The Descendants (12 page)

“Are you dizzy?” I ask. “Nauseated?”

She sniffles. “I think I have a cold.” She won’t admit it’s from swimming with poisonous invertebrates. She’s miserable, and I think she’s not insisting we go to the hospital anymore because she realizes this isn’t a good story after all.

To cheer her up, I say, “Tomorrow, when we’re home, you’ll have to shave your legs to get rid of any remaining nematocyst.”

She looks at her legs, covered with faint brown hair, and she smiles. “Reina will freak. And then I’ll have to start doing it all the time. It will be such a hassle.”

“No,” I say. “You’ll do it just this one time.”

“Do you think I hurt the urchin as much as it hurt me?” Scottie asks.

“I don’t know.” I can hear the music from the truck, or not music but a throb that makes our windows vibrate. I think about the urchin. I never thought about it getting hurt.

“Why does everyone else call them manowars?”

“Words get abbreviated, and we forget the origins of things.”

“Or dads lie,” she says, “about the real names.”

“That, too.”

The traffic clears magically, and I pass the exit we always take home. Scottie doesn’t notice.

Last week, when Dr. Johnston and I discussed the unimaginable alternative, he said typical protocol for a person like Joanie, whose living will prohibited tube feeding and mechanical ventilation, was to gather friends and family and let them say their goodbyes.

“Let them handle all of the arrangements and say what they need to say. By the time the last day comes, they feel ready. Or as ready as they can be for something like this.”

I listened in the same way I listen to a flight attendant telling me what to do in case of a water landing.

Plan B.

A sea of red lights, and I slow down. My job now is to gather everyone together and tell them we have to let her go. I won’t tell anyone over the phone, because I didn’t like hearing the news from the doctor that way. I have maybe a week to handle the arrangements, as the doctor said, but the arrangements are overwhelming. How do I learn how to run a family? How do I say goodbye to someone I love so much that I’ve forgotten just how much I love her?

“Why is it called a jellyfish?” Scottie asks. “It’s not a fish and it’s not jelly.”

“A man-of-war isn’t a jellyfish,” I say, not really answering the question. “You ask good questions. You’re getting too smart for me, Scottie.”

I’m not sure it’s the right choice to bring her with me, but I figure I can’t depend on Esther anymore. I can’t depend on anyone. I need to take control of my daughters, and I’ve decided they will both sleep at home tonight.

I see the airport exit and look at the clock on the dash.

“What are we doing?” Scottie finally asks. A jet roars over our heads. I look up because it’s so loud and see its big gray belly, heavy in the sky.

I take the exit. “We’re going to get your sister.”

12

WHENEVER I LAND
on the Big Island, I feel as though I’ve gone back in time. There’s an abandoned look to Hawaii, like it’s just been hit by a tsunami.

I drive the familiar road, moving past the prickly kiawe trees and black sand beaches, the coconut palms with their wild parrots. The air gets colder, and there’s a slight vog hanging over everything—a cross between fog and volcanic ash, the smell of it like gunpowder—that adds to the mood of abandonment and destruction. I drive through the black lava fields that glow with the white rock chalk that teenagers use to declare themselves. It’s our island graffiti:
Keoni loves Kayla, Hawaiian Pride,
and the lengthiest pronouncement,
If U R Reading This U R Gay.
In the fields of sharp rocks, I see heiaus and stones stacked on tea leaves, offerings to the gods.

“What’s that?” Scottie says. She’s curled against the seat so I can’t see her face.

“What’s what?” I look out at the emptiness.

“It’s a running path,” she says.

I look again and see the corridor of water-tumbled stones through the lava beds. “It’s the King’s Trail.”

“Is it named after us?”

“No. Haven’t you learned about the King’s Trail in school?”

“Probably,” she says.

“What kind of Hawaiian are you?”

“Your kind,” she says.

We look at the wide and endless path, which wraps all the way around the island.

“King Kalākaua had it made. He had it revamped. It’s how your ancestors got around.” We drive alongside it as though it’s an old highway, which it is, I suppose, built by criminal labor, then smoothed by cattle and human traffic. I’ve always remembered that about the trail—those who didn’t pay their taxes were the ones who built it.

“How old is it?” she asks.

“Old,” I say. “Eighteen hundreds.”

“That’s old.” She stares out at the trail and its long rock curb, and when we get to the hills and ranches of Waimea, I notice she’s asleep. In the daytime the green hills are spotted with cows and horses, but I don’t see any animals now. I drive past crooked gray wooden fences and let my window down to smell the cold, the pastures, the manure and leather saddles, the fragrance of Kamuela. My grandparents had a ranch here, and I’d visit as a child, picking strawberries, riding horses, driving tractors. It was a strange world of sun, cold, cowboys, beaches, volcanoes, and snow. Mauna Kea was always visible, and I would wave to it, thinking that the scientists were watching me instead of the silent planets.

I turn onto the dirt road and drive past the lower stable, the school buildings, then up to the dormitories.

I’m eager to see my daughter. And a bit nervous. Last week I talked to her and she sounded strange. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “The price of cocaine.”

I asked, “Seriously, what else?”

“Is there anything else?” she said.

She claimed she was joking. It was a horrible joke, considering.

I don’t know what I did wrong. It seems there’s something about me that makes a person want to destroy herself. Joanie and her speedboat, motorcycles, alcoholism. Scottie and her sea urchin, Alex and her drugs, her modeling. Alex told me she first did drugs to terrify her mother, but maybe she did them to see what it felt like to be her mother. Alexandra seems to love and despise her mother with equal intensity, but these problems surely must be gone now, or at least they will be. You can’t be angry with someone who’s dying.

I think about Buzz’s, where the manager told me Joanie livened up the place. I’m sure if she died—when she dies—she’ll put her picture up, because it’s that kind of restaurant: pictures of local legends and dead patrons haunting the walls. I feel sad that she has to die for her picture to go up on the wall, or for me to really love everything about her, or for Alex to forgive her for whatever she did wrong.

I drive slowly because there are dips and bumps in the road. I look over at Scottie, who’s still asleep. I like that the school still hasn’t paved the road.

I stop the car in the lot and turn off the engine, and Scottie opens her eyes.

“We’re here,” I say.

13

IT’S TEN P.M
. The dorm mother looks at me as if I’m the most irresponsible person in the world. It’s cold outside, and Scottie’s wearing shorts, her legs pocked with stings. I’m in a dorm, fetching my daughter, when I could have done it during regular hours. We stand in the dorm mother’s doorway, and I see a television on in the background. She’s wearing a hideous flannel nightgown, and from what I can see, she was watching
American Idol.
I’m terribly embarrassed for all of us.

She leads us to a stairwell, and Scottie runs ahead of us, taking two steps at a time. I can hear the dorm mother breathing and slow down.

It’s good to know that everyone is asleep and that it isn’t like a college dorm, where ten
P.M.
is the time things are just getting started. I tell the woman that I’m impressed. I know this is one of the best private schools in Hawaii, but still, it’s good to see children away from home behaving.

“We try to emulate the home,” she says. “Most kids who live at home are in bed or quietly reading. On weekends it’s a little different, but the curriculum is so difficult that studying and sports keep them busy during the week, and they’re pretty worn out by now. Alexandra’s at the end.” She stands at the top of the stairs, holding the railing, and points to the end of the hall.