Chapter 4
Chapter Four
It was a few days after Jasmine’s back spasm at work.
Miraculously, she had the day off, but she decided to make the most of it, waking up to read in the sunshine and maybe do a little bit of yoga.
She’d read online that it could solve the issue of her back pain, that it could “limber her up” for her old age.
Well, older age. At seventy-eight, she felt pretty dang old already.
But as the coffee percolated in the kitchen, the doorbell rang.
Jasmine wasn’t expecting any visitors. A voice in the back of her mind whispered, It’s nobody important.
Just let it go. But when the bell rang again, she hurried to answer it, pulling the door back to reveal Jenny, her one and only daughter.
Jenny’s eyes were lined with red. They echoed rage and fear.
“Mom,” she said, her hands on her hips.
Immediately, Jasmine felt sure that something had happened to Jenny, that Walton had done something to her. Jasmine reached for her daughter, hoping to wrap her in a hug. But Jenny slipped away from her outstretched hand and shook her head. “I’d like to ask you to stay out of my business.”
Jasmine felt she’d been smacked. She pulled her hand back in and crossed her arms over her chest. The only sound was the coffee in the kitchen, beckoning her back. She shouldn’t have opened the door. Jasmine was speechless.
Jenny seemed to decide to explain herself. “I know the kids told you about my problems with their father. They shouldn’t have done that. They know better than to gossip about their mother. They know better than to make a little situation like this into a big, overwrought drama.”
Jasmine’s mouth tasted like sandpaper. As her daughter spoke, she felt her own long-ago sentiments echoing in her head. She wanted to tell her daughter that she already knew the kinds of excuses people made in situations like this. She’d practically written the script herself.
“Please, Mom,” Jenny said, her voice breaking. “I don’t want to break you and the kids up. Don’t do anything crazy.”
“Like what?” Jasmine demanded. She hated how old and frightened she sounded. But what could she possibly do that would break Jasmine and the grandkids up? She adored Chase, Alyssa, and Jade. She would do anything for them. Didn’t Jenny know that?
“Just don’t, like, call the cops or something,” Jenny barked, turning on her heel. “Leave us alone.”
Jasmine stood in the doorway of her apartment, her eyes heavy with tears.
She heard her daughter’s car motor out of the parking lot.
She heard the neighbor’s television, blaring a game show.
Slowly, she returned to her kitchen, where she sat at the table, her eyes to the sunshine on the palm trees outside.
She only remembered to drink her coffee when it was too cold to enjoy it.
Brokenhearted from her daughter’s outburst, Jasmine made up her mind to leave her apartment and see a friend.
Cynthia was a few years younger than Jasmine, a Hawaiian-born and Hawaiian-raised divorcée.
Cynthia’s mother was a native Hawaiian who’d taught Cynthia all the island’s traditions and raised her to understand that everything brought over from the lower forty-eight states wasn’t to be trusted.
The fact that Cynthia had befriended Jasmine still thrilled and confused her.
All of Cynthia’s friends were native Hawaiians.
They celebrated island traditions, wore traditional clothing, and upheld their native history as best as they could.
Jasmine met Cynthia at Cynthia’s favorite place: a sun-drenched, white, sandy beach that most of the tourists hadn’t discovered yet.
There were no beach bars, no convenience stores, nothing that brought capitalism to such a gorgeous patch of God’s earth.
Jasmine wore a black bathing suit and a long, dark blue skirt and cleared the sand to meet her friend, who was already removing her clothes and waving happily.
At seventy-six, she was still muscular and svelte from her hours of swimming a week.
Her smile was older than it once had been, but happy, thrilled.
Jasmine tried to echo it. But by the time she reached her friend, she was sobbing.
Cynthia didn’t ask her to explain herself, not yet.
She led her into the water, where they plunged beneath the waves and swam out.
The water was delicious and cool and undulating.
When Jasmine broke out and breathed, she watched the sunlight dance across the water, and she forced herself to say a brief prayer of thanks.
She had her body. She had her mind. Her daughter hadn’t completely abandoned her yet.
Stretched out on their towels, Jasmine related what had happened with Jenny that morning. “I’ve never liked Walton,” she said. “But I didn’t know he was abusive, or edging that way. Jenny knows me too well. She knows I won’t hesitate to call the cops.”
“That’s your daughter!” Cynthia cried. “Those are your grandchildren! Of course, you’re willing to do anything for them. That’s how powerful your heart is, my sweet Jasmine.”
Jasmine squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead. Everything overwhelmed her: her aging, her back pain, her daughter. Time itself. What if she died before she could make sure her daughter was safe?
“Don’t let it weigh heavily on your shoulders,” Cynthia breathed, touching Jasmine’s hand. “Don’t let it press too hard on your heart.”
Jasmine murmured to the sand, “How?”
Cynthia was quiet for a moment. “You still haven’t told your daughter what you left behind. You still haven’t told her why you came to Hawaii.”
Jasmine shook her head.
