Later, when we're sitting in the living room, I look up the name Hana, but find only Hannah, meaning "grace" or "the mother of Samuel," the prophet from the Old Testament. I can only imagine all the stories attached to it.
"Hana means 'flower' in Japanese," Laura says, when I question the spelling of her name. I'm immediately taken by the idea that a name can also mean something else in another language.
I flip through the book and find my mother's name again. Laura means 'laurel,' which is a wreath or crown. There's no need to look any further for a more inspiring meaning, since it's a name that suits her just fine.
A few years ago, Mom carefully explained to us that Hana had some kind of disease that makes her body grow physically old, even though she really isn't. My dad was in the living room, watching the news. We were in the kitchen setting the table, and it was a rare night when Mom was home from the office early.
"How much older?" I asked.
She pulled out an onion from the refrigerator. "Twice as fast as the normal rate."
"How did she get the disease?" Camille asked, placing a blue napkin at each plate.
"It's genetic," she said, slicing an onion. "It's a gene that she was born with."
"When did she start looking old?" I asked, pouring milk into our glasses.
Mom turned around, the knife in her hand. "The first symptoms began in her twenties."
"That must be strange," Camille said, "knowing someone who's going to suddenly grow old before your eyes. I wonder what she looks like now."
"I haven't seen Hana in a long time," Mom suddenly said, dropping the onions into the frying pan. They sizzled and filled the kitchen with a sharp aroma I always liked.
"Why not?" I asked.
Mom paused a moment and didn't answer. Then she turned from the stove and said, "You were babies and it was hard to travel." Then, realizing we haven't been babies for quite a while, she added, "Then my work seemed to dominate everything. And there were times when Hana wasn't feeling too well."
"She must look really old now," I added, putting the milk back into the refrigerator.
"Yeah," Camille echoed.
Mom nodded her head. When she turned back to us, her eyes were moist and red, which she blamed on the onions.
CATE
The Thunderbird
There are defining moments in my life that have changed me forever, when I knew nothing afterward would ever be the same. In addition to marriage, birth, and death, the big three, there were unexpected events when even the air around me changed and I had to learn how to breathe all over again.
At first, the thought of my healthy child having something wrong with her was so outrageous I was sure the doctors had made a terrible mistake. How could God pull such a cruel joke? Max and I barely slept the night after leaving the doctor's office. "We need to run more tests," the doctor said. What did that mean? I asked. And what was this Werner's syndrome the doctor mentioned? Our San Francisco hotel room suddenly seemed small and suffocating. We lay apart from each other in bed, listening to the soft breaths from Hana's cot on the other side of the room. It seemed as if she were breathing for all of us.
The next day, we drove back to Daring. I kept glancing into the backseat at my bright and happy girl, wondering how this could be God's will. How he could have finally given us Hana, only to take away her chance for a happy life of her own. It was too unfair. Max stared straight ahead, as if the road had pulled him into some kind of trance. Halfway home, when we finally stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom, Max spoke for the first time since the three-hour drive began. "Who wants something to drink?" A weak smile formed on his lips.
"I do," Hana piped up. "A Coke?" She looked at me for approval.
"A Coke it is," Max said before I'd even had a chance to answer. He pushed the car door open.
"It will spoil her dinner," I said automatically.
For the first time in our entire seventeen years of marriage, Max shot me a look that glimmered with pure resentment. "Does it really matter?"
I felt as if he'd struck me. Of course it matters, I thought, but the words lay flat and heavy in my throat. I wondered if he could possibly blame me for Hana's illness. I leaned over to touch his sleeve, but he got out of the car before I could reach him. Even now, so many years after that initial shock, I wince at the distance that pooled between us that afternoon. For weeks after, the closer I tried to move toward Max, the farther he withdrew.
Soon we were feeling the burden of rising medical bills. Hana needed a barrage of blood tests and X rays that took us to San Francisco three times that first month. And while our insurance covered certain areas, most of the genetic testing was too new and experimental to be included.
For two months we hid the fact that there might be something wrong with her, reluctant to disturb her life; after all, she was only thirteen and still seemingly healthy. When Hana began questioning all the tests she had to take, I remember saying to Max, "We can't hide it from her anymore."
"What's wrong with me?" she asked. "Why is Dad always so sad?"
"They're just taking some blood tests to make sure everything's all right. Your checkup showed some abnormalities, and they just want to be thorough," I soothed her.
But we hid the truth from ourselves as well, hoping she would prove the doctors wrong and grow into a strong young woman. Max and I had to lie, so that we could face Hana and not break into tears, and so that we didn't have to feel so sorry for ourselves. Some nights I prayed to God that it was all a mistake, while on other nights I couldn't pray at all.
When the bills started coming in, I picked up more substitute teaching jobs; Max taught an extra class and worked longer hours at the college tutorial center, then came home exhausted. Most nights we were too tired to talk, or even to grieve, and we both simply fell into a heavy, drug-like sleep.
