Eight Days

Note: Though inspired by real events, and though some of the characters are real, this is a work of fiction. Sam Butcher, 2021

Meeting Frank

2017

Three days of hazy, hot and humid yield to clear dry air and a fresh breeze. Muted colors turn crisp. Birds chirp and in the distance Tom hears halyards dinging off sailboat masts in the harbor. He ambles through headstones at the island’s cemetery, pausing now and then to wonder about the schooner captain lost at sea, his ship never found, or the sisters, aged 12 and 15, who passed within weeks of each other in February 1890. The flu? Pneumonia?

He notices a man he’s seen before. The two days prior the man sat in his car, parked in the same spot, but today he walks slowly a few tens of yards away. Tom hesitates and turns to give the man room, but the man gives Tom a wave, somewhere between recognition and welcome, so Tom continues toward him.

Tom and the man exchange the usual pleasantries and comment on the weather. The day seems almost autumnal and the man wears a denim jacket. Leaning on his cane, gnarled hands matching the gnarled wood, the man says he’s seen Tom before. Tom tells the man he’s come by the cemetery the previous few days. The man volunteers that he visits his wife every day and asks who Tom visits. Slightly embarrassed Tom tells the man that he only has a distant relation by marriage “over there”. Tom points toward a group of headstones. “It’s a peaceful place to be, even if you don’t know anyone” the man says.

They chat about life on the island and Tom tells the man he read that the number of year-round residents is roughly the same now as it was in the late 1800’s but imagines that so much else must have changed. As a tourist’s moped buzzes by in the distance the man says “The island used to be a home; now it’s just a business.”

Tom asks the man what he did prior to coming to the island. He grew up in Palisades, New York, but his family lost everything in the Depression. His father sent his mother and siblings back to a family farm in Pennsylvania while he tried to start over in the city. A few years prior to World War II the man joined the merchant marine working on a freighter.

The man came to the island with his wife several decades ago. For a long time he farmed raising beef that he sold to the local markets and the few island restaurants. His wife had a large vegetable garden. As they grew older and as her health failed the garden shrank. Last to go was the flower garden she tended with love, then, after a long illness she passed. Now the man no longer farms though he still owns the land.

Tom asks if the man has family on the island and the man volunteers that he has three daughters but he hasn’t seen them in a while.

“It’s a lot of trouble to come out to the island.” The man says. “I understand why they don’t come. And when Dorothy got sick, well, I had to take care of her and didn’t have much time for the girls, their families.”

Tom says nothing and they walk together in silence.

A crow flies over the two men and the old man watches it pass. It settles on a nearby headstone where it starts conversing to no one in particular as crows do. “The crows like this cemetery.” The old man says. “I wonder if they’re a connection to the past” Tom tells him that he’d heard that crows can’t keep a secret and maybe they like cemeteries for all the stories they hold. The man smiles, “That sounds right. The soul can’t just disappear.”

They walk slowly, talking as they go and eventually return to the man’s small pickup.

Tom says “I enjoyed speaking with you, Thank you.”

The man smiles “I enjoyed it too” he says.“

“Perhaps I’ll see you again.”

“I’m here every day. I come to visit Dorothy.”

The man nods toward a simple headstone, Dorothy Leslie 1928 – 2008, and beneath it Frank Leslie 1925 - .

Tom turns to the man “It is a pleasure to meet you Frank, My name’s Tom.”

The two shake hands and Frank looks at Tom. Frank adds his left hand to the clasp, “I hope to see you again, Tom.”

Frank then opens the truck door, it creeks, he climbs slowly behind the wheel. The key already in the ignition, he turns the engine over, gives Tom a final wave and slowly drives off. Tom watches him go. He turns to the headstone and then to the pickup driving slowly out the dirt road. “Nice to meet you Frank.”

Molokai

1940

A crate drops heavily onto the dock, its contents erupting in a cacophony of clucking and feathers.

“Hey!” the captain yells. He turns to a deck hand who stands in control of the hoist. “Be careful! They’re not eggs but they’ll break all the same.”

“Sorry, Skipper” says the hand.

Captain Matthiesen stands, supervising the loading and unloading of his ship. Chickens, provisions for the colony’s small store, some lumber and hardware for a new dormitory. Mercifully, this month the deliveries do not include more guests. Guests. That’s what the captain likes to call them. Not patients. Not inmates. Not colonists. Guests. Someday someone will find a cure and all these people can go home, but for now they are guests.

The weekly supply ship from O’ahu is the lifeline to Moloka’i. Matthiesen has been making the run for years. Some would be content with the weekly fifty-mile trip but for the captain it is a milk run. He felt blessed with what he had, a vocation that allowed him to be on the water, but he longed for a chance to do the long trips from the islands to the mainland.

“Hello captain!”

The captain turns and sees a man waving from the lawn near the end of the dock.

He returns the wave. “I’ll be right there!”

Matthiesen scans the dock and seeing that nothing demands his immediate attention walks toward the man.

“Hello David, my friend, you look well.”

“Ha, generous with your compliments but a terrible liar.”

In truth, the captain has to agree. When they’d met David was an energetic and vigorous man. Strong, fit and healthy but for the rash on his leg. Had the captain not known from the ship’s manifest he’d have thought David was one of the supervisors, overseers, maybe one of the doctors, from the mainland. He was tall, athletic and handsome. The two struck up a conversation on the passage over and since then David made a point of coming to the dock when the captain and his boat arrived once a month. The captain often brought something from the mainland or one of the other islands, a book he’d read. David was a Yankee’s fan so the captain kept his eye out for sports magazines. David was also a big reader. He’d given the captain A Farewell to Arms saying “Keep an eye on Hemingway. He’s quite a writer.”

But today David looks tired, drawn, defeated. Time at the colony will do that.

The two supervise the choreography on the dock. A steady breeze blows providing a cool respite as the sun shines down on them. They make small talk about baseball, politics, news from the mainland, but today David seems uninterested. Eventually the two simply stand side by side watching the loading and unloading. The clucking crate of chickens, loaded onto the back of a wagon, makes its way toward a farm building.

“I think this place has ground me down” David says.

The captain turns to David and after a moment David turns to the captain and then to the building behind them. He looks past the building toward the steep cliffs beyond, verdant walls thousands of feet high. It was by design that someone chose to build the colony on a remote peninsula surrounded on all sides by either the ocean or steep, nearly impassible volcanic cliffs. What better place to take the sick “away”, to isolate them from the rest of the world. Was it to prevent transmission of the disease, to protect the public from contracting it, or was it simply to remove the sick and the accompanying disfigurement? To take them away.

The captain follows David’s gaze and then turns to David. Eventually David turns to the captain and then back to the dock and the boat that the captain would soon sail away.

“For a long time I thought that one day I’d leave this place. That we’d all leave this place. But after a while it occurred to me that I’d never leave. That I’d die here.”

David turns to the captain and says “We’ve known each other for, what, years?”

That captain chuckles “I’d say a year or three.”

“It’s been five years.” David says flatly. “Five years.”

The captain looks into David’s eyes and can see the time that’s passed. The toll the island has taken. For five years the captain has come to the island with supplies, with news and for five years he has had the luxury of leaving, of going home. He fears David will never go home.

“You’ve been a good friend. ”

“As have you, David”

“You know I consider you family. I hope you know that.”

“Those are kind words.”

David reaches into his pants pocket.

“I want you to take this” David says, handing the Captain an envelope.

“There’s no reason to pay me for my friendship “ the captain jokes. David looks into his eyes. “It is for my son, though I don’t know how to reach him, or his children, if they ever come to be. In truth it would be worthless to you but invaluable to them and in that I am entrusting you with their future.”

The Captain looks at the envelope and to David.

“I don’t understand.”

“Keep the letter safe.” David says “Read it when you have time. You’ll understand.”

The captain looks again at the unmarked envelope in his hands. He turns it over and back and then at David.

“We both know I’ll die here.” David says. “There’ll be no cure in my lifetime. You are a good man. I’d trust you with my life.”

