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MY PARENTS ARRIVED on time, and I drove the three of us down to Donnie’s house. Donnie lived in an older subdivision, where the narrow roads shaded into front lawns, uninterrupted by sidewalks. I parked half on the road and half on the far end of Donnie’s front lawn.
“Is that chain link fence?” my mother asked as we made our way along the unlit road to Donnie’s driveway. “Is this a safe neighborhood?”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
Donnie’s garage door was open. Davison was inside, shirtless and sweaty, punching a heavy bag. A swarm of termites fluttered around him and crawled on the garage ceiling, attracted by the fluorescent light.
“Who is that man with the horrible tattoos?” my mother whispered, as we approached the front door.
“The fly in the ointment.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Donnie opened the door right away, as if he had been waiting there for us. I attempted to make introductions as Donnie steered us inside.
“Donnie, these are my parents. Mom, Dad, this is Donnie Gonsalves. Your new son-in-law.”
My mother offered her hand with a cool smile. My father then clasped Donnie’s hand in a warm, two-handed shake.
“What should I call you?” Donnie asked.
“Dr. Barda,” my mother said, at the same time my father said, “Ed.”
My mother sighed. “Sara. You may call me Sara.”
“Is Davison going to be joining us?” I asked.
“Of course. He tried to tell me he wasn’t hungry, but I think he’s just shy about meeting new people. Come sit down. I’ll bring out the wine.”
“Well, Donnie,” my mother said as she seated herself on the Ettore Sottsass sofa, “you have a lovely home.”
“Molly,” my father grinned as he took a seat next to my mother, “this couch looks like the kind of thing you would like.”
Not wanting to squeeze in between my parents like a five-year-old, I sat down in the hard koa wood chair.
“So what’s cooking?” I asked Donnie.
I didn’t recognize it by smell. In fact, it didn’t smell very good. Of course I hadn’t liked truffle oil the first time I’d gotten a whiff of it either.
Donnie called back an answer as he headed to the kitchen, but I couldn’t understand what he said.
“What did he say?” my mother asked. My father and I both shrugged.
Donnie came back with a tray of wine glasses and a bottle with a green label.
“I’m making harapash,” Donnie repeated. “I’m probably not pronouncing it correctly. Polenta with cheese, butter, and intestines of lamb. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t get it exactly right. I’ve just started to teach myself Albanian cuisine.”
“Albanian cuisine,” my mother exclaimed. “Well, this is very thoughtful.”
When I was growing up, we never ate “cuisine” at home. We ate “food.” By which I mean things like pizza, ravioli from a can, or takeout Chinese. My parents both worked, and my mother was often on call. No one was spending hours in the kitchen thinking up ways to sneak lamb intestines into people’s food.
“It sounds great,” my father said heartily, and with more sincerity than my mother had managed. “When I was in Vang Tao, one of my favorite dishes was kuaichap. That’s spicy noodle soup with liver and intestines.”
Davison barged into the living room, his bare torso glistening with sweat.
My mother clutched her purse. Donnie finished pouring out the wine and turned to Davison.
“Go get cleaned up. Then come say hello to your new grandparents.” He shooed Davison down the hallway and went back into the kitchen.
My parents looked at each other.
“Looks like we have a grandson,” my father said.
“So will you change your name?” My mother was still gripping her purse.
“I wasn’t going to. Betty Jackson—she’s been sort of a mentor—she said you shouldn’t change your name after you start publishing, because people won’t be able to find your pubs in one place.”
“What’s Donnie going to think if you don’t take his name?” my mother asked.
“I don’t like the symbolism of it anyway. Coverture. The woman ceasing to exist as a legal entity.”
“Oh, it’s not some male domination plot, Molly. I changed my name.”
“Your maiden name was Kastrati. I would have changed it too. Here, let me pour everyone some more wine.”
Donnie came in and sat down in the remaining koa chair, across from me.
“You must be so relieved,” Donnie said.
“That Molly finally got married?” my mother said.
“No,” Donnie laughed. “That she survived an attempt on her life.”
My parents turned to stare at me.
“Who made an attempt on your life?” my mother asked.
“My parents are staying away from reading the news. It’s a stress reduction technique. I guess I should catch you guys up. Sorry, Donnie, I know you’ve already heard all of this.”
Something sizzled in the kitchen, and he sprang up.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I have to finish the turli perimesh.”
My mother caught my panicked look.
“Turli perimesh is just vegetables,” she said.
“You’ve had it before,” my father added.
“Is it okra? I can’t eat okra. Okra has mucus and hair.”
“No, Molly. There’s no okra in it. Now. Are you going to tell your father and me how our only child almost got herself killed?”
I recounted the whole story, pausing to allow my parents to express appropriate sympathy (Dad) and horror (Mom).
“And so here I am,” I concluded. “Alive and well. Thank heaven for skeptical lawyers and Mahina’s old-boy network. And my nosy friends.”
“So they’ve dropped the charges against you,” my mother said.
“Well, I assume so.”
“You know what happens when you assume,” my father interjected roguishly.
“Call your lawyer. Make sure.”
“Right now? When we’re about to have dinner? Okay, if it’ll put everyone’s minds at ease.” I brought up Honey Akiona’s contact information on my phone. “Do you know, my lawyer happens to be a former student of mine.”
“Is that a good idea?” my mother asked.
Honey answered the phone right away.
“Hey, Professor. You feeling better? I just got these two weird texts from you. Something about checking the tea?”
“You just got them? You can ignore those.”
“I was just talking to Detective Medeiros. Found out more about Scott Nixon.”
“Oh, how is Scott? Did someone really beat him up?”
“Yeah, turns out Medeiros was telling us the truth. Concussion, broken nose, cracked ribs. Didn’t have anything to do with Melanie’s murder, though. It was his new girlfriend’s old boyfriend.”
“How awful.”
“He’ll be fine. I think his ego’s gonna take longer to heal than his body will.”
“Honey, I called because I wanted to double check. They’ve dropped the charges against me, right?”
“I’m still working on it. They took your statement, but it’s your word against Leilani’s.”
“So what do they think? I just magically ended up on the bottom of a lava tube for no reason?”
“No, they think you were trespassing on condemned property to take pictures, or something, and you accidentally fell in.”
“But someone must have seen me with Leilani.”
“No one’s come forward so far.”
“And my car wasn’t up there. Do they think I walked twenty miles out of town?”
“You could’ve hitchhiked.” Honey said.
“I have never hitchhiked in my life. That’s their working hypothesis? Seriously? I hitchhiked up to an abandoned house and fell into a lava tube?”
“Do you have the photos you took that afternoon?” Honey asked. “Maybe we can put together your movements from those.”
“I lost my phone. It fell into the river. Wait. I think Pat might have the photos. I’ll have him forward them to Medeiros. Oh, I should probably let you know, I got married yesterday.”
After a wary pause, Honey asked, “To who?”
“To Donnie. Donnie and I got married.”
“You married Donnie Gonsalves.” Honey sounded relieved. “Good. Let me talk to him.”
“He’s right in the middle of cooking dinner for my parents—”
“Please, Professor. It’ll only take a minute.”
I took the phone into the steamy kitchen. My parents stayed in the living room, examining the label of the Albanian wine Donnie had somehow managed to procure for the occasion.