2 Empath (26 page)

I studied him for a second. Then I dug frantically into my bag and pulled out my phone. “I missed a call from Tara!” I cried. “Why didn’t I hear it?”

I called her back, and she answered on the first ring.

“Thank goodness,” she said without greeting. “Kali, are you sitting down?”

My heart beat faster. “Yes.”

“Is Zane there with you?”

“Yeah, I’ll put him on speaker.” I punched the button, and Zane sat down on the bench beside me.

Tara inhaled, loudly and slowly. “Okay, kids. Brace yourselves. Nobody’s driving, right?”

“No!” I replied impatiently. “Tara, just tell us! What is it?”

“I found out quite a bit more than I expected to about Emilio Lam,” she began. “The clipping you found was indeed from 1953, from the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
I found military records that confirmed everything in it. Except that wasn’t the whole story.” She cleared her throat. “Are you sure you’re sitting down?”

“Tara!” I pleaded.

Zane’s arm slipped comfortingly around my shoulders.

“The telegram the army sent to Emilio’s mother was in error,” Tara continued. “He was reported killed in action, but in fact he was taken prisoner. He was captured in Korea, but unlike most of the other POWs, he wasn’t released after the armistice was signed. Somehow, he ended up in China. He was held in a work camp there for over two years.”

“Oh my God. How terrible,” I whispered.

“I’m sure it was,” Tara agreed. “But eventually he did manage to escape, with some help from the locals. He was part Chinese, on his father’s side, and he knew a little of the language. What he didn’t know, he must have learned quickly. It took him most of another year, but eventually he made his way to South Korea, and then back to Hawaii.”

Zane’s eyes met mine. I knew we were thinking the same thing.

“The man at her grave,” I said quietly. “It
was
Emilio.”

I remembered the feelings surrounding the prostrate shadow, and his grief washed through me all over again. I had been so stupid, assuming both men were at her funeral. How many other times had I seen shadows exist simultaneously when I knew they were separated by time, and in fact, merely overlapped? My grandfather hadn’t looked at the other man with indifference — he hadn’t looked at him at all! By the time Emilio had made his way back to Hawaii, Albin and my father were already on the mainland, in Minnesota.

“Emilio’s return was big news in Hawaii,” Tara continued. “But I haven’t found any evidence that his story went national. He wasn’t the only POW to find his way back as the years went on, and people’s sources of news were more limited.” She paused a moment. “Kali, I don’t know whether your grandfather kept up contact with anyone in Hawaii after he left, or if he even knew who Emilio was, but unless some third party took it upon themselves to alert him, I think it’s highly unlikely he ever knew that Emilio came back from Korea alive.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “No. I don’t think he did.” I would like to think that my grandfather wouldn’t intentionally keep a man from his biological son, and from now on, I intended to think the best of everyone.

The memory of Emilio’s pain at the cemetery gnawed at my insides, and I was grateful for the warmth of Zane’s arm around me. “Emilio would have come home to find out not only that Kalia was dead and gone,” I said sadly, “but that right after he was reported killed, she had married another man. And had a child.”

Did Emilio know why she had married so soon? That the baby was his?

“Kali,” Tara said, anticipating my next question, “I’ve studied the timeline… when Emilio would have been in basic training and when he shipped out. You do
not
want to know how much time I spent looking into pregnancy diagnosis in 1953 and length of gestation related to infant body weight. But here’s my best guess. Kalia might have worried that she was pregnant when she was still in touch with Emilio. But it’s highly unlikely she was sure of the fact before his unit hit the ground in Korea. Odds are, even if she did write him with the news, he was captured before it reached him.”

“But,”
Tara continued, “when he got back to Hawaii, there’s every chance he would have found out from family or mutual friends that Kalia had married somebody else and had a baby.”

Loving wife and mother.
“Her gravestone said that much,” I replied. “But that doesn’t mean he ever knew the whole truth, does it? Even if he had friends who knew exactly when Kalia gave birth, I can’t see them falling all over themselves to give him that information three years later when Kalia was dead and the baby was gone. At that point, what chance could he possibly have of ever getting the baby back?”

