It had worked with Richard because he knew quite a bit about honoring boundaries. When it came to God, Carissa wasn’t confident her “no” would carry the same punch. If that were the case, then the way she felt right now, she would just have to punch harder. It was, after all, her life. She got to make her own decisions.
And it was her decision to block out everything else so she could focus on what awaited her at the campground.
Or was it who awaited her at the campground?
11
“He lepo makou, he po’e make no
Ia ‘oe no na’e ka hilina’i mau
‘O ‘oe ka Makua, Ho ‘ola pana’i
A nou mai ka pono, ka ho’opomaika’i.”
“Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.”
BY FOUR O’CLOCK ON the afternoon of her courageous solo drive to the rainy side of the island, Carissa was seated in a comfortable folding lawn chair. Beside her, in the shade of a grove of guava trees, was Irene. Both of them were balancing blue china teacups on blue china saucers.
Behind them, above the tall grass and strung between two guava trees, was a brightly colored mesh-net hammock. In front of them was a picnic table courtesy of the Haleakala National Park along with a standing charcoal grill, also part of the camp setup. The rest of the cozy items had been brought in by the group.
Three medium-sized dome tents were set in place on the anchored ground tarps, looking like three gray igloos transplanted from the tundra of the forty-ninth state to the lush green open space of the fiftieth state.
Beyond the tents, across the wide field of mown grass that comprised the extent of the primitive camping area, was a spot where the grasses had been left to grow wild. Through the tall jungle of waste-high grass were several trails that led to the volcanic cliffs. Beyond the rocks and cliffs, Irene informed Carissa, was the ocean. Several palm trees dotted the scene at unplanned intervals.
Carissa counted five cars parked on the grassy camping area. Three of them had tents set up beside them. At the far end of the wide stretch was the only facility, an outhouse. She had been warned the camping was primitive, but only a single outhouse? No running water?
What fascinated Carissa most was that Irene was in her happy place. That she had brought her china, carefully packed and lovingly presented to Carissa brimming with mild green tea, was evidence that Irene had a sense of hospitality about her no matter where she went.
“When the men return, they will be so surprised to see you,” Irene said. She offered Carissa a plate of plein-air treats—slices of guava and small, round ginger cookies.
“I’m so glad you decided to come. They will all be eager to hear the story you told me about driving through Ulupalakua and around the back side. I wouldn’t have recommended that route for you your first time here. It took you half a day!”
“I know. It was a spontaneous decision, as I said.” Carissa licked the sticky, sweet guava from her fingers and sipped the cooled green tea.
Suddenly something darted out of the rustling grass under the guava tree grove. The long, fuzzy creature with short legs stopped two feet away from Carissa, picked at something in the dirt, and then dashed back into hiding.
“What was that?” Carissa involuntarily had lifted her feet.
“A mongoose.” Irene named the creature without looking at it or batting an eyelash. “They were introduced to the islands to help curb the rat population that came ashore with the whaler and trader ships.”
For a moment Carissa didn’t move. Then she lowered her feet. “Curb the rat population? Oh, I feel better now about sleeping in a tent tonight.”
“You’ll sleep just fine. Kai will let you use the other air mattress.”
Carissa tried to find a point of reference for everything she was feeling at the moment. The humid warmth of the tropical breeze, the pungent scent of the overripe fruit falling from the surrounding trees, and the visiting mongoose were all far stretches from anything she had ever experienced. A week ago she had felt unsafe in her own backyard, for valid reasons. Yet, here she was, surrounded by unfamiliar territory and about to spend the night in a tent. A tent that was pitched in a place so remote she didn’t have cell phone service. More than that, she was here with people she barely knew while around her feet were marauding animals that belonged in a zoo.
From the dirt road that led into the camping area came the voices and laughter of several men. Carissa and Irene looked in that direction and saw Kai coming toward them with two others. Irene said earlier that they had hiked up to the bamboo forest and were going to swim in the waterfall pools.
Carissa felt all the funny little childish squirms and tingles she had experienced the first time she had seen Kai. She told herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just feeling happy, and nothing was wrong with that after all the horrible emotions she had felt over the past week.
When Kai saw her, a look of pleasant surprise came over his face. At least that’s what she liked to think she saw in his expression. Carissa rose to greet him, and he came to her the way Mano had at the airport, straightforward with a brush of a kiss on her right cheek and a warm greeting.
Inside, Carissa glowed. The two other men were introduced. To her surprise, they repeated Kai’s gesture and greeted her with a kiss of aloha on her cheek and greeted Irene, calling her auntie.
Carissa noticed that one of the young men, Joel, appeared to be about the same age as her son, Blake. Joel had round glasses and was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. He seemed the least comfortable with offering a kiss on the cheek. He was comfortable, though, with talking about the incredible photos he had taken during their hike through the bamboo forest. He reminded Carissa of Blake, and she wished her son could come here one day and experience all this. She knew he would love it.
In the twenty minutes or so that followed, they took turns relaying their tales of the day. Carissa told about her nerve-racking drive to the campground, and all of them acted impressed, even though she doubted they were.