The two stand in silence a moment when the noon bell rings. They turn to the church and David chuckles “For whom the bell tolls. Remember to read Steinbeck. He’s gonna be something.”

The captain sees that the ship is loaded. He places the envelope inside his shirt and says “I’ll see you in a month, my friend.”

David offers his left hand to clasp the captain's right, then raises his right hand to expose a rash on his right wrist. The sickness is growing.

“Be well,” David says

Half an hour after leaving the dock the captain sets a course nearly due west. A little over forty nautical miles as the gull flies to O’ahu but his course will cover more like fifty. He scans the horizon noting a few clouds that threaten showers off the port bow. They will pass clear. The trip back will be relatively fast given that most of the freight was left on the island, but at eight knots it still takes some time. On the deck he sees the crew has settled in. Some chat in small groups. Others lean on the rail, smoke and watch the waves. The captain lifts his Thermos from a bag on the floor and pours coffee, now cold, into the metal cup, takes a sip and places the cup on a small chart table near the helm.

He pulls the envelope from his pocket and holds it in his hand. He looks at the blank front, flips it over and then flips it back. He taps the edge of the envelope with his finger and looks up to the horizon over the bow. Finally, he opens the envelope removing two pieces of paper. The first page is a letter written in the deliberate script the captain has seen before.

My dear friend Hans:

I know that you Scandinavians are not ones for sentiment and I am not an eloquent writer so I will spare you a long note. Allow me a moment to tell you that I value our friendship more than I suspect you know. You have looked beyond my condition, beyond what I will become, am becoming. I hold our friendship above all others.

I’ve left something on this island for my son, a son I will never see again, and I ask that you give this to him. Not yet. Not while I am like this. Not while this place is what it is, but someday. Maybe ten years, maybe fifty, maybe more. Someday when I am gone.

Hans, my son is my only true family and yet he is no longer here. This is all I have for him.

The map I have attached should guide you to what I have left. Please retrieve what I’ve left and deliver it when it is time. I am not sure how you will do it but I have faith. You are a smart man and a loyal friend and you’re my only hope. Forgive a dying man for placing a burden on you but know that I am indebted to you for both our friendship and what I ask.

Sincerely,

David.

The captain reads the note again and then unfolds the second sheet of paper. It is a map, crude, hand-drawn, but clear and concise, a few labeled landmarks and a small X. He re-reads the note.

The captain looks over the bow to the horizon and then turns to look out the port window of the small bridge to the northern shore of Molokai where breakers crash on the narrow black-sand beaches. He crosses the bridge walking out the door to a small deck. The boat sways into the ocean’s swell. He places his hands on the rail and looks to the east and back to small port he’s just left. Beyond the dock the captain sees the small colony, its white dorms, hospital, its church. He scans a plain. To the south, towering cliffs, to the north a solitary lighthouse and near the center a small dormant volcanic vent now covered with lush green. The captain looks back to the dock, now a speck in the distance. Without thinking he waves and waits, as if expecting to see someone wave back, and then returns to the helm.

The captain’s brain swims. A son David hardly knew and the Captain saw only briefly as a nurse brought the infant back to Oahu. ‘Maybe ten years, maybe fifty, maybe more.’ Would a cure be found? Would it be in David’s lifetime? In the captain’s lifetime?

‘I am not sure how you will do it but I have faith in you.’ ‘You’re a loyal friend’.

The captain folds the letter carefully putting it back in the envelope and then puts the envelope in his pocket. He takes another sip of the bitter, black coffee. He shakes his head. “Jesus, David” the captain hears himself say.

Eight Days

December 11, 1941

A second torpedo strikes and the rumble of the engine ceases, replaced by frantic orders, yelling of terrified men and the groans of a sinking ship. Captain Matthiesen has little choice but to abandon ship. The SS Lahaina lists heavily. One of the lifeboats is destroyed. Thinking the ship will go down in minutes the captain orders the crew into the one remaining lifeboat. Far too many men for such a small craft.

As they pushed the wooden lifeboat away from the steel hull of the much larger freighter one of the men points to the near distance. Above the waves the captain sees the submarine surfacing, a rising sun painted on the side of its coning tower, crew scrambling on the deck to mount a machine gun. “Row!” the captain yells “Get to the lee side of the boat”. Those with oars pull frantically while the remaining men watch the submarine nervously. From his seat at the stern the captain turns to see those on the deck of the submarine struggling, unable to set the large gun in its mount amidst the pitching seas. The men in the lifeboat row desperately. Eventually the submarine crew gives up bringing the gun below deck. Their attacker submerges and disappears. The men stop rowing and wait anxiously for signs of another torpedo or a submarine intent on ramming them but neither appear.

After thirty nervous minutes the captain orders the crew back to the foundering ship. She’s taken on water and the engine’s flooded. The captain knows in an hour, maybe two, she’ll be sunk. The captain orders a few men to board and gather only what provisions they can find in the moment. They return with several cans of water, a wooden box of vegetables and some fruit, several dozen eggs, and lower the load into the lifeboat. The captain boards the freighter and returns from the bridge with a chart and some instruments, the ship’s compass, which he was able to gather from the helm, a sextant and a chronometer.

When they were back in the lifeboat the men row away from the sinking ship as the captain takes stock of the situation: 29 men in a lifeboat made for 20 and 800 miles from the nearest land. Lifeboats seem so large, twenty of more feet long, with their deep hulls and wide bench seats, when they are secured to the side of the ship but now it seems so small. So crowded.

From the stern the captain faces the men most of who sit on benches facing him. Many of the men have oars in hand. The men look back at the captain, waiting. The captain feels the weight of their desperation. “Maui”, the captain says, “It’s our only hope. Maui.”

There is no response from the men. They’d left the Hawaiian Islands a little over three days ago loaded with molasses and timber bound for San Francisco. It was to be a ten-day trip the captain had taken many times but that was in a 400-foot freighter cruising at ten knots. Now they are in an overloaded lifeboat powered only by ten oars and a small sail. Maui might be the only hope but the captain knows, and the men know, that hope is distant. The captain prays he’s right. The men’s souls are in his hands.

The captain needs some affirmation, a sign that the men are with him. He scans the crew. Some men meet his gaze, others avert their eyes, look toward the sinking ship, toward the horizon. His eyes meet those of the first mate who holds the ship’s compass, steadying it between his legs. “Heading sir?” the mate asks. Thank you, the captain thinks. The captain unrolls the chart sheltering it from spray coming over the gunnels. He checks the ship’s last logged location. “Two five five” the captain says. With an outstretched arm the mate points to 255 degrees, west-southwest, and men begin to row.

After several hours the captain calls to the ship’s cook who sits among what food they’d brought.

“Give us an inventory, Chippy. Set rations for eight days.”

From the bow of the lifeboat, “I done that, sir.” Chippy calls, “We got dozens of eggs, some fruit, maybe enough for each man to have a slice of lemon for a few days. The potatoes will last for a week at half a potato a man. We got some water but not much.”

The men hear the news but make no sound. The captain sees the first mate looking down at the compass between his knees. Finally Matthiesen says, “Well, we’ll make due. Thank you Chippy.”

Five hours later the captain sits with his rations held in his two hands. He wraps his fingers around the half-potato and carefully around the thin slice of lemon, brings his loosely-clasped fists together, and closes his eyes. After a moment he breathes “Amen” and begins to eat.

01:00 Hours - Day 2

A stiff breeze blows spray over the sides of the lifeboat keeping the men perpetually damp and cold. Those not pulling on oars lean against the bench seats, against the gunnels or against one-another and close their eyes, exhausted. From the bow the captain hears “Damn it, man, move your blasted head!” followed by the sound of shuffling and readjusting, thuds against the wooden hull. To no one and to everyone a sailor says “I never knew how heavy a man’s noggin was until he tried to use me as a pillow.”

12:00 Hours – Day 4

Chippy passes out the daily ration and, today, an egg. A few men crack the egg directly into their mouth and swallow hungrily, licking the shells. An able Seaman cracks the egg and hesitates, smelling it before saying, “Chippy, I think the eggs have passed.” Chippy cracks the egg he’s set aside for himself and smells. Sure enough they’ve spoiled in the heat. He looks at the two-dozen eggs in boxes at his feet certain they’re all gone. He looks at the captain. “Pass them all out, Chippy, you all can eat them if you like. They will only get worse. There’s no sense in saving them.”

