Moloka'i (56 page)

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Kalama Utagawa. I gave Ruth up for adoption.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

I am living in Honolulu again and would like to contact Ruth. I mean no disrespect to you. I just want to talk to her.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My late husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

I am living in Honolulu now and would very much like to contact her. I intend no disrespect to you. I would just like the opportunity to talk with the little girl I

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe:

My name is Rachel Utagawa. My late husband and I gave Ruth up for adoption.

A day has not gone by since that I haven’t thought of her. I wonder how she is. Is she married? Does she have children of her own?

Sister Mary Louisa Hughes has told me what good people you are, and how much you love Ruth. I’m happy to know she had such good parents.

I would give anything in the world to hear her voice or see her face, even once. It is a longing, a setsub
which has never gone away.

I intend no disrespect to you. I am her mother by blood, but you are her parents by law and by love. I hope you will look kindly on this request. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Rachel Utagawa
1726 S. King St.
Honolulu, T.H.
ph. HON 68412

She read it over at least a hundred times, then stamped an envelope and placed the letter inside. It sat like that on her kitchen table for another day before she scraped together the courage to seal the envelope, walk it to the end of the block, and drop it in the mailbox.

She told herself it would probably be returned as undeliverable, but at least she’d tried; at least she’d honored the memory of those who had never been able to try.

She wrote a thank-you to Sister Catherine, and a week later received a letter back—smelling as usual of formaldehyde from the fumigation to which all mail was subjected before leaving the settlement.

Dearest Rachel,

I’m happy to have been of help. I hope it bears some fruit. But even if it doesn’t, you can be comforted by the knowledge that our Ruth was raised by loving parents. Not every child in this world is lucky enough to say that.

Kalaupapa seems so lonely without you and the others who have been released. But it’s a loneliness I celebrate; each empty house represents another life regained. Superintendent Judd continues his reforms. His latest brainstorm: he’s going to allow patients to take sightseeing flights of the neighbor islands on one of the little planes that service Kalaupapa. Maybe even meet with family members at airports on Maui or Kaua'i. Who would ever have dreamed of such a thing, when you and I first saw that little biplane over Kalaupapa forty years ago?

As for me, I had a nasty bout with influenza a few weeks ago, but Dr. Sloan pulled me through. Still, when you come that close to an unexpected reunion with the Lord you think of everything you never did, everything you never said but should have.

I have no regrets, Rachel, about the life I chose. The one thing I lacked, you have in part given me. Thanks to you I know a little of the joy a mother must, the pride in a child well grown. I pray you shall know it too. God bless you and keep you, Rachel.

All my love,
Catherine

L

ate in August and early on a Sunday morning, Rachel’s phone rang, jolting her out of lazy dreams. She answered it groggily and a little out of sorts, no friendly “Hello,” just an irritated “Yes?”

In someone’s hesitation she heard the hiss of long distance and then a woman’s voice.

“Is this—Rachel Utagawa?”

The voice sounded so much like Rachel’s own, she was momentarily disoriented—was this real or was she dreaming?

“Hello?”
came the voice.

“Yes,” Rachel said quickly, “this is she.”

Another moment of hesitation, then,
“My name is Ruth Watanabe Harada.”

Rachel tried to pull a sound up out of her throat, but found that she couldn’t.

The voice, so eerily similar to her own, seemed to float suspended in space, like something out of a radio drama, tinny and faintly unreal.
“It’s three hours earlier in Hawai'i, isn’t it? I must’ve woken you up.”

“That—that’s all right,” Rachel said finally. “I’m sorry, I . . . wasn’t quite . . . prepared for this.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“Are you calling from—California?”

“Yes. San José. Your letter went to my parents’ old farm,”
the voice explained, as if eager to fill any anxious lull with words,
“and the current tenants sent it back. But a girl at the local post office went to high school with me, and
—”

“I named you Ruth,” Rachel suddenly exclaimed—to her own surprise, and a startled pause on the other end of the line.

“Did you?”
Ruth said at last.

Rachel couldn’t tell whether she sounded intrigued or alarmed. “Did you speak with your . . . parents before you called me today?”

“My father passed away several years ago. My mother’s very frail, I didn’t want to possibly upset her.”
A small note of annoyance crept into her tone.
“Anyway, it was me you wanted to talk to, wasn’t it? Though isn’t it a little late to decide you want to get to know me?”

