In a lovely yet disturbing way, Carissa sensed that God had placed that image of drifting toward a safe harbor into her dream. He knew the future. He knew the past. And he was here in the present. She couldn’t deny it.
The all-encompassing beauty around her in the midst of the fragile, broken world brought Irene’s words back to her. Everything is redeemable.
13
“Malalo o Kona ‘eheu malu wau la
Ke nou na ‘ino a pouli ka po
Ia ia ku’u hilina’i, Nana e ho’omalu
Nana e ho ‘ola, ‘o wau Kona poki’i.”
“Under his wings I am safely abiding,
Though the night deepens and tempests are wild,
Still I can trust him; I know he will keep me,
He has redeemed me, and I am his child.”
WHEN CARISSA RETURNED TO the campsite, she carefully maneuvered into the makeshift hammock that hung between two palm trees a few hundred yards from the tents. She had seen Tony in it earlier, so she knew it could hold her weight. Once she was wedged in the hammock and balanced in the woven mesh, she was surprised at how comfortable it was. If anyone took a picture, she knew she would look like a plump fly, caught in a human-sized web.
But no one was taking pictures. Irene was reading, and Kai was talking to some people who had pulled in next to their campsite. They apparently knew each other. Two of the teenage boys with the group came over and greeted “Auntie Irene” and then took off for the waterfall pools.
As Carissa swayed in the unruffled morning breeze and drew in the pungent scent of the ripening guavas, she thought about leaving in a few hours and driving back to the cottage. She didn’t need to stay the whole time with the group, especially since it would soon be growing with the arrival of many more of Irene’s friends, who were like family to her and to each other. As much as Carissa enjoyed pretending, this wasn’t really where she belonged.
“If Dan were here, he would be painting right now.” Irene had walked over to the hammock, standing a few feet away, balancing on her cane with a homesick look on her face. Carissa hadn’t noticed her until she was right beside her.
“It’s too bad he couldn’t be here.”
“Next time,” Irene said. “He’ll come next time. And next time, you’ll have to come back, and your husband will have to come with you, too.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Carissa gave a nervous laugh. “He’s …we’re …”
“Now, now. You thought you weren’t much of a camper, and yet here you are, as content as can be.”
“Yes, but …”
Irene leaned on her cane and seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation. Carissa didn’t want to open up to Irene. Not now. It wasn’t her way of dealing with things. But the woman looked at her with such an expression of caring and wisdom that Carissa felt compelled to respond with the answer that shot out of her mouth.
“Richard and I …we’re going through a rough stretch right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m …I’m conflicted.” Carissa pressed her lips together, not willing to say anything else. She expected Irene to turn into a fountain of knowledge and spout helpful advice.
Instead, Irene looked sorrowful. Her empathetic expression made it clear that she had walked this road with many couples, and she grieved with Carissa in a deep place in her spirit. Irene opened her mouth and was about to say something when Kai charged toward them, holding up his cell phone.
“Hey, it’s Dad. I told him the signal wasn’t strong, but he wants to talk to you.” Kai handed over the phone.
Irene shouted, “Dan? Where are you?”
“Mom! He can hear you fine. He can probably hear you on the mainland without the phone.”
Carissa wanted to laugh, but she kept it in.
“What?” Irene yelled. “Well, I don’t know what you should order. Is it lunchtime there? Okay, so then order breakfast since you’re in a place like that.” Turning to Kai, who was still only a foot away from her, she maintained her high volume. “Twenty-four-hour breakfast place. Have you eaten at one of those before? No, not you, Dan. I’m asking Kai.”
Kai leaned over. “Tell him to order an omelet and ask for tomatoes instead of hash browns. He’ll like that.”
“Did you hear that? No, you, Dan. Did you hear what Kai said? He said to order the omelet and ask for tomatoes instead of hash browns.”
