Chapter One
“What’s this?” Allie Aukai sat at the small kitchen table, sipping coffee as she stared at the folded piece of paper her eighty-two-year-old mom had floated in front of her.
“Just read it. And before you come up with a thousand excuses why you can’t do it…” Her mother shook a quivering finger at her. “Just remember, it’s your father’s dying wish.”
“Dad’s dying wish?” Allie snorted. The only thing she remembered her dad mentioning after the doctor had informed them that he had an inoperable tumor and less than three months to live was that he wished he had learned how to play golf. That was odd. Not because he had always criticized the sport as unappealing and ridiculous, but because he was never one to openly talk about regrets. Then again, he never really talked about anything. To Allie, he was a stoic man who’d displayed few words and even fewer feelings, and even though her heart ached from the grief of his recent passing, she was not going to miss his scathing grunts and judgmental facial expressions. If a picture was worth a thousand words, then one of her father’s unflinching and unapproving stares was worth double that.
Allie raised a questioning brow. “Does this have anything to do with golf?”
“What are you talking about? Your father hated golf.”
“I know. That’s what I always thought too, but apparently, I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”
“Just read the note.” Her mom waved a dismissive hand.
Allie took another sip, leisurely unfolded the piece of paper and wondered what the father she’d never had a meaningful conversation with had to say to her postmortem. As she glanced over the barely legible cursive that she had come to associate with his arthritic style, a knot began forming in her stomach. “Wait.” She choked on the recently sipped coffee. “This can’t be right.” She glanced at her mom. “This is dad’s dying wish? Seriously?”
Her mom nodded.
“Well…I’m not doing it.” She tossed the paper back on the table. “It’s stupid.”
Her mom folded her thin, age-spotted arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. “I told him you’d say that.”
“Oh, come on, Mom, are you honestly going to sit there and tell me that you don’t think that’s a bit crazy?” She gave a nod to the paper. “Was Dad even in his right mind when he wrote it?”
“Your father’s state of mind has always been debatable, but…” She pushed the note back toward Allie. “The point is, you know how obsessed he was about that ancient legend.”
“Yeah, well, you and I both know that story’s a complete fairy tale. Good for telling around a campfire and nothing more. Not something to make a dying wish on.”
“I agree. But.” Her mom exhaled a heavy breath. “It’s his wish, so what am I supposed to do, hmm? Deny him this last request?”
“Yes, because it’s stupid and based on something that never happened,” she retorted as the memories of a tale that he’d recited to her more than any children’s book or nursery rhyme raced through her mind:
“According to the legend of our people,” her father began as he sat by the side of her bed in the glow of a night-light, painting a picture that was so vivid and enchanting, she leaned against her headboard, knees tucked into her chest, wide-eyed and glued to every word.
“Our ancestors were peaceful Polynesian islanders who lived in harmony with the sea and land for hundreds of years. When the early explorers showed up, they began trading food and other goods, and for many years, the exchanges worked well for both parties. Until one night, a mysterious ship set anchor off the island, and in the shadow of the new moon, a group of men silently rowed ashore not with the intent to trade but to seize the land and its resources for their own gain.” He lowered his voice to emphasize the drama.
“All the islanders who were not killed were taken prisoner. But unbeknownst to the invaders, a handful of men in two canoes had been out fishing all day, and when they returned that evening and saw what had taken place, grief and anger overwhelmed them. They paddled out to the ship, snuck aboard, and attacked the unsuspecting men.”
Allie always jumped on her bed during this scene, stabbed at the air with her imaginary sword,
, and threw in a karate kick or two for good measure.
“They fought bravely to try to free their people, and at one point, it looked like they were gaining the upper hand, but sadly”—he continued in a softer voice—“their spears were no match for the weapons of the explorers. In the end, they lost their lives. Their bodies were dumped overboard, and their canoes sunk. In one night, a beautiful way of life was forever lost.”
He grabbed his necklace and cupped his hand over a pendant of a sea turtle that his father had carved out of a shell as a tribute to their people. “But those who survived told the tale to their children and their children’s children. Just like I’m doing to you because the blood of an amazing people runs in our veins. Our people.” He scooped her up, tucked her under the covers, and gave her a good night kiss on her forehead. “Were good people. And in the end, they fought heroically for what was taken from them. Never let anyone take what is rightfully yours.”
The stories remained Allie’s fondest memories of her father. Before her adolescence, when the whiskey robbed her of his attention, and bitterness permanently dimmed the spark that had once glistened in his eyes. In her teens, her relationship with him was already distant and strained, and by the time she was in high school, they were like two ships passing in the night.
In a last-ditch effort to reconnect with him, she splurged on an ancestry test kit, hoping the results would reignite the bond they’d once shared over the story of their people. But eight weeks later, she’d sat in stunned disbelief as she’d stared at a colorful pie chart that contradicted nearly everything she’d believed about who she was.
From her mom’s side of the family, she was part African and French, so that piece of the pie was expected, but Brazilian with a sprinkle of Spanish and German? Really? Where the hell was the Polynesian DNA?
Her mom acknowledged that she had always suspected the story of the island tribe was no more than a fabrication.
“Then, why didn’t you say something?” Allie huffed in a disappointed tone as she flopped on the couch while trying to wrap her mind around her new genetic reality.
“Because it’s not like I could completely disprove the claims. But, honey, I’m telling ya, if ever there was a group of people who would benefit from taking some form of antipsychotic medication, your father’s side of the family is it.” She chuckled as she sat with Allie. “It’s kinda fitting your grandfather died jumping off a cliff. That man was batshit crazy, and there are times I really wonder how much of it rubbed off on your father.”