Rachel sighed.

“Ruth . . .” Despite what she had to say, she thrilled to speak the name. “I gave you up for adoption because I had to. Because I was forced to . . . by the government.”

Ruth seemed completely nonplussed by that.
“What?”

“Have you ever heard of—Kalaupapa?”

“Kala . . . no.”

“It’s on Moloka'i. Where Father Damien died.”

There was a stunned silence on the line; all Rachel could hear was the static of Ruth’s breath as it traveled across the transpacific cable.

Finally, in a small, shocked voice:
“You’re a leper?”

Rachel flinched.

“They call it Hansen’s disease now. And I’ve been paroled.” She instantly regretted the choice of words; it made her sound like an exconvict. “They found a cure. A treatment. I’ve been released, I’m no danger to anybody.”

This was followed by another silence, almost as long as the last.
“Hansen’s disease?”

“It’s not hereditary. It doesn’t pass from mother to child unless the baby remains with the parents for an extended time. That’s why we had to give you up.”

Rachel hung on the silence that followed; then in a strained voice her daughter said,
“I . . . think I’d better have a talk with my mother.”

Of course that’s not what you’re having now, is it, Rachel thought with a trace of bitterness. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”

“I’ll call back tomorrow. Or the next day.”

Rachel’s stomach knotted. She said, “Ruth—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’ll call back, I promise.”

The connection was severed, and Rachel couldn’t help wondering if this would be the closest she would ever come to her daughter—a disembodied voice without face or form, a phantom child she would never see nor hold.

There had been so many days in her life when she had told herself, Nothing could ever be worse than this. The day she was sent to Moloka'i; the day Ruth was taken from her; the day Kenji died. And now this. The waiting, and wondering, and hearing again and again the horror in her daughter’s voice.
You’re a leper?
She prayed that from this day forward no more parents would live to hear that word spoken by their own children.

She called Sarah, who reassured her and counseled patience. That night she saw David and Helen, who were sure Ruth would call back. “She just needs time to digest it all,” Helen said. For days Rachel never left her room for fear of missing Ruth’s call; but it didn’t come on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday she was going stir-crazy and took herself out to dinner at Tomo’s, a little neighborhood eatery—then regretted it, staying home all of Friday in case Ruth had tried to reach her the night before. But by Saturday she could no longer keep her hopes up, and consoled herself with the memory of that one brief conversation with the girl whose name was still Ruth.

On Sunday morning, as it had the previous Sunday, the phone rang early.

Rachel snapped it up before the first ring had faded, hearing again the hiss and pop of long distance.

“Hi. It’s me again.”

Rachel’s heart pounded in her chest like the sea heard in a conch shell. She shut her eyes and thanked whatever God, god, or
'aumakua
had granted her this.

Simultaneously they said, “I’m sorry—”

Simultaneously they laughed.

“You first,”
Ruth said.

“I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I’m sure it was enough of a shock, hearing from me, much less the rest of it.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to call back,”
Ruth apologized.
“I guess I panicked a little. My first thought was for my children; what it might mean to them.”

Rachel thrilled to know she was a grandmother. “How many children do you have?”

“Two. Peggy’s eight and Donald is ten.”

“That’s wonderful,” Rachel said, tears coming to her.

“My doctor says you’re right, leprosy isn’t hereditary. But that children are more susceptible to it.”

Rachel asked, “Did he also tell you that you don’t get it from casual contact? From touching someone, or breathing the same air they do?”

Her daughter hesitated.
“Yes. But he did say that children are more susceptible.”

Rachel weighed her words carefully: “Ruth, it’s you I want to see. I’m willing to do it under any conditions you name. If you don’t want me near your children, I won’t go near them.”

After a moment:
“How . . . bad . . . is your leprosy?”

“You mean, am I disfigured?”

“I didn’t say that.
”

“My right hand is deformed. And my feet. Other than that, my main complaint is neuritis.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—tactless—”

“It’s all right. Not many people know much about leprosy. Even in Hawai'i it’s something most people would prefer not to think about.”

There was a long silence, and then Ruth said,
“I used to wonder about you. Who you were. Why you . . .”
She paused.
“I think it’s only fair to tell you. I love my
ok
san,
my mother. I loved my father.”