Most men take their eggs swallowing hungrily. A few hesitate but ultimately, overcome with hunger, crack and swallow the eggs whole. Two hours later, several of the men are doubled over, retching.

Day 5

There is shouting at the bow and then two men are fighting, rocking the boat.

The captain hears “Someone help me, he’s got a knife!”

“It’s no use! It’s no use! We are done for!”

“Get the knife!”

More men jump into the fray rocking the boat still further, water comes over the sides. The captain braces himself placing his hands along the boat’s gunnels and sees the broad back of one man, a big deck hand that the others call The Bull, he is punching someone who lies on the bottom of the boat repeatedly, his arm pumping up and down like a piston. Soon The Bull stops, sits, and turns to the captain. Other men pull away and are silent. They look back and forth between the captain and a body unseen between the bench seats. The only sound is that of wavelets striking the side of the boat.

Finally, The Bull speaks. “He aint dead”.

Another seaman speaks up. “He had a knife captain, he was trying to cut a hole in the boat. Trying to kill us all.”

The captain looks at the men.

“Restrain him,” orders the captain in a low voice. “Tie his hands and keep an eye on him.“

One of the crew finds a length of line to tie the unconscious man’s hands and feet.

Those with oars return to rowing.

That night there is rocking of the boat and the captain hears a loud splash.

From the amidships he hears “Jesus, he’s jumped over!”

The men stop rowing and all hands look out at the water.

“Can anyone see him?” yells the captain.

“He just jumped over the edge! I felt him move while I was sleeping and he just jumped!”

The first mate stands and pans a faint yellow flashlight beam across the water but there is no sign of the sailor whose hands were bound to his feet. The ocean is quiet and dark. After several minutes the first mate turns off the flashlight and sits. How did a man, bound hands and feet, jump out of the boat, he asks himself. The captain scans the crew. Some men look down at their hands, at their knees, others look toward the water. No one speaks. The captain clasps his hands and bows his head. Quietly he offers a short prayer. Finished he raises his head and looks at the men. A few look back, but some avoid eye contact. After several minutes one of the men tentatively dips an oar in the water and begins to pull slowly. Others follow.

05:00 – Day 7

The captain checks the chronometer as the sun rises above the horizon, he asks for a bearing from the first mate, he looks over his notes and makes an X on the chart. If his measurements are right, if his memory of celestial navigation has not failed him, they are on course for Maui but still so far away.

He looks at his men, some are rowing, some tending a small, make-shift sail, some sleep, the first mate monitors their heading, but all look tired, hungry and beaten, unshaven, vacuous eyes, torn clothes stained with grease and blood. Skin is sunburned, chapped. The food is nearly gone, only a few potatoes remain, slices of lemon, a small sip of water for each of them. It will only last another day. Many of these men he’s known for years. They crewed for him when he worked the inter-island short-haul. The first mate jumped at the chance to join the captain when the captain accepted the job on the bigger boat. The captain feels helpless.

“I think he’s dead”

The captain looks up. The men stop rowing and turn to Alfred, who lies awkwardly against a life jacket he’s using as a pillow, his mouth agape, eyes shut. He could be sleeping.

“He hasn’t moved in an hour”.

Someone pokes at Alfred gently and then more firmly. Alfred does not move. From amidships first mate leans giving Alfred a vigorous shake. The mate tries to lift Alfred’s hand but it remains stiffly in place.

“He’s dead for sure captain, Rigor set in already”.

The man sitting next to Alfred slides away; others draw back from the corpse. The captain looks at Alfred and then at the men. “We’ve no choice. We’ll bury him at sea.”

Slowly, carefully, the man sitting next to Alfred leans over to the dead man and pulls back his shirt collar. The captain is about to say something but stops. The man carefully finds the clasp of a small chain and removes a medallion from around Alfred’s neck, Saint Andrew, the patron saint of sailors. He folds the necklace neatly, placing it carefully in his breast pocket and then looks to the captain. “I’ll give it to his wife” he says, “Fred’d like that.”

A short while later they let Alfred slip beneath the surface.

08:00 – Day 8

Chippy passes out the last of the rations, half a potato and a slice of lemon. He looks into the empty wooden box. “That’s the last of it.”

“Thank you, Chippy.” The captain says. “You’ve done well.”

The captain looks across the horizon but there’s no land in sight. He looks down at this chart. Maui should be there. It should be right there.

December 21

A young boy walks along a sandy beach. Christmas is a few days away and he cannot wait. Early morning sunlight warms him but the sand is still cool from the night before. He pokes along the wrack line to see what might have washed up or what critters might have been about the night before. He spots the telltale trail of a turtle come ashore and follows the tracks up the beach. He traces the turtle’s path with a stick as he walks. He looks up and in the distance sees an overturned boat, a small boat, and forms on the beach, bodies, a dozen, more, he stops. Slowly he moves closer to them, straining his eyes to see clearly, to provide definition to the forms. Bodies and a boat. Dead or alive? Friend or foe? Weeks earlier he’d seen planes overhead, it seemed like hundreds of them, and smoke from one of the other islands. Since then his parents seemed nervous. Their conversations seemed to stop when he came into the room and started again in whispered voices only after they’d thought the boy out of earshot.

Coming into view a man, the boy’s father, rushes across the grass toward the boat on the beach. He’s carrying something, a shovel, no, a rifle. As he nears the forms on the beach he slows and then stops and turns. He’s yelling to someone at the house. He drops the rifle and runs the rest of the way to the beach. The boy sees someone else running toward the group, it’s Henry the farm hand, followed by a woman, the boy’s mother.

Soon there is more rushing to and from the beach. Official looking people in army uniforms, a woman who may be a nurse. Small groups gather around the forms on the beach.

In time the boys makes his way tentatively toward the group, approaching his mother. She tends to a man who sits in the sand, his back against the trunk of a palm tree. She kneels, beside him holding a small plate of bread and a few pieces of fruit as the man, holding a cup of water with two hands, drinks. The man’s unshaven face is blistered and chapped, his hands too are blistered. A large cut, no longer bleeding, extends across his forearm. His shirt is torn but the boy recognizes it from his visits to the docks with his father. That man is a ship’s captain, not Navy, one of the many freighters that come and go from the island.

Groups of men and women rush about tending to those collapsed on the beach. Survivors are whisked off on stretchers to ambulances and farm trucks that appear on the lawn. The commotion swirls around the boy, his mother and the captain as the captain sits, slowly eating, sipping water and staring vaguely across the beach to the sea. Eventually the captain turns to the boy’s mother and says softly “When I saw Haleakala above the clouds at sunset I knew we’d make it. We just had to hold on a little longer. I prayed for Hillard. If he could have just held out. And Del Tinto jumped overboard just as we crossed the reef. We were so close. He went under and we never saw him again.”

The boy’s father approaches the threesome and places a small wooden box on the ground. The captain looks down.

“Your instruments” the boys father says, “Your sextant and chronometer.”

“Thank you” the captain say, “And the ship’s compass?”

“The first mate has it with him. Wouldn’t let it go.”

The captain turns to the boy’s father and then to the ocean, “He’s a good man that first mate. “ They’re all good men.

Frank’s Funeral

2018

Tom watches the funeral from a distance, standing quietly on a rise twenty or thirty yards away. A simple graveside service. A few dozen attendees loosely surround the open ground, their heads bowed, hands clasped before them. Otherwise the cemetery is empty. The sky is overcast and an October breeze rattles the last of the leaves on an oak tree.

As he watches the proceedings from afar, Tom recalls conversations during what became near weekly walks over the past year or so. Though never scheduled, neither Frank nor Tom knew the other’s phone number, Tom knew that Frank visited Dorothy nearly every morning after breakfast with a few regulars at the Cracked Mug and Tom made a point to visit the cemetery every week or so to check in. On a cloudy and cold autumn day Frank asked Tom if he believed in heaven and hell, in the afterlife. Tom didn’t recall how he responded but he did recall what Frank had said.

