The Ohana (11 page)

Honolulu, 1939

When Katherine Wilkes Ritchie swept into his office unannounced, Sean recognized her because of her red hair. Right away, he knew he was dealing with a
kamaaina
aristocrat of the worst kind. Her mother Marsha was a Wilkes, the crème de la crème of white society. Her father, Duncan Ritchie, was Marsha’s cousin and heir to a fortune in sugar cane fields. In both their veins ran Eastern seaboard missionary blood. Having gone to Oahu College, now known as Punahou, Sean understood how important it was to have that kind of lineage. In Hawaii, to be born one of the missionary
alii
was to be born the next best thing to royalty.

Katherine vibrated with her own sense of self-importance. Looking at her, Sean remembered all the kids at Punahou who made him feel his own unimportance. He hated the supercilious kids he went to school with, yet he wanted to be them.

Katherine stared. “I feel like I know you.”

He shook his head.  “I’m afraid not.”

She put out her soft, pink hand. “Katherine Ritchie.”

“Sean Duffy.” Sean took her hand. “Glad to meet you.”

 Katherine blushed. “I must have walked into the wrong office.”

“Miss Ritchie …” Sean held onto her hand.

“Call me Katherine.”

“Katherine,
ahui hou
, till we meet again.” Sean lifted her hand to his lips. Hers was the hand of the idle rich. He thought of his mother’s torn, short fingernails on coarse hands roughened by hard work.

Katherine dashed out of the office.

John Williams entered his office and whistled. “Was that the high and mighty Katherine Ritchie you just scared away?” When Sean nodded, he asked, “What was she doing here?”

“She walked into the wrong office.”

John elbowed him and snickered. “Did Ms. High and Mighty talk to you?”

Sean smiled. “Yes.”

“I just came to ask you if you want to join me for lunch.”

“No, go ahead. I have some work to do.” Sean returned to his desk and sat down.

“Want me to bring you something?”

“No. Thanks anyway.” Sean picked up a stack of papers.

“Don’t work overtime. Our bosses have enough money as it is.” John laughed as he left.

Sean nodded. After John closed the door behind him, Sean opened the middle drawer of his desk and removed a thin envelope. Opening it, he reread the single sheet enclosed within.

Dear Sean,

You may be surprised to hear from us. It’s been so long. I don’t know how to put this, so I guess I should just come right out and say it. Our mother is dead. On Sunday she was making the family dinner when she said she felt bad. Before we knew it, she was dead. Doctor says it was her heart.

Wish you could have come home to see her at least once before she died. She talked about how she wanted to see you once more. Couldn’t understand why you didn’t come home. Fifteen years is a long time, and all that.

I guess you won’t be hearing from me again, seeing as we’re not a writing family. I guess there’s nothing left here for you anyhow. You have your own grand life in Hawaii.

Tell Uncle Patrick about our mother.

Your brother

Seamus

P.S. You owe me $2 for flowers I sent in your name to our mother’s grave.

Sean took out five dollars from his wallet, placed it in the middle of a blank piece of paper, folded it, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to Seamus. Then he put his head in his hands and stared out the window towards the pier. He heard the whistle of a boat in the distance. If it weren’t for the palm trees, he could have been back in Boston. Instead, he was perspiring in a ridiculous suit in humid Hawaii while his mother lay dead and buried in Boston.

Sean’s stomach churned. His eyes turned back to the leather-top desk he was so proud of and the koa wood name plate with gold letters reading “Sean Duffy, Esquire.”

That wouldn’t have been possible in Boston.

Sean crumpled up his brother’s letter and threw it into the wastebasket. Sean of Boston was dead. Nothing would stop him from realizing his dreams.

If he hadn’t been looking for it, Sean would have missed the wooden sign nearly buried in lush vegetation with the name  “BRANDON.” He stuck his head out of the car window and breathed in the mountain air mingled with the cloying fragrance of ginger lingering in the breeze. Thoughts of seeing Meg again made his heart race as he drove the car slowly, purposely dallying to imprint every detail into his mind before he saw her again.

He stopped at the wrought-iron gate and a Hawaiian man waved him through. He was surprised to find the grounds unkempt. Huge kiawe, monkey pod, and banyan trees erupted from the damp earth, its massive trunks thickly entwined with vines. Hapu ferns and banana trees abounded alongside fragile white ginger and flame-red torch ginger. Looking like an exotic bird in flight, orange birds of paradise grew in lush profusion throughout the hilly surface.

Beyond the primeval jungle, a lava-rock house loomed like an ogre’s sinister abode. Surely Meg couldn’t have had anything to do with building such a house. But then, of course, he had heard the rumblings on the coconut wireless.

Rumor had it she’d had a disastrous love affair with a handsome sailor off a merchant ship. The Ritchie family paid the unacceptable suitor to leave the Islands forever. It was the scandal of the year in Honolulu.

After that, he heard nothing for several years until her wedding picture appeared in the newspaper next to her rich, much older groom with impeccable bloodlines. She was Meg Brandon now. For years Sean combed the local newspapers looking for pictures and gossip about the couple in high society columns. But the couple had vanished from Honolulu society. Then one day, a few years ago, an obituary appeared about the death of her husband. Meg Brandon was now a reclusive widow, locked in the monstrous edifice before him.

He got out of the car and was about to lift the brass knocker when a Japanese housekeeper opened the door. “Mista Wilkes send you?”

“Yes.”

