My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
What she got
>> Queen's Medical Center
The truth was both awful and wonderful. Awful that her mother Grace had been raped a month before her wedding, by her fiancee's hanai brother. Wonderful that when she told Sheets Ah Sun that awful truth, he married her anyway, kept her secret to himself, and raised the child as his own.
Lily Ah Sun was that child.
"My God, Mom, he must have loved you so much!" They were sitting in her teal BMW in the circular parking structure.
"We were very much in love. But even so, not many men of his generation would have done that."
"Not many in my generation either."
Sheets Ah Sun had given her so much in life, but lately Lily had been thinking only of the things her younger brother Laird got that she didn't. Like the new MBA from Stanford Business, while Lily got UH undergrad.
But, really, he'd been a good father. It was Sheets who got her into softball, pitching to her and hitting her grounders, helping her become an all-star shortstop for the Ko'olau Bobbysox, and more important teaching her how to compete. And Sheets gave her four years at Punahou.
He also gave her a chance at the Honolulu Soap Co., and later supported her offshoot venture into phyto-cosmetics, Ola Essences. Maybe he did favor his eldest son, but Sheets wasn't the only father who'd ever done that, especially not in a family business. Her youngest brother Lance didn't have a chance there either. The bottom line was that Lily had always felt loved and secure.
Maybe it would be OK to keep on calling him Daddy after all.
"Mom, I have to ask you about something else."
Grace nodded, wiping at her streaked makeup. After admitting to your child that she is a product of rape, what question could be so tough?
"So whatever happened to Bobo?" Lily wasn't about to use the term "my father" for the schmuck.
"Did you know about the postcard?"
"The one to Donnelly - after Tony Martinez filed a missing person report - from Bobo saying he was alive and well in Miami?"
Grace had her own suspicions of what her husband had done, but they were just that and she'd never asked. "That's the last we heard."
"Bobo actually sent two postcards from Miami, Mom. The other one to Tony Martinez, who turns out to be Bobo's brother, by blood."
"I knew they were brothers, but..."
"Tony kept his last postcard. It's part of this huge postcard collection he has." Lily opened her Chanel bag. "Look at these."
Three framed postcards, all signed "Bobo," but one in handwriting very different from the others. Grace knew it well. For nearly 30 years it had penned her Valentines.
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