Jewel of the Pacific (14 page)

“Does Father understand how weak and ill she is?” she asked.

She detected a disquiet he was trying to conceal. She was convinced that he had a brotherly affection for her father. Jerome was the one who had asked Ambrose to pastor the mission church when he’d left the Hawaiian Islands to seek a leprosy cure. And Jerome had worked with Ambrose in the recent ministry to the Chinese sugarcane workers. Ambrose also had a spiritual compassion for Jerome’s obsession over Rebecca. Even Rafe had recognized it and mentioned it to her at one time.

“No, Jerome doesn’t know how near death is for Rebecca. He wouldn’t accept it. He’s not a well man, as I think you’ve already noticed.”

“His heart—” she began, but he shook his head.

“We know it’s more than his heart, lass, so let’s be straightforward. It’s too important and far-reaching to disguise. Dr. Bolton told me this morning he thinks Jerome is headed for a breakdown. I believe his assessment is right. If Jerome can’t release to God the obsession he has over curing your mother of leprosy, then this breakdown will happen. His emotions are stretched near the breaking point. Dr. Bolton and I fear he’s functioning on the edge of fallacy when it comes to curing your mother.”

Eden sighed. “Yes. I’ve noticed it coming for weeks. I guess we all have.”

“I think part of his dilemma is from blaming himself for Rebecca’s condition. Jerome was anxious to come to Molokai at the time to help a certain doctor with some experiments. When the worst happened to Rebecca during their stay here, Jerome never could forgive himself.”

Eden thought of her own mission on Molokai. Rafe had always been concerned for her safety, but why had her father never worried about his daughter following in Rebecca’s footsteps? Just this morning when she’d tried to share her concerns with him, he had pushed them aside lightly, as if they were inconsequential to his mission.

“When Rebecca meets you, lass, she’ll be hooded and veiled.

That’s the only way she’ll agree to see you. She wants the memory to be as pleasant as possible under these circumstances, so you can look back on it.”

Eden turned away, hands to her face. “I know. I understand.”

Ambrose laid a hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing Jerome, in all of his research, can do for her. What Dr. Bolton and I are concerned about is how he will handle her inevitable death. I must go back to Honolulu soon, but of course Bolton will be here. I’ll also keep in touch by mail. The steamer comes once every few weeks. You’ll have another week to decide to return with me to Honolulu or stay on. Rebecca may have three to four weeks left.”

“I’ll stay until after her death.”

“Then we’ll follow this long path to its conclusion. It may be the only solution … to finish the course. Some struggles can only be won on our knees,” he added. “I believe Jerome’s dark obsession is one of those.”

Dark obsession … Perhaps she had one of her own.

Ambrose shook his head. “In the end, though, each one of us must come to an understanding that life’s sorrows and troubles are not always going to be taken from us or solved to our satisfaction. Not in this life. What we want to do as Christians is to learn that we can trust God in the valleys, and that it’s perfectly safe to do so because He has promised to be with us.”

His words were not only spoken for Jerome, but for her bitterness over Rafe and Bernice.

When her father returned to the house, he looked consumed with worried thoughts. He didn’t seem to realize that his hat was missing. He seemed more troubled than when he’d left with Dr. Bolton. Could he have seen Rebecca after all? Because he was a doctor and her husband, not even a well-meaning
kokua
could keep him from seeing her if he insisted.

When Ambrose took Jerome aside and explained Rebecca’s worsening condition, Jerome took the news as expected.

“As soon as word was brought to me in Honolulu of her debility, I did all I could to get here as quickly as possible.”

“We know that, Jerome,” Ambrose said gently. “So does Rebecca. The
kokua
says she has much peace.”

“Thank God for that.” Jerome looked at Eden. “The
kokua
is right. It will be best if you see your mother first. It has been a long journey for you. Go, and give her my love.”

Eden put her arms around him. She rarely felt close enough to him to embrace him without embarrassment. She felt no discomfort now, only sympathy and affection.

“Explain about the clinic, and let her know I’ll visit when she’s able to receive me.”

“Yes,” she said gently. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell her there is hope. I have research that may turn the tide.”

Eden made no reply and Ambrose said, “We best be going, lass. The wind is rising and clouds are moving in. It looks like we may get a good drenching this afternoon.”

Dr. Jerome groaned. “Another delay in the building process. Has Keno brought in another load yet?”

“Early this morning,” Ambrose said. “And they’ve gone for a second load.”

“Those young men have more than proven themselves,” Jerome said. “I’ll be proud to have Keno as a nephew.”

He went to the back porch where boxes of medical supplies were stacked. Eden left the house with Uncle Ambrose and they walked together in silence.

“Where are we going to meet her?” she asked, heart thudding. “Isn’t she being looked after in the hospital?”

“She isn’t in the hospital. You’ll see. Her
kokua
will meet us and take us there.”

“I should like to know all about the
kokua,”
she reflected. “If possible, I’d like to reward her with a special gift. Grandfather Ainsworth told me he’d set up a special fund for me. He called it an early inheritance.”

“Ainsworth holds himself guilty for the trauma you’ve endured with Townsend. I think something good did come out of it, for you at least. Ainsworth has finally realized how much you mean to him. I think he has been oblivious to his feelings until the fire at Hanalei.”

She felt approval, which had long been held from her, and she had no adequate response.