“Missus waiting for you. Follow me.”

He followed her through dark halls to a room lined with bookshelves around a massive lava-rock fireplace. Meg sat on a lounge chair reading, her silvery hair loose and flowing. She wore a dark blue dress that clung to the rounded curves of her body, showing her calves and thin arms. Her face was so still it looked as if it were carved from stone.

“Missus, bank man stay here,” the housekeeper announced, then left.

When Meg looked up, he fell into eyes he had dreamed of since he was a boy. “I’m sorry. I feel like I should know you, but I don’t.”

Sean swallowed, wondering how long he had been standing there like a tongue-tied schoolboy. “I met you once a long time ago. My uncle is the plantation manager on your father’s Kohala plantation. My name is Sean Duffy.”

“Of course.” Meg knitted her brow and tapped her book with her finger.

Obviously, she didn’t remember. “I have some papers for you to look over and sign.” He handed her a thick manila envelope.

Meg took the envelope and gestured to the chair across from her. “Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?”

He shook his head and sat. “No, thank you.”

“Where do I sign?” she asked as she removed the legal-sized sheaf of papers.

“Don’t you want to read it first?”

“Why?” Meg tossed her head and reached for a pen. “It was prepared by my uncle. I don’t have to read it.”

“It’s what everyone normally does, family or not.” Sean clasped and unclasped his hands.

“I don’t really care about money.” Meg found a pen and rifled through the papers, looking for the signature pages.

“Is money of so little consequence to you?”

“Money's an impossible tyrant that dictates your life.” Meg paused and stared through him for a second. “Sometimes, I think it’s a curse.” She signed the documents. When she was done, she laid down her pen and peered at him. “Duffy, are you originally from the islands?”

Sean looked into her violet eyes. She almost shimmered in the dark room. “I moved to Kohala from Boston when I was a child.”

“I see.” She nodded and handed the papers to him. “You want to be one of us, don’t you? Hawaii's elite.”

“I want to succeed.” Sean looked through the papers to make sure they were all signed.

She shook her head. “Don’t let them corrupt you.”

“I won’t.” He put the papers into his briefcase.

She stood abruptly, and without a word, left the room.

Sean thought of what a colleague had said to him before he’d come. “Rumor has it she’s mad, you know. She’s a recluse, completely crazy.”

As he slipped in and out of consciousness, Patrick heard low whispers around his bed. “Call the nephew. It’s very bad. He probably won’t last long.”

He took to talking to himself. "Aye, and it’s an old man I am. I've lived enough for two lifetimes? How many men can say they’ve traveled the world? And lived in bonny Ireland, where life was hard but the land so beautiful, the memory of it still lives in my bones, calling to me even now."

He thought of Boston with its ugly tenement houses with rats and children running wild. The smell of piss and vomit in the streets didn’t stop people like him from dreaming. They were free to speak out. And there was always the hope of rising above if one had the luck, the spirit, and the mind to do it.

"Hawaii
no ka oi
," he murmured, "Sure and it be a raw, wild, and savage testing ground for the good Lord himself. So many different kinds of people, all testing one another. Aye, the world's changing faster than I like—especially Hawaii."

Patrick coughed, and pain filled his lungs and throat. Breathing became difficult for him. Seeking to escape the pain, he drifted back to the happiest time of his life.

"Kehau, my bonny, bright girl," he reminisced,  "so much love for one as undeserving as me. Is that why the Lord took you away? I dinna appreciate you. But Lord, I loved you. Not in the way some men love their women, but I loved her as much as I could love any woman."

 Tears came to his eyes and he touched them with a finger. He looked to the ceiling in wonder, "Is it crying, I am? Me, a grown man! What am I complaining about anyway? I lived a good, full life."

"T'would've been nice to have a child—a girl as pretty as Kehau, but with a wee bit of me. But I had me Sean, and right proud I am of him with his fancy schools and fancy clothes. He’s a gentleman."

Patrick opened his eyes and saw his dead sister’s face floating before him. "I did good by him, Sis. T’would have made you proud. I guess I’ll be seeing you on the other side. T’will be like old times when we were kids and dumb to the ways of the world. Oh, we had some good times together, now didn’t we?

"Wished I could have made Sean go to see you before you left this world. But he’s a strange one. Still, he loved you, don’t you go believin’ otherwise."

Patrick closed his eyes in pain.
So tired. Must sleep.

Sean sat in his uncle’s favorite koa wood rocking chair on the veranda and mulled over his uncle’s life. Uncle Patrick, that genial, generous man with lusty appetites, was dead. Sean was consumed with guilt. He could have shown Patrick more affection, more appreciation. His life would have been so different without him.

His uncle’s will made him feel really conflicted.

After providing for his faithful housekeeper and his long-time mistress who was a surprise to Sean, Patrick had left the rest of his estate to Sean. Most of his investments were in real estate. Some were almost worthless, but other pieces here and in Honolulu, had great potential.

The last line of his uncle’s will was a challenge. “I leave all the rest to my nephew, Sean Duffy, because I know he'll do what’s right. I place the burden and responsibility in his hands.”

Patrick must have meant for Sean to provide for his brothers and sister out of the estate. He used to say, “Sean, and you’ll not be forgetting your brothers and sisters. You’re their blood. They’re not as lucky or as smart as you. It’s you that has the luck of the Irish. I did what I could for me sister. If I had been a millionaire, I would have taken care of her whole brood. But you have the education and the smarts to become what I could not.”