“I just can’t imagine that there is nothing. All those memories, all that stuff that makes a human being a person. Doesn’t it have to go somewhere? I used to believe in heaven and hell but now… now I am not so sure. Heaven and hell seems awful black and white and I am not sure it is that simple. I think when people go their spirit stays around somehow. Maybe it comes back as other things, you know, reincarnation, maybe it’s just there but we can’t see it. Am I making sense, Tom?”

When they’d returned to Frank’s truck, parked as it always was, next to Dorothy’s grave, with the headstone that they would one day share, Frank stopped. He leaned against the side of the truck and put his hands, one over the other, on his cane. He turned to the headstone and asked “You know why I come here every day?”

“To talk to Dorothy?”

“To talk to Dorothy. To let her know what I’m doing. What’s happening on the island. To be with her. Tom, when my time comes will anyone come talk to me?”

Tom chuckled awkwardly and said “I hope you’re not going anywhere right away Frank.” But seeing that Frank was not smiling Tom said “I’ll come visit, Frank, I promise”.

The priest says a few words and raises his head toward the casket. He says a few words to the one in the grave, then to those assembled. After a moment the priest approaches a women who stands closest. He reaches toward her taking her hands in his, leaning in for a moment and then, slowly, he releases her hands and steps back before turning and walking toward a row of cars nearby. The woman remains standing at the graveside her hands folded before her, her head bowed down toward the open hole.

Slowly, others move toward the cars. Most past the woman, placing a consoling hand on her back or her shoulder and pausing for a moment before moving on. To each the woman turns slightly, nods, and then turns back. As each car leaves gravel crunches under the tire. After several minutes only the woman remains at the graveside.

In time Tom approaches. Walking softly, hands in the pocket of his overcoat, his shoulders hunched against the cold, he is soon at the open grave. He pulls his hands from his pockets, clasps them before him and bows his head. After a moment he raises his head and sees her looking at him. He walks around the grave and is beside her.

“Ms. Leslie?” he says.

“Yes, Carol Leslie… Carol.”

“My name is Tom. Tom Clark. I knew your father.”

He looks at her for a moment feeling a need to fill the awkward silence.

“Your father was a good man. I didn’t know him well or for very long but I enjoyed his company. He was a good man”

Carol feigns a smile. “Thank you. He was a good man” she says turning back toward the simple pine box that sits at the bottom of the hole. He follows her gaze. Moments pass. Finally she raises her head looks toward other headstones, the trees and then to Tom.

“How did you know my father?”

He hesitates.

“Actually, I met him here. We were both visiting the cemetery. I met him just over there” he says nodding toward the rise where he stood only moments earlier.

She smiles.

“Of course. Tom. Dad mentioned you.”

Tom turns toward her.

“Dad said he’d met a nice man while visiting mom. He said you’d had several conversations at the cemetery. He enjoyed the time with you, your walks. Said he’d wished he’d met you sooner.”

Tom waits, expecting more but she stops.

“He was a remarkable person. I enjoyed his company. I wish I’d met him sooner too. I’ll miss him.”

They turn back toward the coffin, toward Frank.

Tom pulls his hands from his pockets, the address book in one hand. He looks down at it and then toward Carol who notices the book in his hand. He holds it out to her.

“This was Frank’s” he says.

Carol takes it from him holding it with both hands. A small book, a worn leather cover, dog-eared, a few loose pages. She rubs the cover with her thumbs. Tom sees a faint smile and then tremble of the chin.

“Dad’s little book” she says. They are quiet, she looks down at the book and then at Tom handing it back but Tom keeps his hands in his pockets. She takes a step toward him holding the book out. Eventually he takes it. He looks down at the book and then at her.

“Do you know what it is?” he asks.

“It’s an address book” she says with a slight smile, pointing out the obvious.

“Dad had it in his desk for years. Once in a while he’d pull it out, make a note and put it away. He never told me anything about it. I never asked.”

“I mean, why did he give it to me?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t he tell you?”

“He asked me to let people know that he had passed away, to send them a note, but I mean…” Tom looks down at the book in his hands and then up to Carol. “Wouldn’t you like to be the one to let people know? Tom asks.

Carol shifts her weight and looks up toward something in the distance. Tom sees tears welling in Carol’s eyes. She takes a breath.

“I loved my dad” Carol says, “I really did. When he first moved out here with mom I was just a kid. Years later when I moved off-island I came with the kids and we’d spend a week with them . It was great. We’d go to the beach, we’d go fishing. Dad would play with he kids and mom would make these delicious meals with vegetables straight from her garden. And then, I don’t know, it just got, you know, busy. There was little league and swim camp. There was work, shit, there was always work. It just got so busy. When mom got sick, we all came at first as if by showing up we could fix it. But she was sick for a long time and we couldn’t be around. And then life crept back in.”

Tom looks at her but says nothing.

Carol pulls a tissue from her pocket and wipes her eyes. She turns back to the Frank. “My sisters and I would talk. We’d make plans to come out, to help dad, to see mom. One day dad called me on the phone, ‘Carol’, he says, ‘I’m sorry, your mother passed away last night’”. Carol turns back to the horizon somewhere over Tom’s shoulder. “It had been three years since I’d seen my parents. Three years.”

Carol turns to Tom. For a long moment neither speaks. Finally Tom says “I’m sorry”.

Carol looks at him for a moment longer. She looks down toward her shoes and then back to Tom.

“You know that saying, ‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder’?” she says, “Well, sometimes distance just leads to more distance.”

Tom waits but Carol says nothing. He turns to the grave.

“Tom, if he gave you that book, he meant for you to have it. Not for you to give it to me. If he asked you to send a note, then that’s what he wanted, but as to why, well, I can’t help you.”

Tom pauses. He looks at her and then down at the book.

He thumbs it looking at the worn cover and then looks up to her. He says nothing.

She smiles.

“I see why my dad liked you Tom. I think you were there when he needed a friend. If Dad gave it to you he meant to give it to you. It’s yours, not mine.”

For a long moment they just look at each other and say nothing, finally she says “Thank you for your kind words Tom. It was a pleasure to meet you.” She turns and walks slowly to her car.

He watches her leave. He’s left standing at the graveside. He looks down toward the coffin sitting in the open grave and then to the address book in his hand and then toward the clouds passing overhead. He hears a crow in a nearby tree and looks toward it. He sees two men standing beside a small backhoe watching him, patiently waiting to fill the hole.

Enter The Skipper

Hearing the knock Tom pads to the door, sock-footed. He opens the door to see a woman. She’s wearing an olive green overcoat, her hair pulled back neatly but not formally. She could be running errands. In her arms she cradles a brown and grey tabby cat, its whiskers, the grey on his face resemble a mustache a beard. Nordic, Tom thinks. The woman and the cat seem to appraise Tom.

“Ms. Les… Carol. Hello”

“Hello Tom. I’m sorry to stop by unannounced. I didn’t have your number to call. Sorry to just show up.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Come in.”

He steps aside holding the door open.

“Oh, no, no, Thank you though.”

Tom looks at her, at the cat. The cat continues to appraise. Tom can’t help but think he is being judged.

Carol extends her arms toward Tom holding the cat with indifference under its front legs. The cat’s hind legs dangle over the door’s threshold. Before he can process what he is doing Tom reaches out and takes the cat, recreating a cradle, crossing his arms. The cat settles in.

“Meet The Skipper” Carol says nodding to the cat.

“The Skipper showed up on my father’s doorstep five or so years ago, after mom died. Dad was never much of a cat person but the cat stayed around and eventually wore dad down. Toward the end I think Dad really took to him. He’d talk to as if he were a person. ‘Aye Aye, Skipper’ he’d say .”

Carol pauses and the adds. “I’m headed home. He can’t come with me so I brought him over. He’s yours.” The finality of here statement leaves no room for discussion.

“Carol, I…”

“Tom, I think it’s what dad would have wanted.” Carol interrupts.