Eden walked with Ambrose, who was deep in thought. Finally he spoke: “Rebecca’s first
kokua
died a year ago. Your mother was in serious need and another qualified helper was difficult to find. So we did what we could. A sister at the convent hospital recommended someone from the Bishop Home. When the offer was made, your mother accepted with gratitude, and she affirms she’s well satisfied with her.”

Eden was not unfamiliar with the history of the Roman Catholic convent and dormitory for orphan girls, called Bishop House. “Ambrose, you’re not telling me Rebecca is being cared for in the convent?” she asked again.

“No … not in the convent. Just come along, lass. It’s better I show you.”

They walked up the cliff road to a hill near the boat landing on the beach and stopped at the white fence enclosing the grounds. Some nuns were outside in the yard while a handful of girls played croquet. The sea wind came in strongly, blowing the sisters’ black robes like outspread birds’ wings.

The compound was comprised of four whitewashed cottages and a white convent house with green shutters, all facing the sea. A tiny bungalow outside the compound with small shrubs growing around it captured her interest.

Ambrose nodded toward the bungalow. “Rebecca is there. She’s being cared for by one of the older girls who grew up here in Bishop House. The girl is also a leper,” he said.

Eden watched a girl near her own age coming across the yard. She limped on one leg and looked to be of Chinese background, not Hawaiian. She smiled self-consciously when Ambrose introduced her to Eden.

“This young
kokua
is Miss Lotus.”

“Aloha,” Eden said, “it is pleasant to meet you. You are my mother’s
kokua?”

“Yes, Miss Derrington, thank you. Missus Rebecca is waiting now. She is veiled. She asks you not to touch her … perhaps to sit on the porch while she is sitting up in her bed?”

Eden nodded, deeply moved. She looked at Ambrose. He gravely patted her shoulder.

“I’ll wait here by the gate,” he said.

Lotus smiled at him and turned toward the convent house. “If you please, Mr. Easton, Mother Marianne has asked to meet you in the house. You go ahead, she comes.”

Just then the door of the convent house opened and an older nun with a smile stood waiting for him on the porch. Ambrose looked pleased and walked quickly across the yard toward her.

Meantime, Lotus bid Eden to follow her across a dirt and grassy section to the cottage with a small porch. The door was held open by a black lava rock, which was shaped like two praying hands. On closer inspection Eden saw that some gifted artist had chiseled it into shape.

Two pots of dark blue blossoms sat against the outer wall, a bit ragged from the strong winds.

Eden stepped onto the creaking porch and paused in the doorway. The old bed faced the door and had a tiny table beside it. Propped up in bed with several pillows behind her lay a stranger. Her mother.

In one brief overwhelming moment Eden was determined to control her emotions and not burst into sobs.

This is Rebecca. My mother.
At last the bewildering path of wondering about her mother came to a quiet end. The long path stopped near a pot of battered blue flowers, a whitewashed shack that creaked with each gust of wind, a simple bed with plain blankets, and a thin figure of a dying woman covered in a pale blue bathrobe. A scarf was draped over her head and face, with two eyeholes. Her hands were wrapped in homemade gloves.

That Rebecca had gone through this trouble to protect Eden from seeing her corruption made the moment even more heart wrenching.

The wind blowing so strongly against her back seemed to push Eden over the threshold. Her gray skirt tangled around her ankles. She held on to either side of the doorjamb. She swallowed, her throat dry.

“Hello Mother. I’m your daughter, Eden.”

Silence. Could Rebecca no longer use her diseased vocal cords? But at last a word came, clearly, and with a sigh.

“Beautiful.”

“Mother—”

“No! Stay there. Do not come to me, not yet. We will meet again on another day, a better day, in a city whose maker is God.”

Eden bit her lip and her heart thudded in her ears.

“I’m going there at last. And I’m so happy about it. Don’t grieve, dearest. Our
real
reunion is not now, not here, but
then.
This is a mere moment in time. Not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us, when we are in our new bodies with our Savior, the Lord Jesus.”

Eden could not talk. She had so much to say and yet, at the same time, nothing worthy to say. So much to ask, yet the questions could sound trivial. So much to explain, to understand and know, and yet …

“It is then we will commune,” Rebecca whispered, her breathing now difficult. “We will know as we are known.”

Eden finally found the words that momentarily expressed her heart. She repeated, “Yes, we will know as we are known. For now we see through a glass darkly, but
then
, face-to-face.
Now
we know in part. But
then
, we shall know even as we are known.”

Lotus brought a chair for Eden to sit on just outside the door. The silence and the words that followed were sporadic, but slowly sentences began to come—and as the minutes went on never to return again, she asked the questions that had always knocked at her heart’s door.

“I will give you all the answers to your questions and more, though not now, dearest. I have written them down over the years, always intending to have my journal sent to you on my departure. I’ve kept a journal from the beginning of my landing here until several years ago when I could no longer use my fingers. Even then my dear
kokua
wrote as I spoke. The last few years have been neglected, but little has happened that Ambrose can’t tell you about.

“The one event to shake my small world was the news that you knew about me and intended to see me. I never thought you would wish to see me in this condition. Then all the news began to come to me through Ambrose. Dear brother Ambrose! He told me all about my Eden. Your career in research at Kalihi, your sobriety of purpose, your dignity, your strong belief in the Lord, and your sweetness and charm.