Turning to Carissa with a grin, Kai said in a low voice, “My dad usually eats only what he grows in his garden and what he likes to order from places around here. He’s a wreck on the mainland.”
“No, tomatoes. I did not say potatoes. You did. Did you say potatoes, Kai?”
He shook his head.
“We both said TOE-MAY-TOES. You don’t have to get it with …what’s that?” She looked at Kai. “I don’t know. Rye toast, then. Yes, you like rye toast. I’ve seen you eat it before. Dan? Hello? Dan?”
She held out the phone to Kai. “He hung up on me.”
“He didn’t hang up, Momi. It’s the cell phone service out here. I never get good reception on this side.”
“Call him back. He hasn’t ordered yet.”
Kai grinned. “I think he can take it from there. He’ll be fine. You did a good job.” He kissed his mom on the top of her head. “Listen, I told Mark I’d help him set up their tent and then we’re going to the Kaupo Store for some water and ice. So, if you still want me to walk over to the pools with you, how about if we go later this afternoon?”
Just then Kai’s cell phone rang again. He answered, listened a moment and said, “Okay, I’ll tell her.”
With another grin for his mom he said, “Dad ordered oatmeal.”
Carissa had to cover her mouth so the two of them wouldn’t see her swallowing her laughter. “That man,” Irene said.
As Kai walked away, Carissa swung her feet over the edge of the hammock and said to Irene, “I understand the area gets really populated with visitors in the middle of the day. If you would like to walk over there now, I’d love to go with you. I didn’t have my bathing suit on earlier, and I think I’d like to at least put my feet in the water.”
Irene looked delighted. “Not just your feet, dear. You must get all the way in or it’s not worth the journey.”
Carissa donned her bathing suit and a loose cover-up, adding shoes that had soles designed to handle the slippery rocks better than flip-flops. The two women took their time along the trail, stopping to look at the immensely large spiderweb. The sunlight came through the vibrant green leaves at just the right angle to accent the intricate design. The “friendly” fellow wasn’t at home to receive his late-morning audience, but he had managed to catch and wrap up a second insect not far from the pantry where the first pudgy, freeze-dried feast awaited.
They continued down the trail only a short distance before Irene stopped again and leaned in to sniff some tiny white flowers that were growing wild on a thin green vine. “Pikake,” she said. “Can you smell it?”
Carissa sniffed. “I think this is the same perfume I bought at the general store by the winery. What’s it called?”
“Ulupalakua.”
“No, the flower.”
“Pikake. It’s wild jasmine.”
“That’s what it is. I couldn’t place it. I love this fragrance.”
“So does my husband.” Irene peeked at Carissa over the top of her glasses. “I used to wear wild jasmine in my hair. That is, back when my hair would let me keep something more than a tangle in it. Dan loved it, absolutely loved it. The night he proposed to me we were walking on the beach, and out of the blue he asked me to be his wife. Just like that! He was completely unprepared. He didn’t even have a ring.”
Carissa grinned.
Irene grinned back. “He always said it was the wild jasmine that made him propose like that. The fragrance made him fall in love with me. That was fifty-two years ago.”
“Fifty-two years. Wow!”
With a mischievous grin, Irene added, “Someti
mes it feels like 152 years; other times—most of the time—it feels like 2 years.”
“Do you have any secrets to your success?” Carissa didn’t like the way her question came out, but she figured this was her opportunity to address their conversation that had been cut off earlier. As if to qualify her question she added, “I mean, what the two of you have is rare. I haven’t seen many marriages like yours that have lasted so long.”
With a casual brush of her hand, Irene said, “I’m sure you can find better advice in books or at some of those marriage seminars they’re always hosting at our church. But I’ll tell you what I think.”
She paused, seeming to make Carissa ask for it, beg for the sage advice.
“So, what do you think?”
“Stay.”
“Stay,” Carissa repeated.
“Yes, stay. That’s my only advice.”
