Summer Wind 1.1
written by:
Jake Rivers

Summer Wind Copyright© 2015 by Jake Rivers

This story is based on, "Summer Wind." This was written by Grethe Ingmann; lyrics by Hans Bradtke.

"All summer long we sang a song. And then we strolled that golden sand, Two sweethearts and the summer wind. Then softer than a piper man; one day, it called to you. I lost you; I lost you to the summer wind."

A note of interest: I mention the movie, "A Bell for Adano" in the story. John Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel it was based on.

Thanks to RoustWriter for his editing help.

Regards, Jake

Chapter One—The End of Something

"Like painted kites, those days and nights went flying by. The world was new, beneath a blue umbrella sky."

I looked at the closed up cabin in the breaks under the Mogollon rim. It was located at the end of a dirt road, a trail really, only accessible by four wheel drive. It looked to be in fair shape, but I knew there would be a lot of cleanup and maintenance to make it ready for regular visits again. I had planned ahead and loaded the back of my truck with the "necessaries".

It had been a long three years in the Army, and I got out just in time to avoid duty in Vietnam. They gave me a choice of three years of active reserve or one year on call-up standby and two years of inactive reserve. Having had quite enough of military discipline, I chose to stay as far away from any military installations as possible, and chose the inactive reserve. The first year of standby was a risk, since I could be called to active duty at the Army's pleasure. In the end, I skated through with no problem.

Leaving the truck, I walked to a small rise and enjoyed the variegated sky to the west as the sun set over the bend in the Rim. Enjoying the last of the four cigarettes a day I was rigidly holding to, I thought about the article I had seen in the Scottsdale paper that morning:

Canova-Wells Wedding at historic St. Mary's Basilica Martha Canova and Tom Wells were joined together in Holy Matrimony at St. Mary's Basilica yesterday afternoon. The reception was held at the Phoenix Country Club where many of the old guard of the city's society welcomed the newly married couple. Tom is, of course, the son of Mayor William "Billy" Wells, well known in the Phoenix area as a developer of new home communities.

Tom's new bride is the daughter of Joseph Canova, owner of the historic 6000 acre Canova ranch east of Flagstaff, and is noted for his philanthropic work, particularly his efforts and donations on behalf of the Community Chest, the precursor of The United Way. After a two-month vacation in Europe, the newlyweds will reside in the Wells estate in Scottsdale.

Ahh, Martha, I mused. That article might have had my name, Jerry Kinsolving, in it, except I doubted that they would have made much of my dad's being a History Professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, and living in a thirty year old three bedroom house near the campus. But, no, Martha decided to move on half-way through my thirteen month "sentence" at the US Army headquarters in Seoul. At least, that's exactly what her letter had said. Thank God it wasn't a "Dear John" letter (even though it was a "Dear Jerry" one):

Dear Jerry,

I've decided to move on. I'm sure that after you think about it, you will agree that it's for the best.

Love always, Martha

I thought at the time that always seemed to not be able to withstand the test of time or of absence very well, but I had to admire her conciseness. Though, just for old times' sake she could have written at least a paragraph.

Her loss to me, such as it was, had been more than offset by my assignment to learn the new GE computers installed at the Eighth Army headquarters for Korea. That experience led to my being hired after my separation from Uncle Sam's service by General Electric out northwest of Phoenix on Thunderbird Road.

Now, after only six months with the company, I was being assigned as a troubleshooter at the large GE installation in Pearl Harbor. It was to be a three month assignment, but my boss told me it could be significantly more or less time. I could still hear my division manager's words:

"I'll be frank with you, Jerry. We are in a tight competition with IBM for the next contract there, and we need to reduce the amount of down time we have been having. I don't know what the problem is, but we have to find it and fix it. You report directly to me, and I'm counting on you to take care of this and keep me informed. Go ahead and take two weeks off on me, and I'll have everything all set up for you."

We kicked it around some more and I agreed to stay for up to a year, if necessary. I knew what it was like to stay in a hotel indefinitely and wanted to rent a house as soon as possible. If it turned out to be a full year we could figure out then what our mutual needs were. He agreed to work with finance to get me a housing allowance.

The two weeks off was the reason I was here finishing the cleanup of the cabin at ten o'clock that night. The next morning at daybreak I was already hiking up a dim trail east of Payson to the eastern end of Star Valley and up towards the rim. I'd packed food and a lightweight tent for a week's worth of getting lost in a rugged, empty country. On the third day, I was camped on a plateau half way to the top and relaxing with a cup of coffee, thinking about my upcoming trip, and whether or not to have bacon and beans for dinner once again.

