Illumine Her (4 page)

She loved her childhood home. Built by her father’s carpenter hands, it was painted ivory for as long as she could remember and had a wrap-around porch with balcony doors that opened to each room which allowed warm light to stream in throughout the day. Her mother’s lush garden of tiger orchids, birds of paradise, ginger flowers, vibrant gardenia, and flaming
teuila
grew in clusters around the edge of their land which dipped into a valley of tropical flora that included a looming banyan tree that rose and shadowed part of the house. A small
fale
Samoa stood atop the only flat surface of grass available and was home to the family’s four wild mutts.

Alana entered the house and inhaled the familiar scent of wood, freshly cut ginger, and tropical flowers that never ceased to be in abundance in her house. Pillows with
elei
patterns were thrown over the old brown leather couches, and book shelves were lined against the wall, cramped with everything from the classics to religion; philosophy to fantasy. Interspersed amongst them were photographs of Alana and her family. Alana blowing out candles when she turned nine; a wedding photo of her mother and father; Perlita with her parents on the porch of their home in Maine; Malia and her fiancé beaming at their engagement party; David standing proudly next to their father holding his graduation diploma. The largest portrait was of her father in his late fifties. He looked serenely at the camera, shoulders straight, a gleam in his eyes. A lei of white tuberose hung around the wooden frame with small tea light candles surrounding it. Alana gazed at his face, and she felt that familiar dull pain again in her heart. She heard that one never got used to it, that even though life went on and the conversations shifted over time, the pain was always lodged somewhere deep, never completely gone, until something made it resurface.

“It’s not the same without him,” Malia spoke softly behind her. “He would be so proud of you, Lana. Can you imagine how his voice would have bellowed and drowned out everyone else’s when you went up on that stage? He would have made you steal the show.”

Alana’s throat tightened at the image her sister created. Wiping away the moisture from her eyes, she turned and grasped her sister’s left hand where her engagement ring sparkled. “I want to hear all about this Kane guy and how you brainwashed him to marry you,” she said changing the subject.

Malia met her fiancé on a flight from Samoa to New Zealand. While she was heading there to attend a course for her teaching position, he was on his way home to Wellington. When her mother called to tell her the news, Alana was amazed what a few hours of non-stop communication resulted in. Not that her sister had any problem running her mouth, and since the poor guy was stuck sitting next to her the entire time, he didn’t really have a choice. However, she was convinced that these random meetings and happily-ever-afters only occurred on the big screen or in the romance novels she frequently read. Nevertheless, Alana was happy for her sister.

Malia beamed. “I can’t wait for you to meet him, Lana. He’s arriving a week before the wedding so there’ll be plenty of time to hang out. Of course, you’ll be busy with the wedding planning, but that’ll be fun, won’t it? He’s so charming and easy to like. David liked him immediately. Did I tell you the time he came to Samoa to meet everyone and David took him out fishing? He spewed his guts out from being seasick but came home with a twenty pounder,” she rattled on.

“Auuu, there she goes again gushing about her fiancé. Non-stop Kane this, Kane that, Kane
so’o, kiga kaliga
,” Sala, their long-time house girl joked from the hallway.

Alana chuckled quietly at the way she pronounced his name in her thick Samoan accent.
Gane
.

She rushed forward and pulled Alana into a hug. “Alana! My darling girl! You are finally home. At last I have someone to make desserts for since missy over here has gone on her wedding diet,” she said, frowning in Malia’s direction.

Sala ran the family home impeccably, ensuring the floors were spotless, shelves dusted, and hot meals provided. Far from the twenty-year-old girl Alana’s parents had hired, Sala was now in her fifties. She had silver lining her hair and the smoothest skin Alana ever felt. She looked to her fondly as a doting aunt.

“Sala, I’m so happy to see you!” she grasped onto her ample figure. “How are you? How’s the family?”

“Oh, you know. We’re surviving and thriving. My diabetes is making things difficult but now that you are back, I have a full-time nurse to take care of me, heh?”

“Oh, Sala, you have to stop eating all those sweets you make.”

“Eh, I know, I know. So everyone tells me.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I made some
kopai
earlier today. Want to try some?” she offered with a smile. A delicious dessert made of flour dumplings smothered in sweet cocoa sauce sounded tempting, and Sala, being the connoisseur chef that she was, made the best.

Alana smiled at her invitation. “You know I do.”

Later that evening as the family settled into bed, Alana eyed her old room, which was modestly decorated in white. The familiar musty smell hit her as she took in the pictures she hung up years ago of dream locations she wanted to visit around the world. She wished one day to climb the Machu Picchu site in Peru; swim near the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand; explore the Antelope Canyon in Arizona; sail over the Ganges River; walk upon Uganda’s red soil; hike near Moraine Lake in Canada. She had yet to visit a single destination. Perusing scraps of paper tacked neatly around them—quotes she found inspiring once upon a time—she squinted her eyes and read her handwriting.

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” Khalil Gibran.

“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” Flora Edwards.

“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.” Mother Teresa.

When she read them they seemed too cliché, mocking the allusions a younger Alana embraced before her father’s death. Now the cold reality of the type of world she lived in blew that delusion out of her mind.

