The Aloha Quilt (35 page)

One morning, he surprised her by announcing that he had arranged for a friend to mind
the store so he could show her more of Maui. They packed a picnic lunch, stuffed sweatshirts
and jackets into a duffel bag, and set off in his old blue car for Haleakala National
Park. They drove past neighborhoods, fields of sugarcane, and pineapple plantations
and gradually began to climb a winding road full of hairpin turns and switchbacks.
They passed ranches, signs warning of cattle on the road, and markers alerting them
to the increasing altitude—8,000 feet, 9,000, 10,000. They drove through a cloudbank
that misted the windshield and brought on a false twilight but dissipated almost as
quickly as it had appeared.

The sun shone brightly by the time they pulled into the lot near the visitors’ center,
but the temperature was a good twenty degrees colder than in Lahaina because of the
altitude. Bonnie shivered into her sweatshirt and jacket before leaving the car, glad
that she had worn jeans instead of shorts. But once outside in the clear, brisk air,
Bonnie forgot the chill, captivated by the view of the coastline miles away and far
below, land kissing ocean, emerald and azure, white cotton clouds above. Somewhere
in that idyllic scene, too distant for her to discern, was the Hale Kapa Kuiki. With
a pang she turned away and forced a smile when Hinano beckoned her to follow him to
what he promised would be an even more breathtaking view.

Nothing he had described could have prepared her for her first astounding glimpse
of the crater—the starkly beautiful volcanic landscape, the sweep of red sands down
the sides of the crater, the sculpted rocks, the dramatic scattering of cinder cones,
the majestic billowing of clouds shrouding the distant
peaks. Hinano had said that the entire island of Manhattan could fit within the crater,
but even knowing that and measuring the distance with her gaze, she found herself
struggling to grasp the scale and the scope of what she observed. Everywhere she looked
she discovered new wonders, new astonishments. She could have been on another planet,
so different was the slumbering volcano from any other place she had visited on Maui,
from any place she had ever seen.

After a time, Hinano and Bonnie hiked down the Sliding Sands trail into the crater
and around the nearest cinder cone. Bonnie often paused to take photographs and marvel
at the rich, dramatic reds and browns of the soils, the intense frosty-white of the
silversword that thrived impossibly in the harsh environment, the sudden and dramatic
shift to soft dusk as clouds billowed over the rim of the volcano and enveloped them.
As they backtracked along the trail and began the far more difficult ascent, Bonnie
was overwhelmed with wonder and with gratitude that she had been able to experience
the embrace of the clouds, but that the changeable weather had held off until she
had filled her senses with the whole, illuminated, unobscured landscape. She felt
humbled to think that she had looked upon one of the most amazing and awe-inspiring
places on earth, that she had seen what most people in the world could only imagine,
and that their imaginations could only approach but never equal the richness of what
was real.

It was early evening when they finally returned to Lahaina, passing the two-hour drive
back discussing geology and natural history facts, which Bonnie read aloud from a
book she had purchased at the visitors’ center, and reliving the hike, which had left
them pleasantly fatigued. Bonnie doubted she would have made the climb out of the
crater before nightfall if she were not accustomed to regular exercise, but even so,
she
suspected her calves would ache throughout her walk the next morning.

As Hinano parked in the private lot behind his building, Bonnie spotted someone lingering
near the darkened back door of the music shop. When the headlights illuminated his
face, Bonnie recognized Eric. A quick measure of Hinano’s complete lack of surprise
told Bonnie the two men had arranged the meeting.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” Hinano told her as they left the car. He greeted Eric briefly
and disappeared inside the music shop as Eric hesitantly approached. Bonnie’s heart
went out to him, knowing how he had been hurt, and yet she was bewildered and angry.
How dare Claire send her betrayed husband to speak to Bonnie on her behalf? How dare
Claire ask anything of him?

“Claire needs you,” Eric began without preamble. “Think you might consider coming
back?”

Bonnie shook her head and studied a pattern of cracks on the sidewalk. “I don’t know
if I can. She’s not the person I thought she was.”

“She made a terrible mistake, but she’s still your friend.”

“A mistake? A mistake is accidentally giving a customer a ten instead of a one when
you’re counting out change. A mistake is mixing a red T-shirt in with your whites
when you’re doing laundry. Claire made a choice, a terrible, destructive choice, and
frankly I don’t understand why you aren’t more angry.”

“Believe me, I was angry,” said Eric, grim. “Angry and hurt and confused. I wanted
to kill the guy. Sometimes I still get these pictures in my head, the two of them
together, and I want to punch someone. But life’s too short, Bonnie. I love Claire.
She’s sorry for what she did. We had to put it behind us.”

Incredulous, Bonnie said, “She betrayed you.”

“The blame isn’t hers alone.” Eric sighed and dropped onto a bench near the curb,
resting his elbows on his knees. “That guy—he was almost like a predator. He wanted
her, he sensed a vulnerability, and he took advantage of it.”

“Vulnerability? Are you kidding me? Claire is not the victim here.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, but I made choices too. I checked out of our marriage
long before I was deployed.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to take responsibility for this.”

“I’m not excusing what she did, but we both made mistakes. I wasn’t paying attention
to her. She told me she was unhappy, but I didn’t hear her. She begged me to go to
marriage counseling, but I insisted that we were fine, that we didn’t need it. We
were the perfect couple, remember? We had the perfect marriage. I couldn’t admit that
we had hit a rough spot, even with Claire standing right in front of me, telling me
so.”

“All marriages go through doldrums now and then. An affair isn’t the solution.”

“Obviously not, but it sure got my attention.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Claire’s affair was a cry for help?”

He shrugged sadly. “That’s how I see it, all these years later.”