The Skipper purrs, content. Carol looks at The Skipper and then at Tom. “He seems settled.” she says.

After a moment Carol says “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you Tom. Thank you for being a part of Dad’s life, brief as that time was.” Tom says nothing. Carol puts her hands in her coat pockets and looks at The Skipper and then at Tom. “Good luck with the cat. Oh, and dad gave him sardines now and then. Apparently he likes sardines. Oil or water, he is not fussy.”

She turns to leave descending two steps off the porch.

Tom says “Carol, are…”. She hesitates, finishes the step, and then turns. She waits.

“Are you sure? I mean…”

“Tom, you were special to Dad. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was timing. Maybe you listened when he needed someone to listen. Maybe he… “ She stops herself. “ I don’t know. But Dad clearly saw something in you. Thank you for being his friend. Be well.” With that Carol descends the remaining step, walks to the street, climbs in her car and is off, leaving Tom standing in the doorway with The Skipper in his arms. They watch her drive down the street until she it out of sight. Tom stands for a long moment in the doorway. He half expects Carol to return but the street is quiet. After a minute he looks down at the cat confirming that what seems to have happened actually happened.

Then, The Skipper still in his arms, he turns back into his house and closes the door behind him.

Later that evening Tom sits at his desk. He pushes the laptop away leaving space before him. A box of note cards sits to his left, next to it a writing pen he purchased for the occasion, black ink, higher quality than what he usually uses. Beside the note cards sits the address book. The Skipper sleeps curled on his lap.

He reaches for the address book and opens it. It’s a thin book with several dozen entries. The original entries are written in a consistent form, the same hand, same ink, more or less alphabetically. Updated addresses appear in varied ink. Tom flips through the pages.

After a moment Tom opens the box of note cards removing the top card and putting it in front of him. He pages back to the front of the address book: Andrew “Chippy” Chipman. He takes the pen and begins to write.

Dear Mr. Chipman

I regret being the bearer of sad news but I write to inform you that Frank Leslie recently passed.

A Box and the Door

From the street Tom sees the box at his front door sitting on the welcome mat. He does not recall ordering anything. He ascends the steps and looks down at the box, it’s about the size of a milk crate – one of those cardboard jobs you get from the moving company. The box is addressed to him but has no postage and no return address. A plain white business envelope is taped haphazardly on the top of the box. He opens the envelope finding a note, handwritten, on lined paper.

Hello Tom

I am in the process of finalizing dad’s affairs and among his “Important” files I came across instructions that this should go to you. So here it is. I do not know where it came from or its significance but it sat on his desk forever and I guess he thought you should have it.

Carol

P.S. How’s The Skipper?

Tom rereads the note and in his head hears Carol’s voice. He unlocks the door, picks up the box and enters, placing his messenger bag and coat in the closet and carrying the box into the living room. He sits in a leather wingback placing the box on the floor at his feet. The Skipper appears from another room. Tom gives him a scratch and then opens the box, peeling off the packing tape, unfolding the flaps, the box is filled with Styrofoam peanuts. The Skipper puts his forepaws on the edge of the box and peers in. Tom tentatively pushes his hands into the box, peanuts fall onto the floor. He feels something, hard, irregular in shape, and pushes his hands farther down the sides where he finds the object’s base. Carefully he lifts. Peanuts fall as a large maritime compass emerges, the kind he’s seen in antique stores and nautically themed restaurants. It’s about a foot tall and mounted on a wooden base. Tarnished brass. A glass window protects the compass rose from the weather.

Tom rotates the base and the compass dial maintains it’s heading. Tom blows off the remaining peanuts and bits of Styrofoam and sees a small nameplate: “Lahaina”.

Tom places the compass on the ground and rereads Carol’s note confirming it provides no hint as to the significance of the compass, the Lahaina, or what Frank intended: “I guess he thought you should have it”. Tom feels around the box, stirring the peanuts, to see if there is anything he’s missed. Nothing.

Tom looks at the compass, at The Skipper.

Curious, Tom walks to his desk, wakes his computer and types ‘Lahaina’ into the search bar. With countless results for the island he refines the search, ‘SS Lahaina’. The first entry shows a link to a cargo ship sunk at the start of World War 2 with a Navy communiqué.

No.15 issued at 1.15 pm today - Central Pacific - Thirty survivors of the steamship LAHAINA have landed at Kahalui on the island of Maui. The LAHAINA was shelled and sunk by an enemy submarine on December 11 while en route to San Francisco. two of the crew are dead and two are missing. [The Evening Star, Washington, Monday, 22 December 1941]

Tom leans in squinting at a black and white image of the ill-fated ship. He walks to the compass, rereads the nameplate, looks back to the computer. The skipper jumps onto the desk as if to assist.

“I have to say” Tom says to the cat “our friend Frank is certainly an interesting man.”

(Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?153895)

A Call From Scotty

Tom’s phone rings in his pocket. He pulls it out, looks at it and though he does not recognize the number, thinking it might be a wayward party guest, he answers it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Tom?” It’s a woman’s voice, young.

“Yes, it is.”

“My grandfather would like to speak with you. Here, he…”

Tom interrupts “Uh, yeah, this isn’t really a good time, can I…”

“Hello, is this Tom?” asks an older man.

“Yes, but, this isn’t, ,, Can I call…?”

“My granddaughter, Kiki, called for me. She’s good with the new phones. Found your number on the internet of all places. She’s a sweet girl. What would I do without her?”

From the kitchen Tom hears laughter. The front door opens. Another guest enters. “Knock, Knock” and then, seeing Tom is on the phone the new arrival puts her index finger to her lips, gives Tom a peck on the cheek, and follows the noise into the kitchen. Tom hears “It’s Lila!” as he retreats to the relative quiet of the living room.

The man on the phone has said something that Tom didn’t catch but hears “good man.”

“I’m sorry” Tom says “could you repeat that? It was kind of noisy on my end”

“I said, I was sorry to hear about Frank. He was a good man.”

Frank? Frank. The address book. The letters.

“I’m sorry, who am I speaking to?”

“Eben Fitzgerald, I think you know me as Scotty. That’s what Frank called me. Scotty. Everyone on the docks, on the boat, called me Scotty.”

Tom looks across the living room at his desk, at the drawer containing the address book. He recalls sending a card to a Scotty Fitzgerald because Scotty lived on Mitchell Street in New London, the same street that Tom’s sister once lived.

From the kitchen Tom hears a male voice loudly, over the laughter and conversation “I think he’s on the phone.” No doubt one of the guests responding to Sarah’s “Where the hell did Tom go?” Then, quietly, Sarah enters the living room, hands Tom his half full beer, mouths, “Don’t let this get warm” and smiles. Tom whispers “thank you” and holds up one finger “Give me just a minute.”

Tom turns his attention back to the phone realizing he’s missed something else.

“…many years. Yes, he was a good man, Frank. Loyal as they come. How long did you know him, Tom?”

“Oh, uh, well, not long really, I wish I’d known him better…”

“S’pose it doesn’t really matter now does it.” Scotty interrupts. “Frank’s with the captain and the rest of the crew now and you have the book.”

Scotty pauses, then “and that’s why I had to call you now. You see Tom, I’m not sure how much time I have before I join them in the great beyond and just as I promised the captain I need to give you my piece of the puzzle as it were.”

Tom moves to a leather chair. He presses the phone to his ear, a finger in his other ear to block out the noise from the kitchen. From behind him he hears a few other guests let themselves in. The kitchen erupts with laughter as the newly arrived join the crowd.

Tom realizes that for a moment neither he nor Scotty have said anything.

Finally Scotty says “Tom, you still there?”

“Yes, yes, sorry Scotty”

“So, as I said, the doctor tells me to get my affairs in order and so’s I was going to give Frank a call, but then your letter came and I guess you are the one to talk to.”

Tom’s eyes are closed, he’s concentrating but for the life of him does not understand what Scotty ‘s talking about.

There is another pause and again Scotty breaks the silence.

