Last Light

2 Desperate to Escape Hawaii

Makani could have driven to the restaurant in three minutes, but she took ten, winding through the residential streets of the peninsula point, doubling back on herself, the windshield dappled with continuously changing laceworks of sunlight and leaf shadows, while she recalled her life in Hawaii.

After only six years, those days and places seemed like threads and figurations in a tapestry of dreams: the tropical forests and the pineapple fields and the dormant volcanoes that were ancient gods sleeping but aware, the sudden rains and the many waterfalls of the Ko’olau mountains, the refreshing trade winds….

She missed all of it. Now and then she suffered a long day of sadness when she realized too poignantly how the paradise of her childhood and adolescence was slowly fading from the fabric of her soul.

Most of all, she missed her mother and father. Great-Aunt Lokemele. Grandmother Kolokea. Uncle Pilipo, who preferred to be called by the English equivalent — Philip. Her sister, Janice. Her brother, Robert, who answered only to his Hawaiian name — Lopaka.

She longed for all the others as well, both blood kin and friends, whom she had left behind.

Since she had been sixteen, however, life had grown steadily more difficult when lived among so many people whom she loved. At that age, her gift came upon her suddenly and without explanation. The gift — or perhaps curse — was to discover, by the merest touch, other people’s darkest secrets.

Her family and friends were good people, struggling to live with grace and with consideration for others. They were not angels, however, not a one of them, but human beings with weaknesses and faults. Just like Makani herself. Compared to outrages that were committed by others in this fallen world, the desires of her loved ones, their moments of envy, and their less-than-noble urges were almost innocent. Yet that unwanted knowledge changed how Makani regarded each person; to preserve the image of them that she had harbored before the power came upon her, she found herself taking their hands less often, kissing them hardly at all, and even shrinking from their touch.

Her plight grew worse year by year, because in time she became even more sensitive to the current darkest secret of anyone she knew too well. With friends and family, the touch no longer needed to be skin to skin. A hand placed affectionately upon her shoulder would transmit through her clothing the smoldering resentment or ignoble desire preoccupying the person at that moment.

One day, having lost a boy whose love she’d sought, Janice envied Makani the blue eyes inherited from their Irish father, and petulantly wished on her younger sister some misfortune that would rob her of her good looks.

Robert, who insisted on being Lopaka, had once been angered that a coworker had received an unearned promotion. He wished ardently that he could think of a way to frame the man for some transgression that would get him fired.

Janice’s envy would pass. She loved Makani no less than Makani loved her. Neither of them would hurt the other or rejoice in the other’s misery. Likewise, Robert was too morally centered to act upon his unworthy desire.

If Makani had been able to read entire minds or at least to see a wider spectrum of a person’s thoughts, her strange talent might have been more tolerable. When the touch occurred, if the person was not in the grip of a bitter resentment or a hateful coveting, or a most violent urge, Makani received no psychic input. She was attuned solely to vile and intensely felt emotions and desires that people would never willingly reveal. She was made aware of only the most low-minded, most mean-spirited, wickedest secret or unexpressed craving. As a consequence, she found it increasingly difficult to remain always aware that the glimpse she was given into the other’s heart was not the sum of the person, not even indicative of the true self, but only a minuscule fraction of his or her real nature.

To spare herself the repeated traumas that might eventually have made her cynical, that might have led to a distrust of those she loved the most, she had self-exiled from glorious Oahu just after her twentieth birthday.

She had made friends here on the mainland; but she wasn’t as close to them as she might have been. She engineered relationships that were more formal than usual in casual Southern California, less touchy-feely. Inevitably, she spent more time alone than she would have liked to.

Taking a lover involved more emotional risk, a greater chance of heartbreak, for her than for people who were not burdened with her paranormal talent. In moments of the greatest intimacy, when she succumbed to passion, she seemed more psychically receptive than usual, and if her partner harbored excessive animosity toward anyone or hid from the world a repugnant desire, he might disclose it in his rapture.

She had no intention of taking Rainer Sparks into her bed this day. Perhaps never. But so far she liked him. The mere possibility of shared intimacy, of affection and friendship that might grow into love, had lifted her spirits as much as had the hours riding waves. So she dawdled now, winding through the streets of the peninsula point, afraid that the prospect of a normal relationship would be snatched from her if she dared to reach for it.

Finally she parked in the public lot near the pier. She pulled on a light long-sleeve wrap that matched her boardshorts and stood beside her car for a minute or two, listening to the liquid booming of the breakers pounding the shore, the sound of eternity declaring itself — and therefore the voice of hope.

She walked to Sharkin’, the restaurant, where Rainer waited in a booth. How handsome he was. And how he seemed to adore her when he saw her approaching.