I heard a noise, a rustling, and looked up to see a big Tom turkey about seventy-five feet away. My dad had written a book about the Pleasant Valley War (the Graham-Tewksbury Feud), one of the ugliest feuds in American history. In doing the research, he became a good friend of an ancient rancher near Alpine, who, knowing he was on death's door, gave my father an original 1893 Winchester lever action rifle. Dad gave it to me, his only son, and I felt strongly that the best homage I could give to this collector's piece was to use it rather than put it on a shelf or sell it.

When I was twelve I got my first deer, and I never hunted with any other rifle. When I saw that tom pecking around, I took aim without a conscious thought. At that range I couldn't miss, and I knew that there was no better eating than a wild turkey cooked right. Yeah, I ate too much of it, but damn, it was good.

The nights were still cold at that altitude, even though it was officially springtime. It made for good sleeping and pleasant weather for hiking, so I wasn't complaining.

Chapter Two—The Start of Something Else

After two weeks I was thinking more of Judy Canova than Martha Canova so I knew I was ready to go to Pearl Harbor and save the company ... well, if you can't laugh at yourself you might as well give up! I stopped by to see my sister Bess, she was five years older than me, and almost certainly a lot wiser.

"Gonna miss you Jer. I didn't want to say anything before, but I always thought Martha was a cold hearted bitch!"

"Jeez sis, just say what's on your mind."

"You want us to take care of the cabin for you?"

"Sure, though I'd rather not have anyone other than you guys stay there." I gave her the keys and left my truck (a 1952 Dodge - I drove one in the Army and loved it. I scrounged around and found a beater and spent six months and too many bucks restoring it) and she drove me to Sky Harbor Airport.

Flying United out of Terminal Two, I landed in Honolulu after a long flight. I stayed at the Ala Moana Hotel for two weeks while looking for a place to live. In a bit of luck I found a small house to lease in Ewa Beach. It was a very compact, a large bedroom with bath and two small rooms, about ten by ten each, and a small, but well equipped kitchen. I used one bedroom for an office and the other for storage.

The small house was a block from the beach, and my generous housing allowance covered maybe half of the lease. I'd told Roger, the division chief that I didn't want to go unless I could stay at least a year.

While I was at the Ala Moana I spent some time on the beach, and certainly, the bar. At that time the venerable hotel was a popular place for stewardesses to layover. One day in the middle of my stay, I made a feeble attempt to learn to surf. I quickly realized that while I had a lot of skills, standing on a board floating on the moving ocean was not one of them. Walking back across Waikiki beach to return the board to the rental place, I saw a girl sunning on the sand. She was lying on a towel on one of those woven roll-up mats and had on a bikini. I used the term bikini somewhat loosely ... what she had on was a bikini.

I had never really believed the old saw about clothes making the woman. That is, a woman is what she was; the clothes were just a decoration, not the essence of the woman. In this special case though, I was quick to concede that this woman was enhanced in all possible ways by what she was wearing, or in this case maybe not wearing.

She was long—she looked like she could look me in the eye and I was an inch shy of six feet—and she was lean. Not skinny by any means, the curves were all there and in the right places, but other than that she was quite trim, with a well-toned musculature emphasizing the curvy parts.

Her hair was that shade of dirty blond sometimes called, dishwater blond. I had never felt that was a particularly attractive description, to me she just had dark blond hair with light blond flecks. Rather attractive, actually. The suit, more accurately, the two tiny pieces of material masquerading as a real swimsuit, was an off shade of gold, perfectly complementing the bronzed skin she had so obviously worked hard to attain.

She was quite lovely; I would go so far as to say she had a classic beauty. She reminded me of Gene Tierney in "A Bell for Adano", a movie Gene played with her hair blond. In my quick glance (no more than a minute or two) as I passed by, I did see two slight mars in the face that so enchanted me. There was the tiniest crook in her nose, which I thought was cute, and her lips were a tad too pouty. Ah, but pouty or not I had the strongest impulse to kiss those lips to awaken the sleeping beauty.

By no means was I concerned with valor, but discretion ruled and I made my way on up the beach. After returning the board, I made my way back to my room for a shower and a nap. Several days later, on the eve of my move to Ewa Beach, I sat at the outside bar under the huge banyan tree. Thinking, of all things, of loneliness, I paid no notice when someone sat on the stool next to me, I just gave a slight body shift to allow more room.

Pulling my pack of Camels out of my shirt pocket, I carefully selected the last of my self-allowed daily smokes. Twirling the ‘cancer pill' slowly, I thought back to Martha's "Dear Jerry" letter. Idly thinking about betrayal, I stared at the slowly turning white cylinder, flipping the lid of my Zippo with the 8th Army insignia on it. Open, closed, open, closed, like a mantra: "betrayal, betrayal!"