“Zero,” Tara answered. “They didn’t have DNA paternity testing back then. If Albin was married to Kalia and his name was on the birth certificate, the baby was legally his son, period. So you’re right — it’s hard to imagine any of Emilio’s family or friends wanting to open that can of worms, particularly when they didn’t know for sure. Which no one could have, unless Kalia told them herself. Do you think she told Emilio’s mother?”

I remembered the biting hurt in Kalia’s eyes as she spoke of Josefa Lam. “I seriously doubt it,” I answered.

The more I thought about Emilio’s situation, the more it made my heart ache. Either he suspected he had a son but had no hope of ever getting him back, or he believed that the girl he was engaged to had callously replaced him the minute she found out he was dead. Either way, both his grief, and his anger, could only be expected.

I fought back my own sadness. “Tara, whatever happened to Emilio? Did he ever marry?”

“He did,” she answered, but with a new and funny note to her voice. “But not until he was twenty-eight. He married a war widow a little older than he was. She had a school-age son, and Emilio adopted him.”

At last, I found myself able to smile again. “That’s… really good to hear. He deserved to have a happy life.”

I felt Zane’s arm tighten around my shoulders. I looked at him, wondering why, but Tara’s next words stopped me.

“Kali,” she said heavily. “You’re using the wrong tense. As far as I’ve been able to tell, Emilio James Lam is still alive. And he’s living right there in Oahu.”

Chapter 21

My body felt stiff with tension as Zane drove us through a seemingly endless stretch of stoplights. The west side of Oahu, I was learning, had a character all its own. While the North Shore was both countrified and touristy, and the “town” of Honolulu was a sprawling jumble of high-rise apartments and multi-million dollar beachside estates, the area where Kalia and Emilio had grown up was clearly “where the regular people lived.” It was to here that Emilio had returned after the war and, according to Tara, eventually opened up an auto repair shop. She had given us an address, which appeared to be an apartment building close to his former business on the main highway through Waianae. Every stoplight brought us closer. Every second seemed an hour.

“You haven’t seen her again, have you?” I asked Zane.

He shook his head. “Not since before we got to the park. I’m glad Tara’s info came in time to spare Kalia any more effort right now. She seemed really weak.”

Neither of us understood her urgency. Emilio had lived on the island all this time and was now in his late seventies… it was hard to see how his quiet, law-abiding existence could create any kind of emergency situation for my father. But Kalia had been adamant.

And this time, I intended to trust her.

“I have no idea what I’ll even say to him,” I worried out loud. “I refuse to believe that
he’s
the danger to my dad. You think maybe Kalia is leading us to Emilio because he’s the only one who can help?”

“Maybe,” Zane said thoughtfully. “Whatever her plan was, we’re on our own now. You’re just going to have to trust your instincts and wing it. You can do it.” The car turned off the main highway. “Here’s the street. We’re almost there.”

I looked up the block. There was only one apartment building in sight. It was a modest, flat-roofed two-story, with an outdoor walkway along the second floor. As we drew closer, I could read the apartment numbers. “204,” I said aloud as Zane pulled into a visitor’s spot. “That’s his door right up there.”

We got out of the car, and Zane took my hand again. With his radiating warmth boosting my confidence, I steeled myself, and we mounted the stairs. I could do this. So what if I had no idea
what
I was going to do?

We reached the door. The paint was peeling here and there, and the iron railing on the veranda was rusty. But overall the building seemed reasonably well kept, and many of the neighbors had cheered up their section of the walkway with potted bushes and hanging baskets of flowers. Zane raised a hand and knocked sharply.

There was no answer.

After another moment, Zane knocked again. I cocked my ear to the door, but heard no movement inside.
Seriously?
I thought in disbelief.
No,
he had to be here. I raised a hand and knocked myself. “Mr. Lam?” I called, my voice distressed. “Emilio? Are you home? Please, if you’re here, answer the door. It’s important!”

At last, I thought I heard someone stir. But the sound wasn’t coming from 204. After a brief moment, the door to the next apartment creaked open, and a tiny Asian woman in her sixties stepped out onto the landing and studied us critically. “What do you want with Emilio?” she asked brusquely.

