Crimson Footprints II: New Beginnings (29 page)

Thank you.

He didn’t know what had happened yet, or who had caused it, but still his heart pounded in relief. She was okay. There, in his arms.
They
would be okay.

Never had he thought himself a selfish person. For most of his life, he’d had everything. He gave to the poor and thought that enough, better than enough, in fact. But it occurred to him, in that dank hall, holding the woman he loved, that he had never been thankful for all he had. That he had never even understood thankfulness until that moment.

“Keisha killed him,” she said. “They’re reading her, her rights now. My God. She killed him.”

Keisha.

He hugged her again.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for the Florida Keys at three
p.m
. Tak and Deena heard it just as they ushered luggage from the living room to the back of a waiting taxi. They were scheduled to meet the rest of the family at the Opa Locka airport for a private flight from Miami to California in just over an hour. Harsh, choppy winds, already whipping and threatening, made them move a little faster, still.

Tony dragged an oversized duffle bag that included too many games and too few clothes. A second bag, packed by Deena while he slept, ensured he had the things he really needed.

The drive up I-95 North was slow and threatening. Angry midday skies swelled as the first of torrential rain began to fall. Soon the city would be engulfed. As was the case with every storm that arrived, Deena prayed for those too poor to evacuate.

They met Daichi, his wife, Hatsumi, and John and Allison on the tarmac. There was no sign of Kenji yet.

“He’ll be along,” Daichi said. “I spoke to him but a moment ago. He had a stop he needed to make.”

Tak opened his mouth but shut it with a snap. Deena shot him a questioning look.

Tak, Daichi, and John loaded the plane with luggage as Grandma Emma pulled up in a taxi. Tony rushed up to help her with luggage and Tak took her hand, easing the way on slick pavement.

At eighty-four, Grandma Emma was experiencing firsts. The first time she’d ride a plane. The first time she’d evacuate, and the first time she’d be away from her family at Christmas. Deena prayed for synergy with her and the Tanakas.

In the time they spent on the runway loading luggage, the sky went from silvery gray to gunmetal fierce. Deena squinted up at it, then back toward the tiny, private airport terminal. Kenji emerged. But he wasn’t alone.

Hair like her own, wild but darker, framed the face of the figure next to him. Hand in hand they ran, each with a bag in tow.

Deena blinked in disbelief.

“Sorry,” Kenji said breathlessly. “These last few days have been crazy and, well, we didn’t know if we were gonna evacuate at all.”

Four people stood: Daichi, Deena, Grandma Emma, and Tak, three with a look of astonishment.

“Judging by your faces, you all remember Lizzie,” Kenji said.

He took her bag and headed for the rear of the plane, where the pilot helped him load. Daichi followed.

“Son, listen to me. I can see how you may have happened upon her and thought bringing her was the right thing to do. But you must understand—”

Kenji turned on his father.

“She’s my girlfriend, Dad. It’s not up for discussion.”

Kenji brushed past him and boarded the plane.

Grandma Emma laughed.

“Well, well, Big Time! Guess he told you.”

Daichi shot her a look. “Get on the plane, Emma.”

With a simper of satisfaction, she ambled up the ramp. Only once at the top did she stop to look back.

“Hey, Daichi. I reckon I’m ’bout out of granddaughters, but call me when your nephews come to town . . . now that I know what you Tanakas like.”

She threw back her head and whooped. Daichi warned her to shut it before they left her on the tarmac. He then followed her onto the plane.

Tak ushered the kids on board, followed by his mother, Hatsumi. Only once boarding himself did he look back, worry marring his features. His face told Deena what he hadn’t: that not only did he know about Lizzie, but that he knew about her coming to California, too.

Deena turned to Lizzie.

She’s sober.

“How long this time?” Deena asked.

“Four months. Almost five.”

Rain began to fall.

“You look happy,” Deena said.

“It’s Kenji,” Lizzie said. “I feel—I don’t know. Whole.”

Lizzie looked up at the sky, threatening like smoke.

“We should get on the plane,” she said. It occurred to Deena that Lizzie had only ridden a plane once, when she and Tak threw her on it for rehab. How harsh had that been, to not go with her? In the end, she supposed, they’d been cursory, robotic in their efforts to help Lizzie. Giving up in spirit before emulating the deed.

“I should’ve done more,” Deena said. “I should’ve tried harder.”

But Lizzie shook her head.

“You’re my sister, not my mother. You never could keep that straight.” Lizzie smiled lopsidedly. It reminded Deena of Kenji.

Their pilot shouted that it was time to go. Indeed, the sky looked malicious. South and east of them, a Category 4 hurricane barreled in their direction.

“I love you,” Lizzie blurted. “So much.” She shook her head. “I can say that now. Can you believe it?”

Deena laughed.

“No.”

But she swept her in her arms nonetheless.

E
PILOGUE

Hurricane Lucille made landfall the following afternoon and exacted close to a quarter of a billion dollars in damage to the Southeast. Neither Deena, nor anyone in her family, suffered more than a few thousand dollars’ loss though.

Just after the storm, Keisha was formally charged with murder in the second degree. Faced with the possibility of life imprisonment, she took a plea and was sentenced to twenty years.

In the spring, Kenji tried out for the minor leagues and earned a position as an outfielder for the Jacksonville Suns. When he moved, Lizzie went with him. They returned days later, when Deena gave birth to a son, Noah.

Lizzie sat for her GED just days before the following Christmas and began work on her cosmetology license soon after. It took a year to complete. No sooner had she done so than did the parent team of Jacksonville Suns, the Miami Marlins, offer Kenji a spot on the team.

Kenji and Lizzie opened her shop on Miami Beach. The following year, she and Kenji got married.

Daichi’s magnum opus was released over the following summer, strengthened by a series of edits from Deena and a foreword written by her. For reasons unknown to them, it went on to become a
New York Times
Bestseller, giving her an in-field recognition she could’ve never anticipated otherwise.

On the day that Noah turned one, Deena received a letter in the mail from her mother. Upon opening it, a single sheet of paper slipped out and on it were three words:

We loved you.

Deena stood with the note a long time before tucking it into her purse. She kept it for the better part of a year, pulling it out and looking at it without really knowing what she felt. Never would her father come back, and never could she have a mother again. But it didn’t mean she couldn’t go on. Over the years, she’d learned that she and Tony had so much in common, more, in fact, than he and his dad. He dealt with anger over what his mother had done and what his father had been and realized in his own time that wholeness required he let go. Slowly, she’d learned the same.

So, with this thought, Deena took her mother’s letter out and wrote one of her own, nearly equal in brevity and response. It was all she could manage before sealing the envelope and sending it on its way. But somehow she knew it enough. A single sentence and a single stamp bridged a chasm between one decade and the next.

A single sentence, yet truth no less.

I know.

Truth, no less.

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