A voice, low, sultry, breathed in my ear, "you gonna smoke that thing, or play with it all day."

Snapping out of my reverie, I saw the bikini girl sitting on the next stool, cigarette poised in her slim hand, waiting for a light. With a sudden show of complete calm, I dropped my Zippo on the floor, putting a nasty dent in the tip right corner, the first dent in the previously pristine lighter.

"Sorry about that, I was thinking."

Carefully, I opened the lid and flipped the thumb-wheel and ... nothing. Quickly I flipped it again, and again, and ... still nothing. I looked up to see the bartender lighting her cigarette with a book of bar matches.

Giving me a smile to die for, she said, "You're smooth, I'll give you that. Anyone else would have just lit my cigarette, but you actually have my attention. Now if I could just find something to drink I might be happy the rest of the evening."

Some have accused me of being slow, but never stupid. I waved to the bartender and when he got there the girl asked for a Mai Tai. That was way too sweet for me, so I said, "Scotch rocks is fine with me."

Waiting for the drinks, I leaned back and looked at her. Sure enough, it was the bikini girl in person. She had an army uniform on, and by the caduceus insignia with a large ‘N" superimposed I deduced she was a nurse, and the silver bars on her shoulders meant she was a lieutenant. I had to admit she was almost as good looking with a uniform as she was with skimpy beach wear. Almost.

"I'm in the inactive reserve; does that mean I have to salute you?"

"Not indoors, and certainly not in a bar," she said, laughing.

The drinks came and we were quiet for a moment as we took a couple of sips. Seemingly as one, we turned to each other.

"I'm Jer..."

"I'm Angie..."

Smiling at her, I tried again, "I'm Jerry Kinsolving. I've been staying here for a couple of weeks, but I'm moving tomorrow."

"I'm Angie Brown. It looks like I'm moving tomorrow also, whether I want to or not."

I raised an eyebrow, so she continued, "My lease was up and my landlord wanted to raise my rent a huge amount. I've got a lead on a place between Tripler Army Medical Center and the Fort Shafter Golf Course. Three girls were sharing it but one of them is transferring to the VA Hospital in San Francisco."

Without thinking, but gallantly in retrospect, I offered, "If you need any help, let me know. I gave her one of my business cards that had the office number for GE in Pearl City.

We chatted for a bit, and then she gave me a clear smirk, and asked, "So I'm the Bikini Girl, huh?"

I stuttered for a bit, not making any sense, when she took pity on me.

"I overheard you talking to the bartender. I certainly noticed you lingering around me while I was getting some sun. I wasn't sure if you were a window shopper that was just looking or if you actually admired me as a person."

Finding my tongue at last, I offered, "There is no question of my interest. You are a lovely woman and I'd like to take you out to dinner after we both get moved and settled in." Wow, was I smooth!

We chatted for a bit then she had to leave. The next morning I took my few bags and met the movers at my new home for the next year. I didn't have much, no furniture, mostly books and some personal stuff ... certainly no pictures of Martha. The fireplace at the cabin had neatly taken care of those.

One thing that hadn't worked out for me though—I had been positive that I could score with one of the ever-present Stews, but it never happened. Sure, I got some thanks for the drinks and a dinner or two, but it was chaste times on Waikiki Beach. Angie showed the promise of more than making up for it though.

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That Friday night I got a call from Angie, so I spent the better part of the weekend helping her get settled. It wasn't all work though, I got to know her much better and wound up with a date for the next Saturday night. For myself, well, I'd settled into a routine at work and at home.

At work I was working twelve hour days, four days a week. I didn't mind the hours but I was resolved and religious about, not working on weekends and on Fridays, I'd come in at six and take off at noon. After the first week it was clear that most of the problems resolved around operations. I worked with the computer operators different shifts during the second week. I called my boss and gave him a report.

"I see three major areas to be resolved along with a couple of less important items. The main problem is the training of the computer operators. I plan on doing some personal training while working with Navy staff on redoing their training program. The next problem in importance is that error messages are not always clear. There are too many spurious messages, which are just informational. These should be looked at by operator request, not by alerting the operator. There are no error messages for some major problems, and some are just hard to understand. The other key area I'd like to look at is their backup procedure. They don't have a good back-up process documented, which leads to inconsistent results. I can clear this up with them over the next couple of weeks.

"For the key items, I'd like to have a software designer out here for a month to work alongside the Navy operators. I think for the long term we need a fresh new look. The last item is the general area of performance problems. This is going to take some time and I'll need to get a couple of performance experts out to set up a measuring plan to see how severe the problems are and what steps need to be taken."