“Tom, you’re not saying much, you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. Sorry. Just. I’m a little confused.” He pauses and then “Frank gave me a small address book and asked me to send a card when he passed . He didn’t say anything else, just asked me to send a card. Nothing else.”

“Oh for Chris’ sake,” Scotty says “that’d be just like Frank I suppose. What’d he do, you say? Gave you his book and said ‘just send my friends a note telling them I’m dead?’”

Tom stares at the floor. “That’s pretty much it.” He hears Scotty laugh to himself.

“Just like Frank. Jesus. Just like Frank. Well then Tom, I hope you like solving puzzles.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Puzzles. The address book big is a puzzle and now I guess you have to solve the puzzle. Tom, unless I’m wrong, that book contains a lot more than names of old men and where they lived. Have you ever looked through it?”

“I guess not well enough. I mean I sent the cards and read the addresses but…”

“I bet if you look more closely you’ll see something else.”

For the next ten minutes Scotty talks and Tom listens. The address book contained the names and addresses of men who each held a piece of a puzzle. Those men swore to keep their piece of the puzzle a secret until their dying days at which time they were to give their piece to whoever held the address book. Frank had been entrusted to hold the address book, to keep the pieces safe until enough had been assembled to solve the puzzle.

Sarah returns placing a fresh beer bottle on a coffee table beside Tom’s chair. She raises her index finger making a circular motion in the air, ‘wrap it up’. Tom returns a gesture apologetically ‘one minute’

“Frank must have realized that he could no longer put the pieces together so he gave you the book. As I said, Tom, I hope you like puzzles.”

“Scotty, I, I don’t know. It all sounds pretty far fetched.”

“I bet it does, Tom, I bet it does. But if Frank had the confidence enough to give you the book, then I suspect you’ll figure it out. Now, before I go I’ve got to give you my piece, you ready?”

“I suppose so.”

“Baldwin House”

“Baldwin House?”

“Yup, Baldwin House.”

“That’s it? Just ‘Baldwin House’?”

“Just Baldwin House” Scotty says. “Remember it and write it down. It’s a piece of a puzzle.

“Scotty” Tom says, “I have to ask. I mean this all sounds so hard to believe. I mean, why would all these men keep a secret for so long? It all seems so tenuous. Why would you all do it?”

Tom can hear Scotty adjusting himself in a chair. Scotty clear his throat and takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

“Tom, have you ever thought you were going to die? I don’t mean that in the sense of doing something stupid and regretting it but have you ever been in a situation where you actually thought you were going to die? When you questioned who you were. When you said a prayer and said good-bye? When you said ‘By God, this is it’?”

Tom says nothing.

“It is a long story so I won’t go into it but those men in that book, they all , we all, thought they were going to die. We all thought we were going to die. We said our prayers. We said goodbye. But the Captain wouldn’t let it happen. The Captain saved our lives. He saved my life. All he asked in return is that we keep a secret.”

“I’m sorry. The Captain? Scotty I’m confused, who is the Captain?”

“Now it sounds like you have company so I’m going to let you get back to your friends. You have a good night Tom” and with that Scotty hangs up before Tom can say goodbye.

Tom sits, staring at his desk and the drawer that contains the now mysterious address book. Was it brilliant or mad? To scatter the pieces of a puzzle across the memory of men and trust that in time those pieces would be gathered and that whatever secret it revealed would be told? What kind of puzzle, what kind of secret, was best kept for fifty years and why had Frank decided that Tom was the person who should now have to solve it? Or was Tom the one to solve it? Maybe Tom is just an interim keeper of the book. Maybe he too would have to pass it on. Tom’s head swims with questions.

Later that night, Tom sits at his desk as Sarah does the last of the cleanup in the kitchen. He opens the drawer and pulls out the address book. The Skipper emerges and purrs, rubbing his cheek and neck on Tom’s leg. Tom turns pages until he comes to the Fs and finds Scotty’s name, the only name on the page. Next to the name Tom writes ‘Baldwin House’. Tom flips to the first page and looks at the name and address. He flips to the second, and the third. Beside the fourth name he sees “Cancer 1976 RIP”. He flips to the fifth, the sixth and sees “Lighthouse, heart attack, 1982”. He turns more pages. “Cancer 1990”, “Leprosy”, “Car crash 1963”. He flips back and forth through the address book and then notices three-digit numbers beside some of the names: 280, 035.

“Frank” he says softly “what is this?”

Father Damien

Tom sits on a wicker couch on a covered porch overlooking the ocean through lush, fragrant hibiscus. A stiff breeze blows and palms rustle, their fronds clattering. In the distance he hears surf, the rhythmic white noise of waves on a rocky coast. The air is warm and tropical, heavy. The Skipper walks by brushing his leg, purring as he rubs his jowls against Tom’s khaki pants.

As Tom looks down to the cat, reaching to give it a scratch behind the ears, he notices a blemish on his forearm. A rash? A bruise? He touches it and strangely feels nothing. He pokes at it, scratches with his fingernail, and still no sensation. He picks at it curiously.

Footsteps approach on the wooden porch and Tom looks up to see Dr. Lane, his general practitioner, approaching. The doctor wears a white coat, the kind doctors used to wear decades ago. Odd, Dr. Lane never wears a white coat. His glasses are different too. Throwbacks. A style you’d see in the 40’s. The ends of a stethoscope extend from one of Dr. Lane’s pockets.

“Dr. Lane,” Tom say, “I was,,, do you know what?....”

Without a word, as if he doesn’t hear, Dr. Lane draws a stool toward Tom. The doctor sits, reaching for Tom’s arm, then, holding it by the wrist firmly, he rotates the arm examining the blemish from all sides.

“I just noticed it” Tom says “Not sure how I got it”.

The doctor continues his examination not acknowledging Tom. From his pocket he draws a small metal case that he opens on his lap. He removes a scalpel and a glass slide.

“What are you..?”

Gently the doctor scrapes a small slice across the top of the blemish. Tom flinches but then realizes that he feels no pain. The doctor removes a piece of the skin placing it on the slide. He then covers the slide and its sample of skin with a second slide. He places the scalpel back into the metal container and returns it to his pocket and then, without a word, he turns and leaves carrying the glass slide carefully before him.

“Doctor Lane. Wait.”

But the doctor continues without a word. Tom watches him leave and only as the doctor is stepping off the porch does Tom notice another man sitting at the far end of the porch. The man sits quietly, his hands in his lap clasped around a worn, leather-bound book that Tom can see is a bible. He wears a dark coat and dark pants. The shirt beneath his coat, probably once white, is now a weathered light grey. Atop his head is an odd hat the likes of which Tom has not seen. It appears at first to be a bowler but the brim is wider and the bowl much less pronounced, fitting Tom thinks, for wherever he is in this tropical environment, the sun and the wind seem more of a concern than London, where the bowlers were designed. The man’s face is weathered and sun-worn. He is unshaven and his beard is flecked with grey. Oddly the man’s skin is also shades of grey, a black and white photo come to life. The man looks at Tom through small, round, wire-framed glasses.

“Hello Tom,” the man says. “How are you?”

“I’m …fine…who are you?”

“I’m Father Damien”

“Have we met?” Tom asks, unsure.

“No, but we will, soon.”

Tom hears footsteps approaching and sees Dr. Lane returning, this time with another gentlemen Tom does not recognize. The two men step onto the porch walking past Father Damien without acknowledgment. Father Damien watches them pass. Once on the porch Dr. Lane steps aside and the second man approaches Tom. He wears a long coat and a stern expression. He has a formal, bureaucratic, almost military, presence. Without introduction the man pulls an envelope from his pocket handing it to Tom.

The man stands erect, and as if giving order he says “By decree of the Board of Health you are hereby ordered to the Leprosy settlement on Kalaupapa. A car will pick you up in the morning. You many bring personal effects if you wish, not to exceed one steamer trunk or two large suitcases. All items will be inspected prior to your departure. Further information is provided in the letter.”

With that the man turns and leaves walking past the Father, again, without acknowledgement. Tom watches the man descend the few steps to the walk. Tom turns to Dr. Lane who stands before him wordless.

