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THE TOPPLED TREE HAD taken out a side window and a good chunk of my new copper gutter on the way down, landing on my carport hard enough to crush the metal roof into a V-shape. It was almost as if the Albizia had sacrificed itself deliberately, just to ruin my day.
It was just getting dark. Donnie would still be at work. I backed into the street and started driving the few blocks down toward the Bayfront, to Donnie’s Drive-Inn. Through the tangle of power lines strung across the narrow street, I could see a sliver of the bay. The water reflected the sky, a moody, churning gray.
Donnie walked out to meet me the moment I pulled into the parking lot. When I saw him, I immediately felt better. Tall and well-built, his neat black hair touched with gray at the temples, my husband was awfully easy on the eyes. He didn’t go to the gym and didn’t need to. He spent all day moving heavy things around: fifty-pound bags of rice, pallets of frozen hamburger patties, and the painted red picnic benches, which had to be upended and hosed down every night.
I climbed out of the driver’s seat into Donnie’s embrace and began to sob into his Donnie’s Drive-Inn polo shirt.
“Donnie,” I blubbered. “It’s a mess. It’s...I don’t know if anyone can fix it.”
“It’s okay. I have a whole stack of clean shirts in the office.”
I looked up to see his handsome face clouded with worry. He produced a clean tissue from somewhere and handed it to me.
“Oh, your shirt. Sorry about that. No, when I went home just now... You know how it’s been so windy today? Well, one of my trees—”
“I saw. One of your Albizias fell over.”
“You saw?”
Donnie pulled me close. Wearing my platforms, I was exactly the right height for my nose to lodge in his armpit. I closed my eyes and inhaled his spicy-clean deodorant smell.
“I went by your place this afternoon to check for damage,” he said. “I called Konishi Construction right away.”
I pulled my head free.
“You already called?”
“Just for an estimate,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry. I didn’t make any decisions for you. I know you don’t like people making decisions for you.”
“No, no, it’s good. It’s great. Thank you. I thought I was going to have to find someone myself. So I guess I’ll move to your place now. For however long it takes to fix the damage, anyway. I hope it’s okay.”
“Of course. Stay as long as you want.” He kissed the top of my head. “I have to get back. See you at home tonight. You going to be all right?”
“Sure. I’ll be fine.”
I watched Donnie walk away, his red polo shirt straining over his strong shoulders and his smooth, golden biceps. I supposed there were worse things than moving in with my handsome husband for a little while.
I drove the short distance back to my house and went inside. Branches protruded into the house through the window. The floor underneath was covered with water, leaves, and broken glass. I swept up as much of the mess as I could, then pulled some clean towels from the linen closet and wiped the floor until it was merely damp. That was as good as it would get. In Mahina’s humid climate, nothing ever gets completely dry.
I checked my computer for new email messages. The only one that required an immediate reply was from the Student Retention Office. Linda (they all seem to be named Linda) was asking me to consider making the required readings in my Intro course optional. I could just imagine how her bright idea would go over with those students who actually had bought the textbook and course packet when class started two months earlier, and completed the assigned work.
Linda had also attached a list of students who “needed” to be excused from an upcoming writing assignment. These exemptions, she explained, were based on results from the new Foundation-funded software connected to our Learning Management System and designed to track student progress in real time. We hadn’t yet achieved the administrators’ dream of replacing the faculty with software, but we were getting closer.
I wrote back, politely telling Linda the suggested changes were not possible at this time, what with the semester already half over, and thanking her for keeping me “in the loop.” The university’s legal department (blessings upon every one of them) had ruled that because of academic freedom, the Student Retention Office couldn’t require us to dumb down our classes, although they were free to ask us to do so. This verdict had been greeted with wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the administration, and much rejoicing by the faculty.
I made sure my reply was sent, packed up my computer, and retrieved my overnight bag from the wrecked carport. I went to my bedroom and collected a week’s worth of outfits, a few items of jewelry, my makeup bag, my special comb for curly hair, and my Alice Mongoose sleep shirt. I took one last look around before I left, to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. It was both liberating and discouraging to realize how little I had worth stealing.
It may have seemed unusual for a happily married couple to live apart, but when Donnie and I got married, each of us already had a house. Donnie’s was a spacious ranch model on three acres. He’d had it redone by a famous interior designer from Honolulu, known for his spare and elegant aesthetic. It had a professional kitchen with a gas range, which was unusual on this island. (The utility wasn’t about to dig through volcanic rock to install gas lines, so if you wanted to cook on a flame you had to arrange to get propane delivered. For a serious cook like Donnie, it was worth it.)
My 1920s plantation house was far more modest than Donnie’s place. But it was conveniently located in town, just a few blocks from Donnie’s Drive-Inn and a short drive from campus. I’d redone the plumbing, added ceiling fans, refinished the hardwood floors, and overall gotten it just the way I liked it. The drawback—and it was a big one—was the single bathroom. Donnie and I had considered selling our respective properties and buying something together, but so far, it hadn’t worked out.
Donnie’s house was about a twenty-minute drive out of town when the traffic was good. And on this day, the traffic was not good. The wind had knocked a tree onto power lines, pulling down two utility poles onto the main highway. The utility’s repair crew was taking up the right lane, forcing all traffic into single file. Eventually I made it through the bottleneck and turned off onto Donnie’s street.
Donnie’s backyard was surrounded by a chain link fence, a necessity back when Donnie’s son Davison used to keep a pack of hunting dogs. I still held my mainland prejudice against chain link fences. Donnie didn’t understand why I would have a grudge against something so practical, but chain link fences made me think of the neighborhood near where I went to grad school: Windblown trash, weedy vacant lots, and ominous graffiti. Shopping carts piled with junk, next to mounds of dirty blankets, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be human beings way down on their luck. To me, a chain link fence proclaimed, “skid row.” To Donnie, it was simply a practical choice. It wouldn’t rust in the rain or get knocked over by rambunctious Rottweilers.
I parked on the street, found the key, threw my overnight bag over my shoulder, and went inside. The interior, as usual, was immaculate. The chalk-white walls of the living room were hung with paintings from a couple of local artists he’d just started collecting. A carved koa wood bowl, patterned with sections cut so thin they were translucent, glowed on the coffee table. The centerpiece of the room was a low-slung Ettore Sottsass sofa in gunmetal leather with black seat cushions. I liked the sofa. It almost made up for the chain link fence.
I took my clothes down the hallway to the master bedroom, unloaded them onto the platform bed, and opened the closet. To the right of Donnie’s perfectly pressed black slacks and his crisp aloha shirts and Donnie’s Drive-Inn red polo shirts hung two of my dresses. I scooted the polo shirts aside to make more room and hung up the clothes I’d brought from home: a charcoal Lilli Ann jacket with black piping; wide-leg sailor trousers; a black pencil skirt; a few white blouses, both short sleeved and long.
Donnie could talk all he wanted about my moving in so we could live like a real married couple. As long as I wasn’t getting any more than a linear foot of closet space, I’d always feel like a guest in his house.
I heard the front door open.
“Molly?”
“Donnie?” I slid the closet shut and hurried out to the living room. “You’re home early. Everything okay?”
“Ka`imi Medeiros stopped by the Drive-Inn. He told me what happened this morning down at Art Lam’s place.”