle Patrick had chided before he left for law school. "Your ma and kin have hot Irish blood. It's what makes us laugh, cry, and feel life. Sometimes I think a cold Englishman must have slipped into the family somehow." He winked, as if to let Sean know it was only a joke. But Sean knew Patrick's good-natured teasing was more often than not a glimpse into how he truly felt.

He convinced himself he only did what had to be done to make them all rich.

Sean made arrangements to ship some of Patrick's personal belongings to Honolulu. As he went through the books in the library, he wondered if Patrick had read any of them.

There was a knock on the door. Sean turned and saw the servant girl, Mary, holding several books in one hand. "Sorry to interrupt you Sir, but I never returned these to Mr. O'Malley before he pa.s.sed away." She put the books on the table. He glanced through the t.i.tles quickly. The Scarlet Letter. Red Badge of Courage. Pride and Prejudice.

He nodded at the books on the desk. "You like that stuff?"

Mary blushed. "Oh, yes. But I've kept them too long. Your uncle was very kind."

"Take whatever books you want. The rest will go to charity. I have no use for books." He put down the books he held in his hands and walked out of the library.

Chapter Fourteen.

Chaul Roong was shocked. Jeff White was the new manager of Kohala Plantation.

When Jeff met with Chaul Roong on plantation business there was no hint of recognition in his face or voice. He wasn't surprised. White was the kind of haole who thought all "c.h.i.n.ks" looked alike. There was no such thing as justice in this world. If justice existed, Jeff would not be back as manager.

Chaul Roong remembered finding the Yamamoto girl in the field, clutching Jeff's yellow and blue checkered scarf in her hand. He wondered if Jeff had victimized others since the night Patrick banished him from Kohala. Thinking of Jeff reminded him Mariko worked at the plantation manager's house. He advised her mother of the danger. It was awkward speaking to a woman of such things, but Kazuko san was a widow and had lived long enough to know the world was not a safe place.

Chaul Roong would have quit without a second thought except he had just mortgaged his real estate in order to buy a rooming house in Honolulu. Heavily indebted, his savings were almost totally depleted. A lot of money had gone to Bong Sik's education. After Bok Nam's death ten years earlier, he sent Tae Ja money anonymously. He didn't want her to feel ashamed but guessed she probably knew who her benefactor was.

Three months ago, he received the first communication from her since she disappeared seventeen years ago. The letter was stilted and formal. Still, he trembled when he read it: Dear Mr. Han: I'm the widow of your friend Bok Nam Chong. My husband died ten years ago. Through the generosity of a kind friend, my son and I have managed to live well during these difficult times.

Please forgive me for writing. I do not do so on my own behalf. My son has been accepted into a great university in the United States. Bong Sik is very smart. He dreams of becoming a doctor. But medical school costs a lot of money. My son does not want me to sacrifice for his dreams. It would break my heart to see him sacrifice his.

I told him his father had an old friend who was well off. Perhaps I could ask the old friend for a loan, which we would pay back with interest after my son goes into practice. Then my son could realize his dream and his freedom.

If you could find it in your heart to help us, we will be forever grateful.

Tae Ja He reread the letter a dozen times, sniffing the paper and holding it close. He still felt the pain of her leaving. How he longed to take his place alongside the only woman he had ever loved. At times, when Dok Ja looked at him with hungry eyes, he felt guilty. He owed his life to her. She had done what only a woman in love would do. He loved his children but as much as he tried, he didn't love her. Tae Ja was his pa.s.sion. He would never get over losing her. And now, their love child wanted to become a doctor and he couldn't share in the glory.