My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Message from Akua
Holding her daughter Lily's hand, Grace Ah Sun whispered into her unconscious son Lance's ear. He twitched, a vague smile forming on his lips. "He can hear me, Lily! He's going to be OK!"
The baby of the family, Lance had fallen and hit the back of his head on a concrete curb during the hate crimes bill rally at the Capitol, and had been in a coma ever since. It was, Lance had confided to Lily beforehand, going to be his big coming out, his first public admission that he was gay. Because of that he lay here with tubes and wires running into and out of his head.
She leaned down, whispered in his ear. "Hey, Lance, it's me, Lil. I love you. Come back and see us soon."
Lance made an indecipherable sound, but to Lily and Grace it sounded like "yes!"
Leaning to kiss Lance's cheek, Lily smelled the unmistakable scent of eucalyptus, ginger and sea brine. Yes, Ho'ola, goddess of life, the healer and preserver, had indeed been here.
Lily hugged her mother again, each smelling the scent of the goddess on the other.
"What did she say?" Lily said.
"That Akua had sent her."
Just like Lily's tutuwahine had taught her. The One God has many helpers, many facets, many faces, not to mention many surprises.
Grace looked at her daughter with big question marks in her eyes.
"Ho'ola told me that she was giving her blessing to me and Quinn."
Lily waited for an explosion from one of her parents, or both. But her mother just nodded. "So be it," Grace said.
Which left her father. But Sheets Ah Sun had slipped back into his own private hell. He slumped sadly in a chair, paralyzed by what he had seen in Waimanalo earlier today, remembering what had happened at that same spot 27 years before, fearful of what it all meant.
This time it was Lily who looked inquiringly at her mother.
Grace could only shrug, shake her head. She had no idea why Sheets had either ignored or just not seen Ho'ola when she was here.
But it frightened her.
Behind them, Lance moaned softly.
"Shouldn't we call a doctor or somebody?" Lily said.
"Of course" Grace said. She'd been so happy about Lance appearing to come out of a coma after Ho'ola's visit, she'd forgotten about that.
"Tell you what, Mom, I'll let them know at the nurse's station on my way to visit Quinn. But I'll see you later."
Even the name of the nephew he hadn't seen in 21 years could not rouse Sheets Ah Sun from his darkness.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com