Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' (38 page)

Buddy felt the searing pain tear through his chest,
ripping his heart in half as it yielded to the valiant battle it
had waged in tortured silence all these years. His tools tumbled to
the ground and the world seemed to slow around him, a slow-motion
spinning of the plane and the surrounding landscape swirling
through his vision as his expression morphed from one of pain to
that of surprise, and then from surprise to understanding, a slow
smile spreading across his face as he hit the ground with a dull
thud, slow-motion dust-eddies curling up from the terra-cotta
ground.

Walter’s casket, jet-black and glistening with beads
of icy dew, was now blanketed in a heaping mound of white roses and
pale lilies that were precariously anchored by a singular magenta
orchid placed atop the sodden pile, flowers that now flapped and
fluttered violently in the wind, a shower of white rose petals
suddenly flying off into the leaden sky. As the coffin was slowly
lowered into the grave, a few premature clods of muddy earth
splashed onto it from above, staining the pristine flowers with
dark brown smears as it disappeared into the cold, hard ground,
isolated and alone at the top of the abandoned hill and its’
disheveled gravesite.

Buddy lay still upon on the ground, both hands
crossed over his chest, almost as if in repose, his burden lifted-
a small, knowing smile etched onto his face as he confronted the
afterlife. At the base of the hill below the plane, Alani trudged
slowly up the path to begin another wretched day, her look of
dejected apathy turning to one of frozen horror as she saw the
still form of Buddy on the ground, breaking into a run that she
already knew would be too late.

The wind and rain whipped at Chris and Abigail as
they approached the line of black vehicles that seemed to stretch
to infinity, the nearly useless umbrella threatening to invert
itself in the strengthening squall. The huge Polynesian driver held
his hat in one hand and the door in the other, ushering Chris and
Abigail into the car with a soft smile of condolence on his face
and a silent nod to them both, as if offering them a solemn island
of isolation from the cold, an implacable shelter from the
gathering storm. Chris returned the nod with one of his own and
cast a final emotionless glance back up the hill to the place of
his father’s repose. As he ducked and entered the car, just as the
door began to close, Chris suddenly stiffened as the hair on his
neck bristled from something other than the cold- it was the
unmistakable sound of the crystalline tinkling of wind chimes,
strikingly clear and distinct above the rattle of rain and howl of
the wind.

Alani cradled Buddy’s massive head
in her lap, now weeping openly, her tear-streaked face upturned to
the bright Hawaiian sky. The sky replied in kind, a gentle
sprinkling of huge, fat drops that fell on her upturned face,
almost like a
blessing
from the benevolent heavens that watched her from above. A
sharp, strangled cry caught her attention, and she turned to see
her mother and father begin to run up the path, a hand flying to
Noelani’s mouth as she realized with grim reality that the unspoken
inevitability that she had so long dreaded had finally come to
pass.

Chris stared stoically ahead, his mind now again
flooded with a horde of tortured thoughts as Abigail sat quietly
beside him, her face still focused on the hill outside the car, a
sodden and crumpled handkerchief clenched in her hand as she
watched the sad and deserted site of her husband’s final repose
slip away. The car slowly and silently pulled away from the curb,
tugging the infinite train of black behind it into a slow convoy of
mourning.

Mannie and Francesca wept unabashedly as they loaded
the shrouded bulk of Buddy into the ambulance as Noelani, Kenji,
and Alani huddled together near the toppled ladder and scattered
tools in the shadow of the ‘Menehune’. A raindrop, then two more
fell wetly onto the form on the gurney, and a single tear coursed
down Kenji’s cheek, perhaps signaling to the heavens that it was
time to cry. And with that the heavens responded, a bright flash of
lightning and sharp crack of thunder announcing to the world that
Buddy was gone. And suddenly it began to rain in earnest- a
tropical downpour that splashed from the sky in warm waves of
healing water.

The rain continued unabated into the night, driving
each of the Nakamura clan into their own isolated areas of solemn
contemplation. Kenji sat in silence with unseeing eyes before the
soundless television, the actions on the screen playing out in mute
and pointless flickerings of light and shadow. Noelani sat quietly
at the kitchen table and stared blankly into the night, a tepid and
still-undrunk cup of tea cradled in her large brown hands.

Alone in her bedroom, Alani sat at her vanity,
staring with red-rimmed eyes into the dark, the reflection of her
tear-streaked face fracturing and sliding on the rain-streaked
window. With a shuddering sigh, Alani hugged the threadbare
chenille robe tightly around her in hollow consolation and turned
back to the now-equally painful epistle on the embossed pad, taking
the pen into her numb and unfeeling hand, and finished the note to
Chris.

“
...and remember the time you
spent in Paradise, as I will remember you, always-
Mahalo.”

A solitary tear broke loose from its’ perch upon her
lovely eyelid and splashed onto the page, smearing the final word.
Alani stifled a sob and looked to her dressing table for another
page to re-write the ruined missive, and there she saw the single
business card nearly buried under the mess of previously crumpled
attempts at writing. With a shaking hand, she picked up the card
and slowly turned it over, where she saw the single word printed
carefully on its’ back.

It read, simply-

‘
Thanks.’

Alani turned the card back over and smiled in
bittersweet memory as a renewed flood of tears blurred her vision.
She blotted them from her face with a corner of the robe and read
the familiar name and its’ accompanying number on the front. With a
final sniff of tears and a stuttering intake of breath her lovely
face formed a grim smile of resolution, and she picked up her phone
and dialed…

Chris’ phone vibrated warmly from
the confines of an inner jacket pocket, rousing him from his
moribund reverie.
Who the hell could
possibly be calling me now?
he wondered,
tugging the buzzing device out into the light and looking at the
screen. His heart skipped a beat and his breath caught in his
throat when he saw the 808 area code on the screen, the caller
anonymous, but only one possibility as to who it could be. With a
sharp intake of breath to steel his emotions, he tapped the screen,
and answered.