They continued down the trail. Carissa tried to add meaning to Irene’s simple answer. She assumed Irene meant to stay in love. Stay married. Stay committed. Something in her spirit was still bucking against that word.
“You know, sticking it out is hard to do sometimes,” Carissa said. “People change a lot during a marriage.”
“Maybe.”
“Haven’t you and Dan changed a lot over the years? He’s not the same man you married.”
“And don’t I know it!” Irene grinned. “But in all the ways that really count, he is still who he has always been, and I’m still who I have always been. We just go through seasons that press us to behave differently. But deep inside we’re still the same. Even along those rocky stretches of road.”
“Like my drive here yesterday,” Carissa said more to herself than to Irene.
“Yes, like that. But you stayed on the road and didn’t go over the side. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘Stay.’ Marriage is a covenant relationship. It’s not just a promise you made to your spouse. The promise you made to stay together was a promise you made to God as well.”
Irene lifted her cane, as if attempting to point to the sky. “And Ke Akua dearly blesses those who keep their promises, even when it’s difficult. He knows. He hears. He cares.”
They arrived at the stairs that led down to the pools. Irene paused. “And for those who cannot or will not stay, there is always grace. Extravagant grace. One of my own children is demonstrating in his life what that sort of grace looks like. That, too, can be a deep blessing from Ke Akua.”
Carissa assumed Irene was referring to Kai. She thought it was lovely the way Irene brought up the topic of his divorce without labeling him or giving away specifics. Her mother-heart was a place where confidences were kept.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs that led to the pools, they slipped out of their shoes, and the two of them carefully edged their feet over the slick stones. A handful of tourists were swimming in the deep pool ahead of them.
Carissa stopped short of the more difficult stretch of rocks that they would have to climb if they wanted to get into the upper pool. She assumed this would be as far as Irene could safely go.
“No, we must keep going,” Irene said. “All the way to the upper pool.”
They were already up to their hips in the water. To reach the next level they would have to put Irene’s cane on the side rocks and do a bit of maneuvering to get up to the area where they could swim freely. If Irene was up for the challenge, Carissa didn’t see how she could hold back.
Leaving her cover-up on the dry rocks along with Irene’s cane and glasses, Carissa looked for the best entry route into the pool. Irene was wearing her baggy shorts and breezy cotton shirt as her swimming apparel. She kept a steady grip on Carissa’s arm as the two of them helped each other over the next stretch. Irene had difficulty with the loss of clear vision as well as her loss of agility since she was able to use only the strength of one leg. Twice Carissa paused to ask if she wanted to stop or go back.
Irene’s answer was “no” each time.
It came to Carissa in a fleeting thought that she had also been saying “no” a lot these past few days. Only Carissa was saying “no” to facing the difficult thoughts and relationships while this intrepid woman beside her was saying “no” to giving up.
With considerable effort, they reached the place where they could finally enter the upper pool. The dense jungle foliage cascading over the dark rocks gave the feeling that this was a hidden pool where they were tucked away from modern civilization. This area had been a feast for her eyes when Carissa viewed it from a distance earlier. Now that she was surrounded by the timeless elements of rock, water, and air and taking in the sound of the waterfall close-up, Carissa felt exhilarated.
She turned to Irene and saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Irene, are you okay?”
“Look at this! All of it! I love this place. I’ve always loved this place. I thought I might never return. When we came last spring it was too soon after my car accident and surgery. I couldn’t get down here to the pools. I thought I would never do this again.”
Irene’s small confession made her noble effort that much more impressive. Carissa felt honored to be here with her and wanted to wrap the fragile warrior up in her arms in a big hug. If she did that, there was a good chance both of them would lose their footing and tumble into the pool. It was better to wait to give the hug.
“Shall we?” Irene’s question came with a sense of triumph.
“I’m ready if you are.”