“Unbelievable.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, Bonnie, and Claire and I have talked about
what happened and what went wrong. Not so much recently, but back when we were rebuilding,
trying to hold our marriage together.” Eric sat back against the bench, stretching
his long legs out in front of him, folding his arms. “You know what I finally figured
out? That relationship was hell for her, just as finding out about it was for me.
She
never wanted that guy. She didn’t want affection and intimacy and romance with him.
She wanted them with me. That’s why the affair was doomed to fail from the beginning.
It was never going to work. It was never going to get her what she really wanted.”

Bonnie shook her head. “By that logic, Craig and I—”

“People cheat for different reasons. I’m not saying you neglected Craig and all he
wanted was your attention. Craig’s a jerk and he wanted to play around. That’s not
Claire. She’s truly remorseful. Yes, she did something terrible. Yes, she hurt me.
But she hurt, too. I was with her every day after the affair ended, and I saw what
she went through, the depression, the self-loathing—”

“She’s only sorry that she got caught.”

Eric’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “She didn’t get caught. Didn’t you know? She couldn’t
take the lying and the sneaking around anymore, so she ended it.”

Claire had ended it? “I… I didn’t know.” If Bonnie hadn’t fled the inn, if she had
let Claire explain, she would have known.

“The guy didn’t take it well. For months he tried to get her back, but she wouldn’t
see him, wouldn’t speak to him. Finally he showed up at her office and demanded that
she come back to him. When she refused and begged him never to contact her again,
he tracked me down and told me everything.”

“What?”

“It was in the parking lot of a grocery store. I had just picked up some things for
a cookout—” Eric shook his head as if to clear it of the memory. “At first I didn’t
believe him. I didn’t want to believe him. But when I came home and told Claire what
had happened, all the blood ran out of her face and I knew it was true.”

“I’m so sorry, Eric.” Bonnie sank down onto the bench beside
him. Somehow she had never imagined the events unfolding that way. “Why would he do
such a thing?”

“Maybe so I’d throw Claire out and she’d have no choice but to go back to him. Maybe
for revenge. His marriage was ruined, so why not ruin hers?” Eric let his head fall
against the back of the bench. “Claire had to pick a nutcase.”

“She didn’t have to pick anyone. How can you joke about this?”

“Sometimes that’s all that gets me through.”

“How do you know she won’t do it again?”

“I just know. I trust her. It took years, but she finally earned my trust back.”

“I’m amazed that you can be so forgiving, so tolerant.”

“I’m not tolerant,” said Eric, suddenly forceful. “If she ever does it again, she
knows it’s over. But I am forgiving. I had to forgive her to save the marriage. It
was worth saving, Bonnie. I know that. We’re happier now than we were before that
whole mess happened. We don’t take each other for granted anymore. We’ve seen what
can happen when you get lazy in a marriage and we won’t repeat our mistakes.” He laughed
shortly. “I’m not saying I’m glad it happened. I’ll never say that. But I will say
that we recovered from something that could have destroyed us, and for that I’m thankful.”

Bonnie nodded, eyes on the sidewalk. Eric was right; Claire’s affair bore little resemblance
to Craig’s ongoing deceptions and cruelty. If he had cheated, but had returned to
her remorseful, ashamed, and determined to undo the damage he had done, maybe she
could have learned to forgive him, too.

But she couldn’t ignore the fact that the difference between what Craig and Claire
had done was only a matter of degree.

Eric broke the silence. “I think what’s most important at this moment is that Claire
betrayed me, not you. She’s been
nothing but supportive and loyal to you for as long as you’ve been friends, and you
know it.” He touched her on the shoulder. “If I can forgive Claire, maybe you can
too.”

The next morning Bonnie thought it over on her morning walk, the intensity of her
emotions fueling her pace so that she completed her route ten minutes early. Over
breakfast, when Hinano casually asked her what her plans were for the day, she said,
“What you really want to know is whether your plan worked and I experienced a Haleakala
epiphany as Eric did all those years ago.”

“Well? Did you?”

“In a sense,” Bonnie replied. “I realized that I made a commitment to Aloha Quilt
Camp, and I don’t have to forgive Claire to work with her.”

She could tell from Hinano’s frown that he had hoped for more, but it was all she
could give at the moment. It would be enough to get her through her last weeks in
Lahaina. Perhaps in time she would be able to offer Claire more.

Breakfast service was already underway when she arrived at the Hale Kapa Kuiki. She
found Midori alone in the kitchen arranging slices of banana bread on a serving plate.
Her eyebrows rose when Bonnie entered, but she said only, “We’re out of juice. Squeeze
some oranges for me?”

Bonnie got right to work, relieved that Midori greeted her with little fuss and no
questions. She doubted she would receive the same reaction from Claire.

Sure enough, when Claire arrived and came to the kitchen for her usual cup of coffee
before retreating to her office, she stopped short at the sight of Bonnie wiping down
the counter top. “Bonnie?” she said tentatively. “You’re back?”

“Just to work. I’m not staying.” She hadn’t meant to sound so cold and abrupt, but
she couldn’t take the words back. “I couldn’t leave you shorthanded with the soft
launch so near.”

“Thank you.” Claire regarded her sadly, eyes filling with tears. “I’ll keep your room
ready for you just in case.”

“Don’t bother. I won’t need it.”

Bonnie heard Midori muffle a sigh as she carried the plate of banana bread outside
to the lanai. Suddenly ashamed of her coldness, she busied herself cutting oranges
and pressing the halves in the juicer.

“As much as you hate me,” said Claire, voice quavering, “you’ll never hate me as much
as I hated myself.”

Bonnie set the knife down on the countertop, a small cut on her finger stinging from
the orange juice. “I don’t hate you. I just… I don’t think I can trust you.”

“If Eric can—”