“And she never asked?”
Jasmine remembered her curious and vivacious little girl.
There had been questions about Jasmine’s past, about her life in the “lower forty-eight,” about her father.
But Jasmine always responded the way she’d rehearsed in her mind.
You were born in Hawaii, Jenny. You are a real Hawaii resident.
Jenny had never left, not once. Jasmine was grateful for that, at least.
“My past stays in the past,” Jasmine told her friend now.
Cynthia looked at her with sorrow in her eyes. “The past never stays buried,” she said. “It’s foolish to think we can hide from it.”
Jasmine wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she’d proved that you could run away from your past, that the past was an unnecessary burden if you got far enough away from it.
“I still remember what you were like when I met you,” Cynthia said, smiling.
“Don’t,” Jasmine whispered. She didn’t want Cynthia to dig up the past right here, right now. Not on this gorgeous beach. Not as the birds swept overhead. Not as Jenny dealt with the stormy moods of a husband who didn’t love her.
Cynthia sighed and gazed at the sky above them.
And despite everything, Jasmine found herself thinking about the past.
It was the summer of 1975 when Jasmine’s plane landed in Hawaii.
Four months pregnant, all she had was a backpack, fifty dollars, a change of clothes, and a dream.
When she was a girl, she’d had a poster of Hawaii hanging in her bedroom, and when she knew she needed to run away, she’d decided it was the only place she wanted to go.
Back in the seventies, Hawaii wasn’t as expensive.
There weren’t as many resorts, nor swarms of people on the beaches.
You could eat out for as little as a dollar, and you could buy groceries for less than you could on the mainland.
That first night, Jasmine got a motel room for twelve dollars and walked the beach, her hands on her stomach, a promise in her heart.
The sunset was like a burst of fruit. She wept at its beauty.
She was twenty-eight years old, but she felt both younger and older at once. She couldn’t believe she’d escaped.
Although the island was cheaper back then, Jasmine knew she needed to get a job as soon as she could.
The following day, she walked up and down the beach and introduced herself to restaurant owners.
She didn’t look pregnant yet, which was a blessing.
She figured she could hide it with loose dresses, at least for a few months.
She finally got a job at a seafood restaurant that featured traditional Hawaiian dancers.
One of those dancers was Cynthia, a twenty-six-year-old native Hawaiian with an enormous smile and secrets about where to swim, eat, and dance at night.
Jasmine liked her immediately. That night, after a gruesome shift, Jasmine confessed to Cynthia that she was pregnant and had run away from her old life.
Cynthia told her simply, “Your secret is safe with me!” And they danced for three hours after that.
Cynthia helped Jasmine find a better place to live.
It was a bungalow not far from Cynthia’s favorite beach, and it was owned by one of Cynthia’s uncles.
Jasmine’s rent was more than affordable, considering what she made at the restaurant every night in tips.
She couldn’t believe how beautiful everything felt. How new. How alive.
It wasn’t till the seventh month of her pregnancy that her boss figured it out.
He called her into his office and asked her about her “upcoming changes.” Jasmine froze with fear and mumbled something about “not feeling right” lately.
It was stupid. He knew she wouldn’t be able to work for much longer, and it wasn’t like he could pay her for maternity leave.
She held it together until she left the office, walked into the walk-in freezer where servers went to “compose themselves”, and burst into tears.
Cynthia found her in there, pulled her out, and took her home.
“I talked to my family,” Cynthia announced as she cleaned the kitchen, a kitchen that was already mostly spotless. Jasmine had already learned that Cynthia couldn’t sit still. By contrast, Jasmine continued to sob at the table. Cynthia added, “We’re going to take care of you.”
“I can’t take charity,” Jasmine told her.
“What do you mean by ‘charity’?” Cynthia demanded.
“When I get pregnant, you’re going to help me, too, maybe not with money.
I know you won’t have much of that. But with your heart.
With your time. With your spirit.” Cynthia finally sat across from Jasmine and took her hands in hers.
“I don’t know where you came from or why you’re here, but I don’t really care.
You’re my family now, Jasmine. I want you to stay in Hawaii for the rest of your days.
I want to know your baby. I want to watch them grow up.
Do you understand what I’m saying to you? ”
Jasmine had never heard such kindness in her life. It stunned her.
“Now, stop crying yourself silly,” Cynthia instructed, not waiting for a response.
“Call that boss of ours and tell him you’re going to come back three months after the baby’s born.
You have to tell people in life what you need from them.
You have to take ownership. Otherwise, they’ll walk all over you. ”
Jasmine was too stunned to do anything but follow Cynthia’s directions. To her tremendous surprise, her boss sighed with annoyance and agreed. “Three months after the baby’s born,” he said. “Don’t make me regret taking you back.”
Jasmine’s heart swelled with meaning, with purpose, with love.
Soon, the baby would be born. Soon, her life would have a three-dimensional sturdiness that came from putting down roots and having soulful, wonderful friends.