My Kind of Town
Saving face
>> Queen's Medical Center
Mits Ah Sun stopped in the doorway to his son's room and stood there with his mouth at half-mast. The couple on the bed was so involved they didn't notice him. Quinn was on the bed, his right thigh bandaged from a gunshot wound he'd taken last night at the home of his cousin Lily, who at the moment had one foot on the floor, another on the bed, almost lying on top of Quinn. Mits could hear fevered breathing and see passioned groping, the cousins touching in ways that cousins really should not.
Their immersion gave him a way to save face for all concerned. Mits backed out, pulling the door closed.
That's when a nurse said cheerily "And how is Mr. Ah Sun doing this morning?" and pushed open the door. She answered her own question with a mix of cheerful and wishful: "Oh, I see he's doing very well indeed!"
>> In a way it pleased Grace Ah Sun to see her husband Sheets so obviously devastated by the injury to their youngest child, who lay in a coma. Sheets and Lance had never been close, certainly not as close as Sheets was with Lance's older brother Laird, or even with her eldest child Lily. It had a lot to do, Grace knew, with Lance not being as aggressive as Laird, or Lily. She recalled the day when Lance was 8 or 9 and declined to go fishing with his dad and big brother because he wanted to stay home and bake snickerdoodles with his sister. Sheets had muttered more than once, "I just don't understand that boy."
After Lance was attacked while walking arm-in-arm with another man during the hate crimes bill rally, it was pretty obvious that Lance was gay. But after 28 years of marriage Grace knew her husband well enough, and Sheets' despondency went beyond knowing his son was gay and would not, apparently, be carrying on the family name. Which was important to him because there aren't a lot of Ah Suns in the phone book. But beyond that, Grace was sure, Sheets was feeling true fatherly concern for Lance.
Grace stood up from her chair beside the bed where Lance lay silent and motionless, tubes running into and out of his head. Sheets was so far into his own misery, Grace's hand on his shoulder caught him by surprise and he jumped.
"Daddy," she said softly. "Don't lose hope. Akua will hear our prayers." The way he looked up at her, Grace wasn't sure that Sheets had heard what she said. "Oh," he said, taking a moment to come back from his personal hell, glancing across the room at Lance "That. Sure."
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