My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Meltdown
>> Queen's Medical Center
Lily Ah Sun and her mother Grace were seated in Lily's teal BMW in the circular parking structure -- to talk about Quinn, Grace thought. But it quickly became apparent that Lily really wanted to ask about the feud between her father and Quinn's father. The cousins had been doing their own investigation, which led Quinn to talk with his mother in Las Vegas for the first time in 16 years.
"Auntie Flo has this theory," Lily said in cool, measured tones that did not reflect the acrobatics exhibition happening in her stomach. "Did Bobo Ah Sun rape you on the night of your bachelorette party or was it just a fling?"
Grace froze, in total panic and confusion. Only three people knew what really happened that night -- herself, her husband Sheets and his hanai brother Bobo -- and Bobo hadn't been heard from in 21 years.
And then with one big sob, the freeze ended and Grace's meltdown began with a torrent of tears, and she slouched against the dashboard.
Without words Lily had her awful answer, and reached out for her mother, hugging her.
"Oh, Lily, I'm so..." Grace said, trying to talk through her sobs. "So sorry... you... had to... find... out... No!... No, dammit, it was not... a... fling!... He... that... bastard!..."
"That's what Auntie Flo said, Mom. She said Bobo'd come on to her before."
Grace took a deep breath, then another. She wanted to say this just once, it needed to be said, and very clearly.
"I'd had too much to drink, and Bobo was driving me home after we dropped off my friend Deb, and he wanted to stop and talk. I was babbling on and on about Sheets and how happy I was with him, and telling him the plans for the wedding just a month away when he tried to kiss me. I laughed at first, thought he was joking. He said he knew I wanted him, and I said no, and then he was on me and I fought and cried but ..."
Lily held her mother then, their tears and their ruined makeup co-mingling. Until now, this had all been about Lily and her own anger at the thought of being not a love child but a rape child, and of the secrets and lies throughout her 27 years. But now, as her mother trembled in her arms, Lily felt her anguish, what it must have been like for her as a young woman.
"Did Dad know?"
"I told him just before the wedding. I missed my period and knew I was pregnant. I told him I'd understand if he wanted to back out."
"But he didn't." Maybe, Lily thought, she was a love child after all.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com