Her bed was in the center of the room underneath large windows that overlooked the lush valley, her bedding made up of old cotton linen, its texture soft from overuse. Over it draped a large mosquito net that blew from the wind that filtered through the louvers. A wide door framed with ivory curtains led to the balcony outside where a hammock hung, shaded by the leafy branches from the banyan tree. She looked forward to curling there later with a good book. The wooden paneled floor was covered in a woven mat and atop it sat a small table with a night light. An array of pink and yellow frangipanis that Alana knew Sala had placed there sat submerged in a small vase. Smiling at the gesture, she turned to her cupboard and pulled out the drawers that were empty from years of her absence. She would unpack tomorrow. For now, exhaustion overtook her, and she slipped under the mosquito net in her camisole and
lavalava
ready for slumber.

***

At dawn, Alana awoke to the chorus of chickens in the village making their obligatory wake-up call. Stretching, she rose and shuffled to the bathroom to clean up. After she washed her face and brushed her teeth, she laced up her sneakers and headed out for a jog around the village. She admitted this was her favorite time of the day when the world was not yet stirring and she could have a few moments of solace before the weight of the day and all its responsibilities hurdled towards her. There was something spiritual and nostalgic about dawn’s atmosphere. She remembered as a child awakening to the sounds of soft chanting coming from her grandmother’s room, her father’s mother, who lived with them before she passed away. Alana remembered the comfort she felt from her prayers wrapping warmth around her as she awoke, and the feeling never left her.

The majority of the sky was still black, the first twinges of purple and pink seeping through the edges of the horizon. The stars were slowly twinkling out, humbly giving in to the biggest star in the galaxy. A light breeze carried with it tropical scents from her mother’s garden, and Alana inhaled deeply.

Glancing around the yard, her eyes found her father’s grave at the side of the house. She noted her mother took great care in tendering a small garden around his tombstone, and her heart broke when she looked at it. It no longer looked like the fresh pile of dirt the day of the funeral, and her body trembled in reaction. It was as if somehow it was unreal that this happened, that the accident was all a big mistake and he would simply walk up the driveway at any moment with a smile on his face and call her
pele
. Alana made her way over and crouched down.

Smoothing a hand over the marble she drew in a shaky breath. “I miss you every day,
tama
,” she whispered.

Rising quietly, she left her family home and made her way to the main road. Turning her iPod on, Alana scrolled to Ryan Farish and settled into an even pace as she allowed
Full Sail
to soar and uplift her. It was a small country road, tar sealed but lacking paved sidewalks. Bushes and shrubbery covered the makeshift pathways along the sides, and she was forced to jog on the tar, mindful to face traffic coming from the opposite direction. Houses were obscured from each other and separated by the abundance of wild tropical flora that grew uncontrollably. Alana was grateful for the space and privacy it provided. When the road stretched to a steep incline, her legs started to tighten from exertion, and she welcomed the burn. The sun rose and spread warmth on her back, sweat beads forming on her face. She urged her legs and started to sprint, pushing through the aches in her muscles. It had been a while since she was free like this on the open road, and the feeling was exhilarating. When she reached the pasture where cows grazed behind a barbed-wire fence, she turned around and went back, satisfied with her thirty-minute jog.

Alana walked through the front gate and stopped short. One large dog was crouched low, growling and baring its teeth, saliva dripping down to the ground. Her heart rate picked up. How could she forget? Those dogs scared the bejesus out of her every time she visited home from university, and they never quite got along by the time she returned to Fiji. When he gave a sharp bark, he attracted the attention of the other three, and they came running out from under the
fale
. Her peaceful reverie was over.

Crap!

Alana bent down to pretend to pick up a rock, a branch—anything because everyone knew that when you did that to a Samoan dog, it would instantly bolt. But not her family’s mutts. No. They weren’t fooled.

“David! Get out here and come help me!” she cried out as they circled around her dangerously.

While it was a known fact that Samoa didn’t play host to hazardous animals that posed a danger to people’s lives like tigers and bears, it would definitely be argued that dogs in Samoa—domestic or stray—could easily fill that role. After taking a chunk out of her hip when she was a child, Alana was all too aware of the fact that Samoan dogs were far from the average cuddly, playful creatures she saw on American television shows.

“Still scared of a few little mutts there,
a ea
sis?” David appeared in his work clothes throwing out pieces of bread to deter them away from her.

The dogs scrambled towards him and immediately gobbled up the distraction, snapping the bread in their mouths mid-air. Alana shuddered and inched closer to the front door.

“Firstly, they are not
little
. What are you and Sala feeding them? And secondly, you know very well that they are capable of taking off my sneakers and biting off my toes.” She bolted inside and made a mental note to take food with her the following morning.

“She just stepped in now.” Perlita was on the phone when Alana entered the front door. “
Papa and Lola
,” she mouthed quietly, gesturing for her to come closer. “The ceremony was long and stifling hot as graduations usually are… yes, she looked beautiful… She will be starting soon… I’ll let her tell you all about it.” Her mother said farewell to her parents and passed the phone to Alana.

Beaming, she grabbed the handle and pressed it to her ear. “Hi, Papa and Lola! It’s been too long.”

“Alana, we are so proud of you, darling girl!” her grandfather boomed down the receiver. Despite the assistance of his hearing aid, he continued to shout his words. Alana giggled out loud.

“Honey, your Papa and I are thrilled about your graduation.” Her grandmother’s lilting voice came through from the second telephone in their house. Alana imagined she was in the upstairs bedroom while her grandfather was speaking from the phone in the kitchen. “Now, we know how much you have pined over the years to travel to one of those dream destinations of yours,” she paused. “Well, as a graduation present, we want to send you to one of them. All you have to do is pick one.”