My Kind of Town
Stipulations
>> Queen's Medical Center
HPD Sgt. Mits Ah Sun's emotions were torn as he left his son Quinn's room. On one hand, he was eternally grateful that the gunshot wound to Quinn's leg was not in any way life- or career-threatening. Quinn loved his life as a solo bike officer with the department, and he'd be back aboard his big BMW Boomer soon enough.
On the other, Mits was filled with dread. Quinn had been shot at the home of his cousin Lily. The two sides of the Ah Sun clan had not spoken in 21 years. There was a reason Mits and his brother Sheets had quit speaking. It was for the benefit of everyone concerned, including Lily and Quinn. Somehow, Mits would find a way to keep them apart.
>> Lily Ah Sun couldn't believe the words coming from the lips of Ho'ola, goddess of life, rescuer, preserver and healer. She would give the cousins her blessing to marry, but it came with a stipulation: No children.
And even that stipulation came with an addendum: "Unless for some reason you and Quinn aren't really first cousins ..."
"Of course we are! Our fathers are brothers!"
"In that case ..." Ho'ola shrugged.
"But you're a goddess," Lily Ah Sun said. "Aren't you supposed to know about these things?"
"I don't get into birth records," Ho'ola said with a wave of one very large but very graceful hand. "And I can't read the past. Life is now."
The elevator stopped on Quinn's floor, Ho'ola vanished and Lily started to exit the elevator. She saw a familiar figure in a blue HPD uniform walking toward the elevator and ducked back inside. He was looking at the ground as he walked and didn't see her.
Lily pushed the 'Door Close' button and continued down to the next floor, waited five minutes and then took another elevator back up to Quinn's floor. Her Uncle Mits should be long gone by now, but still she stepped like a spy when the doors opened again. Good, no sign of him.
Lily stopped at the nursing station, asked if Sgt. Ah Sun was visiting his son Quinn.
"Oh, too bad, you just missed him," Nurse Nina Ramones said. "He just left."
Whew, Lily thought to herself. "Oh well," she said. "How's Quinn?"
"Very good," Nina said.
He's about to get even better, Nina thought as Lily waved and started for Quinn's room. The word had gotten around the floor in record time when another nurse had walked in on this woman and Quinn, kissing and groping, clothing askew.
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