My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Whose baby?
The ER social worker was sure that the patient named Ah Sun was not Quinn, but Lily Ah Sun knew better. The paramedics who took her cousin away in an ambulance, pale and cold after being shot in the leg while defending Lily's maid Rosalita from an attacker, said they were taking him to Queen's.
But if it wasn't Quinn, then who was the other Ah Sun? She was related to all of them.
Still holding the hand of her maid's 6-year-old daughter Elizabeth in the keiki playroom, Lily turned to watch the social worker leave and as she did saw a tall haole guy staring at her from across the waiting area, tears streaming down his cheeks. Wiping away tears from swollen, reddened eyes, he quickly walked a few paces to the children's room.
"Lily, I'm Greg," he blurted.
It took a moment, but then Lily knew. Greg, her baby brother Lance's friend. Lance had told her about his first gay love affair, shown her Greg's photo. Just this morning Lance told her that going to the hate crimes rally with Greg was going to be his big public coming out.
"It's so sad!" Greg sobbed.
"What is so sad?"
"You don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Then why are you here?"
Lily couldn't handle any more heartache in one day, or feeling so helpless. And she sure couldn't handle playing 29 Questions with Greg. Something snapped and she shouted: "What happened to Lance, damnit? Tell me now!"
Heads turned. Someone said "Sshhh!"
"At the capitol ... the rally ... he fell ... we were attacked ... hit his head ..."
Lily felt her knees buckling.
"That's all I know. They won't tell me anything because I'm not family," Greg said, wiping away another tear. "But your parents are here."
"You talked with them?!" Lily was aghast -- her parents didn't know about Lance being gay. Or they were in severe denial. Whatever, that's the last thing they needed, two bombs in one day.
"No."
"Thank God for that at least."
"Who's Lance," Elizabeth said.
"My baby brother."
"He's a baby?" Elizabeth said, totally puzzled. How could a grownup like Lily have a baby brother.
"He's my baby!" Greg sobbed.
"What?!" Elizabeth said, really confused now.
"I'll let you know what I find out," Lily said, patted his shoulder. "C'mon, Elizabeth, You're going to meet my parents."
Elizabeth thought about this, and said as if she was doing a math problem in her head, "So shouldn't Lance be their baby?
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