Five
Leia still wasn’t used to living alone. She’d lived at home until she went to school and then endured six years of sloppy room-mates and late-night parties when she wanted to study. The luxury of having all her clothes lined up neatly in her own closet wasn’t something she took for granted yet. Though it was only a small, one-bedroom cottage, it was all hers, thanks to her father’s generosity. He couldn’t live in it anyway. The only people who lived in Kalaupapa were those with Hansen’s disease and those like her who worked in the little clinic down the street.
She sat on the lanai with her Bible. Her gaze drifted across the yard to the distant water. She opened her Bible and tried to focus on the passage she was reading, but capturing her wandering thoughts was difficult lately, especially when she tried to read her Bible. Ever since she’d given up the idea of being a doctor and come home, she and God hadn’t been on the best of terms.
She should work on her tapa for a bit. Maybe that would clear her head. She shut her Bible and moved to the garden. The pun-gent odor of fermenting bark welcomed her. She plunged her hand into the glutinous mess and extracted a clump. She laid the fermented bark on a stone anvil and picked up the kua kuku, a round beater that had been her grandmother’s. Her muscles coiled and released as she swung the tool and beat the tapa. The ball of fermented bark began to flatten and spread. The sound of her kua kuku striking the stone reminded her of buoys offshore the day she’d told Bane she was breaking their engagement. She pounded harder with the kua kuku. She didn’t want to remember the hurt in his eyes when she refused to answer his questions. But how could she tell him the truth? He was an honorable man. He would have said he would marry her anyway.
The day he began talking about the children they would have, the death knell for their relationship sounded. Her unease blossomed into full-fledged panic before she’d finally gone in for genetic testing. She shut her eyes and threw all her strength behind her arm. Anything to block out the memory of sitting in that doctor’s office and hearing the verdict. A verdict that had doomed the love between her and Bane. If only he hadn’t come back into her life today.
She opened her eyes again and wiped the tears that had rolled down her cheeks. A movement caught her eye under a large banyan tree in her backyard. She squinted, not sure if it was branches moving in the wind or someone standing in her backyard. The movement came again, and she realized it was a man staring at the house.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. A rash of burglaries around Moloka’i had been all over the papers, but she had nothing of value. Anyone looking at the peeling paint on the house would know she didn’t have anything worth stealing, and Kalaupapa wasn’t exactly teeming with wealthy residents. Most subsisted near the poverty level. She put down her tool and started toward the man to find out what he wanted. He took off running, evidently realizing he’d been spotted.
She charged across the backyard. “Hey, you there!” The man vanished into the jungle that touched the back of the property. She jogged to the tree line and stared into the tangle of vegetation. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and every nerve ending tingled with something that she told herself was caution, not fear. Prudence said not to go into the forest alone, but what if he got away and just came back when she was sleeping? She would much prefer to face an adversary in the daylight when she could see him. She should call the police. She went back to the lanai and picked up the phone. No dial tone. The phone service in town had been spotty lately.
Leia stepped back outside, and Hina ran past her legs. The cat dashed into the trees. “Hina, come back here!” She ran after the cat, but stopped at the edge of the thick growth. She heard nothing. Maybe the guy was gone. She turned to retrace her steps when she heard Hina yowl. The distress in the cat’s cry made her turn and plunge into the forest. She wasn’t afraid, she told herself. Holding her hands in front of her in the jujitsu pose, she took a step into the trees, then another one. Her breathing was loud in her ears. Everything in her screamed for her to go back, but she would not be ruled by fear. Besides, Hina needed her. The cat cried out again, seemingly in pain.