She calmed her inner flutters as the guys talked about their hike. She reminded herself that Kai hadn’t really “kissed” her, nor did the greeting mean anything other than a normal island-style hello. It was an expression of Hawaiian hospitality, not of favoritism or affection.
Dinner became the next topic for the five of them. Tony, the tallest, looked as if he were in his late thirties. He wore his long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and fastened with a thin strip of leather. Insisting on taking over the details at the grill, he told Carissa he was a cook at a restaurant in a town called Paia, and if she came that way, she should stop in.
“If you’re there for breakfast, order the pineapple macadamia-nut pancakes with the coconut syrup. That’s one of our specialties. For lunch, you have to go with the mahimahi sandwich but ask for the whole wheat bun instead of the kaiser roll. And ask for lettuce. That sandwich doesn’t automatically come with lettuce, but I think it’s better with it.”
Carissa nodded but knew she would never remember anything he was telling her. She went to work helping with dinner preparations by following Irene’s instructions on plates and flatware. No paper plates for this crew. Irene had packed her everyday dishes and even had votive candles in glass holders for the table.
“Is this the entire group?” Carissa asked, pulling out five of everything.
“For tonight,” Tony said. “What do you think, Irene? Will we have about fifteen more tomorrow?”
“At least.”
“How often do you guys come here?” Carissa asked.
“We try to come two times every year,” Irene said. “We started as a fellowship group from church back when our children were young. Even though the group has changed dramatically over the years, a remnant always manages to come. Last spring we had thirty. That was
the most we had had in a long time.”
In a strangely detached way, Carissa had put aside everything that was familiar to her. When the trauma hit last week, it was as if she started to separate herself from the familiar routines of her day-to-day life and had been set adrift, seeking a new shore. This island, these people, this new rhythm of life felt attainable to her in a surrealistic way. She could adapt. She could make this her new home. Here she would be safe.
Carissa found she couldn’t eat much of the well-prepared dinner of chicken thighs and corn on the cob from Dan’s garden. Thoughts of Richard and his heartfelt apology kept returning to her, but she pushed them back in the file cabinet where that topic belonged for now.
Tony stood and went to the ice chest for a bottle of water, asking if anyone else wanted one.
“I would,” Carissa said.
Tony flipped his hand toward her with the same gesture she had seen first from Kai in the driveway and then from the driver she had passed on the narrow road.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“This?” Kai reproduced the sign by turning the palm of his right hand toward himself and sticking up his pinky and thumb. Then he gave his hand an easygoing shake. “It means, ‘hang loose,’ ‘take it easy.’”
Carissa tried to duplicate the gesture. “Like this?”
“You got it. Now say, ‘Shaka.’”
“Shaka.”
“That’s it. You’re ready to go island-style now. Shaka. Hang loose.”
Carissa smiled, and Kai smiled back.
The natural light around the campsite was dimming. New sounds emerged from the trees behind them. In the other direction, far across the water, a few glimmers of light flitted in the distance.
“Is that another island?” Carissa asked.
“Yes, that’s the Big Island. Or the island of Hawaii, whichever you prefer to call it.” Kai leaned back and stretched with his hand clasped behind his neck. “I’m sure my mom can talk story about something that happened there a century or two ago.”
“I’ll tell you something about Ka’ahumanu that happened right over there, on the west coast of the Big Island where those lights are coming from.”
Carissa had forgotten the name of the six-foot, three-hundred-pound woman who made kites and surfed and had a tattoo on her tongue. But she remembered everything about the woman’s verve.
“Ka’ahumanu had been intricately entwined with her husband, Kamehameha the Great, for thirteen years when she believed she was losing his love and favor.”
Carissa felt an odd shiver go up her spine. It struck her that women everywhere, in every generation, must struggle with the same thoughts and feelings that were affecting her.
“Kamehameha went to Honaunau to be with another woman. Remember, Kamehameha had at least eighteen wives, so Ka’ahumanu was used to the competition for his attention and affection. However, this woman was different. This woman her husband was going to be with happened to be Ka’ahumanu’s younger sister.”
“Not cool,” Tony said.
“That’s exactly what Ka’ahumanu thought. In an act of perhaps desperation, perhaps passion, she jumped into the ocean and swam more than five miles in shark-infested waters at night just to be with him.”
Joel laughed. “That’s legend. Has to be. Five miles? At night? No way.”
“Almost all my sources agree on that story as fact.”
“What happened when she got there? Did she deck him?”
“I don’t know. None of the historians included that detail.” Irene lit the votive candles on the table and started in on another story. “When Kamehameha the Great died, Liholiho, the son of his sacred wife, became the king even though he was only a teenager. At the makahiki feast soon after Kamehameha the Great’s death, Liholiho changed the course of history for these islands. You see, the ancient law prohibited women from eating with the men. They also weren’t allowed to eat certain foods such as pork, bananas, or coconuts.
“So, when Liholiho arrived at the feast, all eyes were on him. Would this newly appointed king maintain the ancient traditions? Or would he give in and adopt the cultural changes that had come to the islands as a result of the outside world’s influence?”