“Dr. Lane, What..?”

Dr. Lane turns and follows the man off the porch and he too is gone. Tom stares down the now quiet path, at the empty space where the two men passed. He turns to Father Damien. His eyes show compassion, a knowing sadness. The Father’s eyes fall to the letter on Tom’s lap and Tom looks at the letter more closely. In the upper left, a neatly printed official monogram “Board of Health”. The letter is simply address to Thomas Clark – For Hand Delivery. Tom brushes his finger across the lettering of his name and notices it’s been typed with a manual typewriter, the indentation clear on the paper envelope. Then he notices his forearm. Has the blemish gotten larger? He pokes at it, picking it again with his fingernail.

“It’s Hansen’s disease” says Father Damien, pausing to let the words sink in.

“Or that’s what they will call it years from now. Today they call it Leprosy. “

Tom looks up at the father who looks back at him.

“There is no cure for leprosy yet. We clean the sores and pray. Some treatments show promise but unfortunately for you the cure is decades away.”

Tom looks at the man for a moment and then back at the blemish on his arm, which seems to have grown slightly larger. Tom rubs the spot, and then harder trying to scrub it away. In the center the skin hardens, almost scab-like, only at the margins can he feel any sensation. He continues rubbing but only succeeds in making the skin around the spot redder. He looks toward Father Damien who returns the gaze with sympathy.

“We’ll meet again when you arrive on the island.“ the Father says. “The sisters and the others who’ve come before you will help get you situated. They’ll help you come to be at peace, to accept what God has… “ He does not finish the thought.

Tom looks back down at his arm. The blemish, now a darkened scab, continues to creep slowly toward his wrist. He grabs a napkin off a nearby table and starts to rub becoming more and more frantic. He feels nothing but sees he’s rubbed his arm raw. He looks at the napkin now spotted with blood. He looks up but the Father is no longer there, only an empty chair remains at the edge of the porch. The Skipper jumps up on the couch and inspects Tom’s arm, sniffing the sore. Tom looks back down at his arm. The skin at the center is scaly, reptilian. He covers his arm with the napkin and continues to rub. The Skipper climbs toward Tom, his front paws now on Tom’s chest. He looks directly at Tom and meows loudly but Tom, eyes on the napkin, continues to rub, and rub. The Skipper meows louder. Tom rubs harder, more franticly, now he sees a trickle of blood on his arm beneath the napkin. He keeps rubbing, feeling nothing. The Skipper meows louder and louder, his whiskers now inches from Tom’s face.

Tom rubs harder, The Skipper meows, louder.

Harder.

Louder.

Tom feels The Skipper’s whiskers on his face and he jumps, startled. He’s awake. He’s on his couch in his living room. The Skipper stands on his chest staring at Tom. Tom looks at the cat. The cat meows and then hops lightly to the floor headed for the kitchen. Tom looks at his forearm, which bears no sign of the sore that he saw moments ago. He flops his head back on the arm of the couch.

Tom turns to his desk and the laptop sitting on it. He rises, crosses the room and sits at the desk opening the computer. He opens a search engine and stares at the computer, a blank entry next to the ubiquitous search magnifying glass. He stares at the blinking cursor. Finally he enters “Father Damien”. At the top of the screen is a Wikipedia entry:

Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, SS.CC. or Saint Damien De Veuster (Dutch: Pater Damiaan or Heilige Damiaan van Molokai; 3 January 1840 – 15 April 1889),[2] born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,[3] a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi for people with leprosy (Hansen's disease), who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi.[4]

And there, on the right side of the screen is a black and white picture of Father Damien just as Tom had seen him in the dream.

On the Island

The idea is absurd, really, and yet here they are. Tom reflects on the events, some within his control, some not of his doing, and some otherworldly, which led him to be hiking through dense island vegetation to a point they’d marked on a map.

Ahead of him Sarah keeps a steady pace, pausing now and then to admire the fauna or to look up at the birds passing above the island brush. Her hiking boots and calves are covered with trail dust. She loops her thumbs in the straps of her daypack and her elbows brush fronds as she walks. A water bottle clipped to the pack sloshes with each stride.

When Tom mentioned meeting Frank in the cemetery and he told her about their walks she’d thought the whole thing was touching. An old man makes contact with a younger man and they form a bond. When Tom told Sarah about the address book, about the request to notify friends, she’d thought it odd. Why Tom and not his own daughter? But it was a harmless request that she chalked up to the eccentricity of a lonely old man. Tom hadn’t mentioned the other entries in the book right away but she had wondered a bit, asking for more explanation when The Skipper moved in and at the bequest of the compass. The problem was, Tom wasn’t certain he knew what it all meant either.

Only months later, after hours on the internet and thumbing through the address book, chasing clues, he told Sarah the whole story, about the compass, the cryptic address book notations, conversations with Scotty and others in the crew. Then Sarah started working on the puzzle. She had been the one who’d figured out that the “Leprosy” reference was not how one of Frank’s shipmate had died but it was, in fact, another clue. It was Sarah who made the connection to Molokai, the leper colony and the history. Together they’d spent hours looking at maps, flipping through the book, researching lepers, the colony, Father Damien. It was only then that Tom told Sarah about the dream. Together they selected a point on a map. It seemed to fit with all the clues. The puzzle pieces fit. X marked the spot.

“The problem is” Tom said one night over a glass of wine, “it’s a non-unique solution. I mean, it fits and all that but what if there’s another solution?”

“The problem is” Sarah added, “we don’t know what we are looking for. We don’t know if what we think we are looking for is still there. For that matter we don’t know if there was anything at that possible ‘non-unique’ location in the first place.” Sarah smiled at Tom.

“What do you think?” Sarah asked. Tom knew her tone. She was not asking what his brain was telling him, she was asking what his heart was telling him.

“I think it’s the spot. I don’t know what we’ll find, but I think it’s the spot.”

A week later Sarah announced she’d made reservations for a week in Hawaii, just the two of them. The flights and hotels were booked. She’d even arranged a two-day excursion to Molokai and a visit to the former leper colony. Tom could not believe it but he was grateful she’d had the gumption for adventure and didn’t say no. And so they went.

That morning Tom and Sarah left their small tour group with a few others who intended to hike away from the colony at the shore and up to the Puu Uao Lookout a few miles , inland. There, at the edge of Kauhako Crater they’d see a small lake, no more than a pond really, formed by a volcanic vent and nearly 800 feet deep, a natural wonder. But as interested as Tom and Sarah were in seeing this natural wonder, they were more interested in confirming that from this small promontory you did, in fact, have a clear line of sight from the crater to the lighthouse. And from this lookout Tom had hoped to get his first real look at a smaller promontory a mile or two north. A promontory that sat on his map beneath the X.

From the crater Tom and Sarah left their group feigning interest in a flower “just over there.” “We’ll catch up” they said. Once alone they’d followed a vague trail, a game trail , for a few tens of yards before stopping.

Tom looks at Sarah. Sarah looks at Tom.

“Well.” Tom says.

“Well, what?”

“I don’t know. Are you sure?”

“Give me the map.”

Tom pulls the map from a pocket of his pack and starts to unfold it but Sarah takes it impatiently holding it open before her.

“Give me your compass” she says.

She holds the small plastic compass on the map and rotates her body slightly aligning herself, the compass and the map with north. She looks back up the trail toward the crater and down to the map. She looks toward where the lighthouse should be but the dense greenery obscures any hope to seeing it. She looks slightly toward the east on a line roughly parallel to the game trail they are on.

“I think we’re on the right track,” she says “C’mon”. She folds the map roughly holding it and the compass in one hand, and proceeds down the trail. Tom smiles and follows.

The trail descends along a subtle ridge. Every couple hundred yards Sarah stops, opens the map, orients herself, looks down the path and back up the trail where they’ve come and, satisfied, continues. They descend the ridge, walk across at short flat, and start climbing another small cone. Soon the ground flattens and Sarah stops in a small clearing. She opens the map as Tom looks over her shoulder. She looks up but any reference points, the lighthouse, the crater, the colony, are obscured by the dense palm.