In unison, the two women lowered themselves into the pool. They bobbed in the chilly water that came up to their necks, and they each made glad, shivering sounds. Irene stretched out her arms and became a lovely sight in the water. Her frame moved differently in water than it did on land. Here, she was unhindered by the challenges she had with her leg and hip. Here, she was weightless and free. And so graceful.
Carissa stroked her arms through the water right beside Irene, and the two of them headed to the center of the pool. There, in the full sunlight, Irene dipped all the way under the water. She came up radiant and glimmering, with the fresh water droplets clinging to her skin like stars.
Carissa wanted to grow up to be like Irene. She wanted to be radiant, with a face full of stars when she was seventy and not to be afraid to traverse rocky places so she could swim in an ancient pool. She knew deep inside that part of Irene’s beauty treatment was to “stay.”
They swam toward the rushing waterfall and yelled to hear each other over the sound of the unleashed fury.
“Come!” Irene called. She paddled closer and closer to the falls until she was right beside the monstrous flow. Then she disappeared.
“Irene!” Carissa swam quickly and found her companion behind the waterfall laughing her little heart out.
Carissa joined her, feeling the roar of the falls cascading in front of them and blinking from the constant spray on her face. The rush was like nothing she had ever experienced.
Irene pushed her way through the water and out the side. She kept stroking her way through the pool until she was back to where the two of them had entered.
Carissa couldn’t stop smiling. The din of the rushing water was still reverberating in her ears.
“Deep calls to deep,” Irene called out triumphantly.
“Yes,” Carissa agreed, even though she wasn’t sure what that meant. She did notice that Irene’s teeth were chattering, which meant it was time to get out. But Carissa found it difficult to keep her balance on the underwater ledges around the pool’s edge as she tried to hoist herself out. She couldn’t pull herself up, nor could she push against the sides of the slippery pool enough to get a grip.
Two teenage boys, who had been jumping off the rocks, came swimming toward them calling out to Irene. Carissa recognized them as the boys who had arrived with their dad earlier.
“Do you need some help, auntie?”
“I do,” Carissa confessed. Before she could make a suggestion of what they should do, the two boys swam up behind her and
told her to pull herself up with her arms. Suddenly, four flat hands were firmly placed on her rear end, giving her a rousing boost up and out of the pool.
She flopped onto the rocks, feeling like a beached seal and almost certain she matched her own visual image in the eyes of the two teenagers.
The first thing she did was to reach for the bottom of her bathing suit and tug down the elastic leg opening so as to cover up the slippage of whiteness she could feel peeking out. Then she rolled over, sat up slowly, and did a quick scan to make sure other bits of personal white space weren’t peeking out anywhere else.
One of the boys was already out of the pool on the other side. “You should come on this side, Auntie.”
Irene scooted over to their suggested exit, and with more dignified assistance, the two of them helped her out.
“Oh, that was heavenly, wasn’t it?” Irene patted the drips off her wrinkled cheek with the palm of her hand. She adjusted her balance and twisted the ends of her shirt to wring out the water. “How about if we get our things and then go find ourselves a bit of sunshine where we can sit and dry out?”
The boys were already back in the water, splashing each other. Carissa handed Irene her cane and glasses, and the two of them gingerly sloshed through the ankle-deep water. They had to go all the way up the stairs to the upper cliff before they found an open patch of sun.
“Did you notice the signs over there by the stack of volcanic rock?” Irene pointed to the left.
“No, what do they say?”
“This is an archaeological site. At one time a large village thrived here.”
“If I were to live in Old Hawaii, this is where I would want to live, too.” Carissa sat down on the velvety green grass that felt as soft as a tucked Berber carpet. Irene stood, leaning on her cane, her shirt flapping in the strong wind.
“Did I tell you that Ka’ahumanu was born not far from here?”
“Yes, you mentioned that the other night.”
“Her father was a chief of notable rank. She may have come to this very spot as a child. She might have swum in the same pool we just paddled around in or sat right here and gazed at the sky.”