I thought fast. “We’ve just come to talk to him about a family matter. My name is Kali Thompson. I’m… a relative.”

The woman’s eyes widened. Her face gentled a bit, but she didn’t smile. “I’m Tessa,” she replied. “Emilio isn’t here. He’s in the hospital. Did you get a call from a social worker or something?”

Zane and I exchanged a glance.
Or something.

“No,” I answered, as calmly as I could manage. “We didn’t know he was in the hospital. What… why is he there?”

Her eyes studied me another moment before she answered. Tessa was clearly a woman who took pride in looking out for her neighbors, and I got the feeling she did not trust easily. But she was perceptive enough to know that my concern was genuine.

“You know about his son?” she asked.

My heart skipped a beat, but I soon remembered what Tara had told us. Tessa wasn’t talking about my dad. “The son he adopted?” I asked tentatively.

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know if he was adopted or not. All I know is he meant the world to Emilio. Sammy and him, they built up the garage together. Emilio sold it to him outright a few years ago, but there’s no making that man retire. He was up there every day just the same.” She sighed heavily. “I guess you haven’t heard, then. Sammy’s dead. Week ago today he up and died of a heart attack. No warning. Nothing. He was only 61. Seemed fit as anybody.”

Zane’s hand tightened around mine.
No,
I thought miserably.
Poor Emilio.
After everything he had been through… it was too much.

“It tore Emilio apart,” Tessa continued, her eyes hard. “Ripped his heart right out of his body, it did. His wife’s been gone for years now, but he never thought he’d lose his child. Who does? And happening when it did… he had a cousin, you know, in Hilo. No surprise about her dying — she was eighty-nine, after all — but still, two deaths so close. She and Sammy were the last family he had.”

She looked up at me questioningly. “At least that’s what he said. Over and over again, he said it. ‘Tessa,’ he wailed, ‘There’s nobody left. They’re all dead. Why am I still here? Why me?’” She shook her head. “He’s always been such a strong man, but this was such a blow, and such a shock… he was in a horrible state. I’ve never seen him like that. I’ve never seen anybody like that. He started talking gibberish — things I didn’t understand. About the war, and the work camp — he was a POW, you know. He was on and on about how he had cheated death once, and now it was claiming its revenge by taking Sammy away from him.”

She clenched her jaws tightly a moment, then fixed her gaze back on me. “So why is it he never mentioned you?”

“I don’t think he knows,” I explained. “I only just found out myself.”

Her thin eyebrows rose. “You should tell him, then,” she ordered. “If he’s still alive.”

My knees weakened, but Zane’s firm grip steadied me. “What happened?” I begged. “Why is he in the hospital?”

Tessa’s eyes remained hard, but I could see a glint of moisture beneath them. “Sammy’s funeral was three days ago. Emilio broke down in the middle of it. My husband and I brought him home, blubbering like a baby. Couple hours later we heard a thud next door. Like he’d fallen. He wouldn’t answer us and wouldn’t open up and finally I called the police. He was passed out cold — took a whole bottle of headache medicine. Over the counter, you know, but… It was bad. Ambulance got rerouted, took him to Queens. I keep calling, but they won’t tell me a damn thing beyond that. Privacy rules, you know, and I’m not family.” She shook her head. “He was still there when I called this morning. But that’s all they’ll tell me. That’s all I know.”

“Is Queens the big hospital across from the Punchbowl?” Zane asked, speaking for the first time and startling us both.

Tessa nodded. “That’s the one.”

“We’ll go see him right now then,” he announced, squeezing my hand.

Right now.

I got his drift. After giving a heartfelt thanks to Tessa, we got back into Zane’s car, drove out of the lot, and immediately began fighting all the same stoplights — this time in the opposite direction. There was no alternative. There was only one main road, and we were on it. And the hospital, unfortunately, was all the way on the other side of Honolulu.

“Three days ago,” I echoed dully as we stared at yet another red light. The ocean was off to our right somewhere, but a rise of earth blocked my view. If it weren’t for the picturesque volcanic peaks to my left, I could be in downtown Cheyenne fighting the traffic during Frontier Days. My carefree hours with Zane on the beach seemed suddenly far away. “Three days ago was when Kalia first appeared.”