“I think this is the place” she says.

Tom says nothing.

Sarah hands the map to Tom, takes a drink from her water bottle and walks around the clearing.

Tom looks at the map and then up. He spins the map, turns around, looks back at the map. Finally he looks at Sarah who is looking around inspecting the trees and the ground as if in a museum.

“Remind me what we are looking for.” She says.

“I don’t really know. I never thought we’d get this far.”

“Were you expecting a big X on the ground?”

The continue to search, for what they are unsure. For an hour they wander the clearing. They follow a few the game trials beyond the clearing confirming that they are at the top of the smaller cone, and then return to the clearing. They drop their packs and take a long drink from their water bottles.

“It was a long time ago” Tom says. “I mean we could be in the wrong place, or someone could have dug it up or anything. I mean we don’t even know what we are actually looking for.” Tom finds a flat rock and sits. He puts the map on the ground and opens his pack removing the address book. Slowly he flips through the pages he’s practically memorized. Sarah continues looking around the clearing and then she stops.

“Well that’s odd”

Tom turns to Sarah whose looking at a tree. Hands on her hips she looks up at the leaves and then down the trunk and back up again.

“What’s odd” Tom asks.

“Wasn’t one of the entries ‘they don’t belong’? We could figure out what it meant.” Sarah says. “Look at the tree.”

Tom turns to the tree, set among from the other palms, cacti, shrubs and flowers he can’t name, at first glance is otherwise unremarkable. Its leaves rustling the breeze, upper branches sway but the trunk is solid. The tree has been there a while.

“What?” Tom asks.

“It’s an oak.” Sarah says. “Look around, there isn’t an oak anywhere around us. I’m not sure I’ve seen an oak since we’ve been on the island. It’s totally out of place.”

Tom stands. Sure enough, at the margins of the clearing stands an oak tree. In New England an oak might stand taller, straighter, but here, on a wind-blown volcanic island, the oak appears weather-beaten. It leans, branches extending to the east yielding to the persistent winds that buffet the islands.

Tom stands to inspect the tree from another angle. He approaches the trunk placing his hand on the bark as if expecting the tree to speak. Sarah is looking at the base of the tree, at the roots extending across the coffee-brown soil and black volcanic clinker. Tom hears her laugh to herself.

“Holy shit” she says.

Tom turns to her as she squats before a small rounded boulder about the size of a coconut.

“It’s granite”

She turns to Tom.

“An oak tree and a granite boulder in Hawaii, the land of palms and lava. How’s that for something that doesn’t belong?”

A Letter

Tom opens the front door, and puts the mail on a small table. He drops his briefcase inside the closet door and hangs his coat. He picks the mail off the table and carries it into the kitchen where The Skipper greets him hopping lightly onto the breakfast island. Tom sorts the mail culling the junk from the bills when he comes upon an envelope, his name and address handwritten and bearing a postmark from Maui. The return address is also handwritten - 35 Kihoni Loa Street, Kahului, Maui Hawaii. He smiles and carefully opens the envelope. Tom unfolds the letter, a handwritten note and looks to the signature line - James Attwood - attached is a newspaper clipping, .

Tom looks up to the wall at the picture he and Sarah took of themselves nearly a year ago on Molokai, the two of them standing arms around each other, Sarah holding a canvas satchel, their faces dirty with sweat and mud but they wear huge smiles. Tom thinks of the metal watertight ammunition box at their feet, just out of the photo’s frame. How else to keep papers dry for a hundred years? He remembers how carefully he and Sarah had opened the satchel back in the hotel room to find an envelope and a sealed manila folder. Within the envelope, a letter. It was pages long, in places autobiographical;

My name is David Saunders and I grew up in Connecticut

In places confession;

I was a relentless capitalist intent on making all that I could in the market with little regard to how. I was a ruthless accumulator of wealth.

In places acceptance of an inevitable outcome;

I recognize that this disease may be what I deserve, my just desserts as my mother would say

And part repentance

Perhaps in some way I can right a wrong and in some karmic way undue the greed.

The letter told the story of a man who accumulated great wealth in the stock market and then contracted leprosy whereupon he was sent to the leper colony on Molokai. In the vain hope that a cure was imminent he brought his wealth with him. At the colony he married a women and fathered a son only to have the son taken from him and sent to a forced adoption outside the colony as soon as doctors determined that the boy did not also carry the disease. How David’s wife had died soon thereafter of what David could only conclude was a broken heart and how David himself grew resigned to the knowledge that he too would die as a leper in the colony. How David came to terms with his situation and grew determined to somehow find a way to extend what remaining wealth he had to his son or more likely given the passage of time, his son’s heirs, if those heirs could ever be found.

Tom thought of the research he and Sarah had done to find David’s heirs. Dealing with the adoption bureaucracy had been frustrating and time consuming. But eventually they’d located David’s son, David Attwood, recently deceased but formerly living in Maui. David Attwood’s only heir, also a boy, James Attwood, lived in Maui. Tom smiled recalling his first stumbling and awkward telephone conversation with a suspicious James some six months ago.

“Hello, James, My name is Tom and I have something that belonged to your biological grandfather…Yes, I am serious…No, I am not asking for money…No, this is not a scam…” Eventually the entire satchel and its contents were forwarded to James. Tom had often wondered what James’ reaction must have been upon opening the satchel for himself and to realize the gift a grandfather he never knew he had had bestowed upon him. Tom remembered his own reaction when he opened the manila envelope to find dozens of stock certificates: John Deere, U.S. Steel, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola. David Saunders knew how to pick stock and after a hundred years the stocks were worth a fortune.

Tom turns back to the letter and reads.

Dear Tom

As you can imagine my head has been spinning since we first spoke. Life has not been the same.

I cannot thank you enough for all of the work that you and Sarah did for a man you never knew. Indeed a man I never knew.

Attached please find a clipping from the Maui Times that I thought you would appreciate. My wife works in a library and through her research learned that my grandmother worked in a mission home prior to contracting leprosy. We thought this was an appropriate way to remember my grandparents.

I hope someday to meet you face to face. Perhaps you and Sarah would be our guests at a ribbon cutting.

Sincerely

James Attwood

Tom sets the letter down and turns to the clipping:

Local Trust to Build Homes for Families in Need

A spokesman for the Saunders Memorial Trust announced today that the trust will provide $10 million to fund the construction of homes for hundreds of currently homeless Hawaiian families. At a press conference with many local dignitaries in attendance James Attwood announced the program which will break ground on the first homes later this year.

Tom continues reading and then sets the article down. He looks back up to the photo. The Skipper nudges Tom’s hand and purrs.

Visiting Frank

On a clear day, not unlike the day they’d met Tom stands, hands clasped, looking down at the headstone: Frank Leslie 1925 - 2019.

“Well Frank, you probably know all this but you certainly sent me on an adventure. I’m not sure how it all came together but somehow it did.”

Tom looks up to other headstones and the trees. A crow flies from a nearby field landing on a headstone nearby. It calls to others but receives no reply. The crow turns to Tom and calls. Tom remembers his conversation with Frank about crows, cemeteries, secrets. Tom turns to the crow. The crow calls again. Tom smiles.

“I was going to send Carol a note,” Tom says to the headstone “but figure that if you didn’t tell her you had your reasons.”

“I think David would be proud of his grandson. I think he’d be grateful to the captain, to all of you. It’s all pretty remarkable isn’t it? I mean how you all did it? How he put it all together. He must have had a lot of faith in all of you.”

Tom looks up at the crow still sitting on a headstone chatting to itself, and then back down to Frank. “The Skipper is doing well. He’s growing on Sarah. She feeds him sardines now and then.”

Tom stands. A hand in his pocket holds the address book though he is not sure why he brought it.

“Well Frank, I just wanted to say hello. I guess I wanted to let you know that I think everything turned out what way you all wanted. To say I’m glad I met you. I hope you and the crew are well. Be well Frank. I’ll be back soon.”

Tom looks up at the crow who watches Tom, listening.

Crows can’t keep a secret, he thinks, it’s a good thing the captain new that.