“I think we can all guess what happened,” Tony said. “He caved, didn’t he?”
Irene grinned. “First he sat with all the men, then he walked over to the group of women, and then back to the men, and then back to the women. The huge crowd grew silent, waiting to see what he would decide. They believed that if he ate with the women the gods would strike him dead. Suddenly he sat down between his royal mother and Ka’ahumanu and ate their food. Very quickly, I might add. Everyone at this huge gathering saw that he could defy the gods and live. That very night the burning of the tiki gods and the destruction of the heiaus began.”
“What are hay-ee-ows?” Carissa asked.
“They were the holy places on all the islands where sacrifices were made to the gods—sometimes human sacrifices.”
A debate ensued over whether the early Hawaiians actually performed human sacrifice, since some reports indicated they lived under a peaceful feudal system.
“I hate to say this,” Tony said, “but all I’ve ever heard is that the missionaries came and messed everything up for the peaceful Hawaiians. They destroyed the ancient worship and traditions.”
“But the Protestant missionaries weren’t on the islands when the old system was destroyed.” Irene rustled on the picnic bench like a pleased hen. “They arrived six months later, after sailing all the way from Boston, with no idea of the changes that had happened here during their journey. I believe it was God—Ke Akua—who took away the old ways to make room for the new truth.”
Tony didn’t look convinced. “So, when the missionaries arrived, who gave them permission to live here?”
Irene smiled. “Ka’ahumanu. I think she liked that the seventeen men and women missionaries arrived with five children. The whalers and traders didn’t bring their women and children.”
Tony stood and threw in one more antagonistic comment. “They may have started with only seventeen, but they ended up taking over the land. Isn’t that when the Hawaiians started dying by the hundreds due to the missionaries bringing in diseases like measles and smallpox?”
Kai was the one who jumped in next. “Why do you attribute the diseases to the missionaries? What about the hundreds of whalers, sailors, and traders who came here and took in the young women who swam out to the ships? Not exactly a hygienic bunch. You really think it was the missionaries who brought syphilis to the islands?”
“All I know,” Tony said, “is that during that time in history, thousands of native Hawaiians died because their immune systems couldn’t handle the diseases. My tutu says it was a great loss from which the islands have never recovered.”
“It was. No one would argue with your grandmother on that point.” Irene lowered her voice and added, “I also believe that the shedding of innocent blood in ritual sacrifices for hundreds of years prior to any Western or Eastern contact was a great loss to the Hawaiian people.”
The discussion ended there, and Carissa felt a sense of relief that the topic wasn’t going to stay fixed on the spread of disease and human sacrifice. While they had lingered at the table, the sky had darkened, and she was feeling creeped out by the topic. It didn’t help that a few persistent mosquitoes had come after her blood and kept landing on her bare legs in spite of all the jiggling she was doing under the table to keep them away.
“Not to change the topic, but by any chance does anyone have some repellent? These mosquitoes must think my legs are an open buffet.”
“I have some.” Joel headed for the van. “It’s all natural. Good for the environment, good for you, but not so good for the mosquitoes.”
Kai collected and stacked the dishes now that there was a pause in the after-dinner entertainment. Apparently he had a story he wanted to be added to the evening. “You do know that there
weren’t mosquitoes in old Hawaii, don’t you?”
“Yeah, right.” Tony wasn’t in an agreeable mood about anything at the moment, it seemed.
“It’s true. Tell ’em, Mom. This is one of her stories I’ve never forgotten.”
“Then you tell it, Kai.” She looked pleased that he remembered one of her stories.
“As I understand it, mosquitoes were introduced to the island by a crew of angry sailors. They wanted to get back at the missionaries in Lahaina for not allowing the young Hawaiian girls to swim out to the ships to be with them. They brought back a cask of mosquito larvae from Mexico and released it into the drinking water behind the Baldwin Missionary House. And here we are tonight. Swatting away their offspring.”
“Are you serious? How idiotic could those guys be?” Joel had returned with a small pump-spray bottle and handed it to Carissa. “They upset the entire ecological balance of the islands.”
Carissa stepped away from the group to apply the mosquito repellent without upsetting everyone’s ecological balance.
After all the food was closed up and put away from any midnight snackers of the wildlife variety, Carissa asked to borrow a flashlight since it seemed like as good a time as any to make the dreaded trek to the outhouse.
She opened the creaking door, flashed the light around, and was quick. At least it was a well-maintained facility and as “nice” as such a place could be. Even a bottle of hand sanitizer was provided at the door. She stepped out into the darkness and hurried to the campsite, keeping her eyes on the earth just a few feet in front of her.
Kai was seated at the picnic table and appeared to be watching her. In the candleglow, she could tell he was grinning.
“What’s so funny?” She quickly looked down to make sure she hadn’t trailed any toilet paper back with her.
“You missed the best part of the walk to the outhouse.”
“And what could possibly be the best part of that walk?”
He got up from the table. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
Carissa handed him the flashlight, and he led the way back to the center of the open field and then suddenly stopped. He turned off the light.