It took Hana finally to say the words I'd held back. Halfway through the third month after all her tests, she and Max were in the living room late one afternoon when I heard her suddenly ask him, "Are you mad at me?" I stood at the kitchen doorway and listened, heard the rustling of the newspaper as he lowered it and looked up at her. Even with his back to me, I could imagine the worry lines deepening across his forehead as his eyes widened.
"Of course not," he answered softly.
"You're always unhappy." Hana's voice grew stronger. "Is it because of all the tests I have to take? I can stop."
Max cleared his throat. "You haven't done anything," he answered. "I've just been working too hard."
"Are you mad at Mom?"
"No."
"Well, you're mad about something."
I knew Hana was not about to let it go until she received some kind of answer. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Then Max folded the paper and stood up. "Come on, let's go for a drive."
From the time she was a little girl, Hana loved it when Max drove her around in the Thunderbird with the top down. She'd wave to neighbors and strangers alike, or hold her arms up high above her head, daring the wind to blow her away.
"Mom, we'll be back by dinner," Hana yelled as the door banged shut behind them.
When they returned from their drive that evening, Max had answered all her questions. "I told her something may be wrong," he said, when they walked in, not looking me in the eye. Hana appeared pale and shaken.
I turned from her to glare at Max. "How dare you?" I snapped. "How dare you tell her without me!" I wanted to slap him for his silence, for betraying me by not allowing me to be there and hold my daughter against all her fears. It was a decision both of us should have made.
But Hana stepped between us and hugged me tightly, her fragile body trembling against mine. "It was me, Mom. I made him tell me."
"What's wrong with me?" she asked that night in tears.
"The doctors aren't sure yet," I answered, deciding then and there that I would never keep anything from her again. "They thought it might be a problem with your pituitary or thyroi
d gland or something called Turner's syndrome, but the tests have returned negative. They also suspect a disease called Werner's syndrome."
"What's that?"
"It affects your aging and growing process."
"Will I die soon?" Her voice strained. "Because I don't want to die."
I sat on Hana's bed holding her, trying to give her answers I didn't know myself. I took a deep breath, trying to be calm, my throat dry from my own fear. "No, you won't die soon," I soothed. "The doctors aren't even certain it's Werner's syndrome. You'll still have plenty of years ahead of you."
"How many?" Hana pulled away from me, her dark eyes wide with fear. "I want to know how many."
I shook my head and felt frantic inside. I had no idea. "I'm not sure, the doctors will have to tell us that."
"I want to know," Hana said again. She had Max's strong will and determination.
"Years and years," I said, hating God at that moment but pleading with him anyway. Please, God, at least twenty or thirty years. You have to give her that long.
"How many?" Hana persisted.
"Thirty years," I guessed. It was a foolish thing to say when I couldn't know. My face flushed with the lie, and I felt a swell of anger rise up inside — anger at myself for having lied, with Max for putting me in such a position and, most of all, anger at God, who had abandoned us.
I could feel Hana's body shiver in my arms, then slowly calm. At thirteen, she must have felt as if thirty years was a lifetime away. It was, after all, a small piece of hope for her as well as for me. She relaxed in my arms then, until her breathing slowed and I knew she was asleep.
That same night, moments after we'd turned out our lights, Max whispered, "Maybe the doctors are wrong. Maybe Hana's fine." We lay in bed without touching, as we had ever since we returned from San Francisco three months before.
My wordless groan told him I believed otherwise.
"I'm sorry I've been acting like a jerk," he added, his voice breaking.
"You have been." I turned and looked for him in the darkness.
He breathed in and out heavily, as if struggling for air. "She seems so normal."
"And it's up to us to make sure her life stays as normal as possible." I'd been telling myself this every day as I stood at the kitchen window watching Hana outside with the neighbors' kids. She didn't look so different, maybe smaller, but all kids take their own time growing. She was still bright, funny, and apparently healthy.
"Yes," Max answered, a calm returning to his voice.
"I need to know that you can do that, because if you can't..." My voice trailed off. It was an ultimatum I never thought I'd deliver.
"I can," he whispered in the darkness.
I took a deep breath so I wouldn't cry. I could tell Max was watching me now, straining in the dark for the familiar. Then I felt his body inch toward me, closing the space that had separated us, his warm hands reaching out for me.
* * *
Two weeks later, Max left for work in the Thunderbird very early in the morning and returned that evening at the wheel of a green Ford sedan.
"I was able to get a very good price for the Bird from a guy who came up from San Francisco," he said. "It'll help with the bills."
"Oh, Max," I said, trying to hold back tears.
He smiled tiredly. "It's time to grow up."
"What will we tell Hana?" She loved the Thunderbird as much as Max did.
"That we needed a bigger car." He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.
It wasn't a lie. I thought of the many times I had cursed that car as I tried to get groceries out of the narrow backseat or tied another scarf around my hair when the top was down. But I loved the Thunderbird because it was so intricately tied to Max and his sense of freedom. I loved the Thunderbird because it had brought Max to Waterford, Maine, that day so many years ago. I didn't say another word, just hugged him tightly until he pulled away. "I think I'll lie down for a while before dinner," he said. The sudden loss of his warmth left me feeling desolate. I watched as he walked out of the kitchen and upstairs to our room, the door clicking shut behind him.