“Huh. Well, that explains a few things.” Like her mom’s not so subtle eye rolls or well-placed snorts every time her dad would talk about her grandpa.
“And my advice to you is, don’t be sharing any of those results with your father. You need to keep this between us, Allie.”
“But don’t you think he would want to know who we really are?”
“No. I’m telling you, just leave it be.”
“But not telling him just perpetuates the lie.”
“Listen to me, Allie.
That damn legend makes your father think there’s something special about him that stands out from everyone else. Believing he’s a descendant of a small tribe of people who took on a ship full of armed men with fishing spears makes him feel proud. So don’t go popping that bubble, okay? Instead, just do what I’ve done all these years.”
“Which is?”
“Nod, smile, and say, yes, dear, every time he brings up anything about his family. Trust me, you’ll understand when you’re in a relationship of your own how those words can add years to a marriage.”
“But—”
Her mom held up her hand and exhaled a heavy sigh. “Look, if you end up telling him, he’ll just get angry and deny it, and I think it would be in the best interest for both of us if we don’t upset that apple cart, if you know what I mean.”
Allie knew exactly what she meant. News like that would definitely put him in a rage, send him reaching for the bottle, and shortly thereafter, the whiskey demon would emerge, and that was never a good thing.
“Besides.” Her mom flashed a smile and patted Allie’s thigh. “I’d rather have him believing in that damn story than believing he can fly off a cliff.”
Allie nodded. True. Of the two, at least believing in the legend wasn’t going to end in bodily harm. So with a heavy sigh and a promise to her mom, she deleted the evidence of her t rue ancestry and mastered the art of smiling and nodding.
“Anyway.” Her mom’s soft voice brought her back to the present. “Getting back to his request.” She pointed at the note.
Allie refocused her attention on the small, crinkled single sheet of paper. Handwritten in a total of two paragraphs were instructions to take his urn of ashes to the coordinates written at the bottom of the note that marked the “valiant last stand” so he could be reunited with his people. He emphasized that he did not want his ashes to be scattered on the surface of the water but buried at the bottom of the ocean at that exact location.
“Ma, where did these coordinates come from?” Not once in the retelling of the legend had he ever mentioned an exact location. She cocked her head in thought. Although, there was that one time he’d mumbled something about Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Sea, but by then, she had smiling and nodding down to a science, and with it came the art of tuning him out.
Her mom averted her eyes as she fidgeted in her seat and fumbled with her coffee cup.
“Ma? What aren’t you telling me? Where did dad get these numbers?”
She scoffed. “Oh, all right. He had a dream where one of his ancestors appeared to him and gave him those numbers. When he woke up, he wrote them down and swore they were the coordinates of the battle.”
Allie threw her head back in laughter. “You’ve got to be shitting me. You do realize how insane this whole thing is? Right? How absolutely—”
“I know, Allie, I know. But again, it’s his dying wish.” She took a moment to take another
sip of coffee as they locked eyes. “And don’t you give me that look, young lady.”
“What?”
“Don’t what me. I can see your wheels spinning.”
Allie leaned forward and shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re actually defending this. Who cares if it’s his dying wish? You want to know how many wishes I’ve made that have never been answered? Or how about you, Mom. How many times did you openly wish Dad would stop drinking? And how many times did he grant that wish?”
“You have to understand, your father was a different person when we first married, settled into this house, and opened the diner. He was a happy man, full of hopes and dreams.” She paused as her expression turned blank, and the lines that were a testament to a life of hard days and long hours deepened into her light brown face. She tucked a loose strand of thinning silver bobbed hair behind one ear, as her chestnut eyes seemingly danced with memories. “For years, we worked nonstop, and every penny we earned, he insisted we put back into the restaurant. A deposit for a payoff down the road, he would say to me. But after decades of struggles, I begged him to sell the place. But your father wouldn’t hear of it. He was a proud man, and he kept assuring me that the restaurant would catch on and a nicer car and larger house”—she referenced her meager surroundings—“were right around the corner. You’ll see, he would always tell me. But none of that ever happened, and resentment and anger set in, and that’s when the drinking followed.” She paused. “He always wanted more, Allie. More for himself, more for me.” She turned to her. “More for you.”
In that moment, with those words still lingering in the air, Allie felt for the first time in her adult life that there was something about her dad that she could finally relate to. Seemed as though she wasn’t the only one who had their hopes and dreams for a better future smashed into oblivion.
She had been born an oops baby during a time in her parents’ lives when they’d mistakenly thought her mom was well beyond her reproductive years. And since babysitters and day care were unaffordable options, she was raised at the diner with the help of other employees and regular clientele who’d gladly watched over and entertained her as her parents worked.
The moment she was old enough to balance food on a tray and scrub dishes, her parents had put her to work, and it didn’t take long before she’d realized the restaurant life was not the life she wanted for herself. She had dreams of becoming a journalist, but when serious health complications had struck her father at the start of her high school senior year, she’d made the painful decision to put her future plans on hold, care for her parents, and take a more active role in running the family business.
Resentment? Yeah, she was intimate with that emotion.
Her mom tapped the bottom of the paper. “He wants to be buried here. Those are the numbers he had tattooed on his chest when he forgot where he put the damn piece of paper that he had written the coordinates on. We about tore up this entire house looking for it.” She chuckled as she shook her head. “When we found it, he took it upon himself to get the numbers inked on his chest because he knew his lack of memory was becoming more than just senior moments. Losing that paper scared him, and he thought if it happened again, he would lose a part of who he was. ...
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