We'd turned the page on our fairy tale. From that day on, we were in the fight together. To me, and to Hana, even without his gleaming black-and-white Thunderbird, Max was still a prince.
HANA
The American Dream
I roam from room to room in my wheelchair. I'm not sure what it is that suddenly reminds me of the photograph of the Thunderbird, but it's imperative that I find it, like a thirst that demands water. The wheelchair becomes a nuisance when it refuses to turn, or is too wide to enter narrow spaces. I can't believe that wheelchair-bound TV detective played by Raymond Burr on Ironside could ever have solved a case without his sidekicks doing all the legwork. But then I think again — he was the one who solved all the cases.
When I look back, I see that Werner became real for me the day my father sold his Thunderbird. Before then, I knew only that I had something wrong but no one seemed to have the answer. Werner was just one test after another, and for a long time it was a mystery disease that — except for my short stature — I had yet to feel or see.
"Tell me more about Werner's syndrome," I asked Dr. Truman six months after seeing the doctors in San Francisco. All the other tests I'd taken had returned negative by then. Cate wanted everything out in the open, for which I've always been grateful. No more surprises. She had stepped outside, and he and I remained in his office alone. Unlike his examining rooms, which were always so antiseptic, his office was as comfortable as someone's living room.
"If it is Werner's syndrome, you may not see obvious signs of the disease until you're in your twenties. There have been varying cases," Dr. Truman explained. He sat down in the leather chair next to me and straightened his tie. "Then it may first appear subtly in the way you look, your hair turning gray, the skin on your face changing."
"I'll get old?" I asked, matter-of-factly, as if it were all happening to someone else.
"You'll begin to age." Dr. Truman cleared his throat.
"But not right now?" I asked.
"No, there won't be any outward signs for another ten years or so."
"And then I'll die?"
Dr. Truman's eyes widened at my question, and he shook his head. I could see flecks of gray in his hair. "The aging process isn't that fast, Hana. You'll have many years after that."
"Do you think it's Werner's syndrome?" I asked.
Dr. Truman hesitated. "We can't be sure yet," he answered.
"How many years?" It was becoming my new chant in life.
Dr. Truman hesitated again. "If you take good care and we monitor everything regularly, a good thirty years or more," he finally answered.
Only then did I take a deep breathy my knuckles white from grasping the arms of the chair I sat in, relieved that what my mother had told me was true.
As the days passed, Werner became more of a looming mystery. Not until my twenties would I suddenly and rapidly begin to age, and that seemed very far away. While my parents anguished, I was more frightened by the way they were acting than by the disease itself.
I'll never forget that evening when Max came home without the Thunderbird. Even as I heard him saying, "We need a bigger car now that you're growing up," I felt as if I'd ruined everything. I tried hard not to cry in front of him and, rather than upset him more, I ran out to the garage, where my tears flowed freely. That ugly, green sedan was the direct result of my being sick. I knew he had sold the Thunderbird to help pay for all the tests I was taking. And that made me feel much worse than the disease itself.
"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" I remember yelling at the car, kicking it over and over, and slapping the hood until my hand stung and reddened.
From the moment I understood how much the Thunderbird meant to Max, I had treasured it, too. Not that I wouldn't have appreciated it on my own, but you do that for the people you love, learn to enjoy what they enjoy. I can still feel the wind in
my hair as we drove down the street. When he was behind the wheel of that car, my father was somebody else, someone who cherished the freedom it gave him to go anywhere he pleased. And I've never been able to forgive myself for taking that freedom away from him again. First Heart Mountain, and then me.
Cate keeps most of the older family albums in the hall closet, neatly stacked on the second shelf, just within reach. I begin at the top and work my way down the pile, all the vibrant red, green, and orange colors of Life Savers. The photo I'm looking for was taken over thirty years ago, and with each page I turn, I keep hoping it will suddenly appear. What I do find are scalloped-edged black-and-white photos of Cate and Max, so young and carefree I can hardly recognize them. There are also photos of my grandparents when they were young, my grandfather Louis when he arrived from Italy as a boy, my grandmother Midori in a kimono at the Los Angeles Cherry Blossom Festival, each a bit of history frozen in time.
But the photo I'm looking for isn't there. I stack the albums neatly back on the shelf and close the closet door. When I straighten up, my head spins and a flush of heat suddenly charges through my body, as if someone has filled my veins with warm water. I lean back in my chair, dizzy, and don't know if I should yell for Cate. I imagine her rushing in from her gardening, laying her ungloved hand on my forehead, feeling the heat of a raging fever. But just as quickly, the warmth subsides. I'm relieved I didn't call out and make a scene over what must just be another side effect of the pills I'm taking, to be cataloged along with the irregular heartbeat, loss of appetite, dizziness, the muscle spasms and rashes. There's a slight twinge in my stomach, too, a reminder of the ulcer I had a few years ago. If Werner doesn't kill me, I'm sure all the pills I'm ingesting soon will.