"Thanks, Jerry. I was fairly sure those were the types of problems you would find. Keep working them out and stay in touch. Could you put together a plan specifying dates and resources needed, and I'll get blanket approval for getting everything completed? I'll be out in a couple of months, around the middle of September. We can meet with some of the other naval division heads. Some good news from you might help us close some significant upgrades. By the way, I got approval to take care of all of your housing costs, and there just might be a pleasant surprise in your next paycheck. Keep up the good work."

On a personal level, I found a lot of time to spend at the beach. I'd always been a strong swimmer, and I really enjoyed swimming out beyond the surf. The surfing enthusiasts tended to congregate in several specific areas each day depending on wave action. I had no problem avoiding them and was in great shape in no time.

I enjoyed the weather. Summer days tended to be in the high eighties with almost constant trade winds blowing. I read that winter highs were usually in the low eighties, so it did sound like paradise, trite as that may sound. It could rain, but summers—June through September—were relatively dry.

I particularly liked the summer breezes. They kept it from getting too hot and were really refreshing when I got out of the water. The house I was leasing had a lanai across the back. It was really just a screened in porch but it did catch the breezes, and was very pleasant during the early morning and the evenings. I took to having my morning coffee there, and some meals. The back yard was beautifully decorated, and the lease included yard maintenance.

It worked out well with Angie. The first dinner—at a downtown steak place, she was a meat eater—turned into several more. It wasn't long before she was spending most of the weekends at my place. She had rotating weekend duty, so it wasn't every week that she shared my bed.

Best was the time we spent at the beach. She drew a lot of attention—more than a few men looked at me like they were wondering why such a babe would be with me instead of them. It was nice to spread lotion on her ... and to have her return the favor, while we lay on the sand with the cooling air coming of the surf gently caressing us. I would watch her hair fluff up as she napped on the beach, the breeze making it look alive. Angie had a lovely voice and at times as we would walk along the edge of the water the wind would swirl her words around, sometimes taking them from me, at other times seeming to send them directly into my mind.

We loved to sit in the lanai of an evening, the soft air fragrant with the heavy scent of too many flowers. We would hold hands and at times it seemed it would last forever. Each day would fly by like one of the colorful Chinese kite so common on the beach; the turbulent air off the ocean whipping the kites and days away as if the kites and days were without number.

I loved my work and I loved Angie. I was at the stage of thinking about looking for an engagement ring and just the right, the perfect time and setting to offer it to her ... sure of her forever yes response. Then, one late afternoon while I was walking along the beach with Angie, we stopped as the breeze blew her hair around her face. I laughed and with my hands held the hair away and leaned in to kiss her—and the summer wind blew her away, and out of my life.

She turned away from my kiss and said, "Jerry, I have to go. I'm sorry, but I have to go."

She ran up the beach, away from me. I started to follow, but stunned, I held back and sat on the sand, not caring that the surf was washing up on my slacks. I thought back to a couple weeks ago when I saw a boy of around nine or ten flying one of those Chinese Box kites. A strong gust of wind had broken the string and he was heartbroken as it headed off onto the sky. Now I understood the depth of sadness I'd seen on his face. The summer wind had torn my heart out, to flutter away, out over the ocean.

I called her a couple of times to no answer. Finally, about nine that night, I went over to the house she was staying at. I'd met her roommates when I helped to move in. Julie, the blond, answered the door, and in response to my question, she replied: "I don't know, Jerry. She's gone now; she had a flight about an hour ago to San Francisco. Marty, the other roommate you met, said something about her resigning her commission."

I called Marty and Julie over the next several weeks, with no results. No one at Tripler would even talk to me. Angie had mentioned she lived south of San Francisco, but had never mentioned the city. Her dad had died and her mom worked at the San Francisco Airport, but I didn't know her name or of the company she worked for.

I knew it wouldn't do any good but I sent a letter both to the VA in Washington and to Tripler Hospital. Neither elicited any sort of response. One thing I liked about the government was that if you had no expectations of them they would always give you exactly what you expected: nothing.

Time went by, as it inexorably does, marching always forward, never back. Never giving one a chance to fix ones mistakes or to keep from losing a love lost. I worked, got the job done. I found myself going to the bar at the Ala Moana drinking the occasional scotch, smiling to myself of how I'd got my lighter fixed as quickly as possible. It now worked like a champ but contrarily I found myself smoking a lot less. I would still keep flipping the lighter, just to watch the flame as if it held some kind of answer.

Evenings I would sit at a small table on the beach, just existing as a lonely man does. The soft summer breezes whispered the occasional bon mot in my ear—teasing the now too long hair at the back of my neck with a puff of gentleness. I tried not to think overmuch of Angie, but of course this only made me think of her more. I'd given up trying to figure out what had happened, was it my fault, just one of those things, just ... but it didn't really matter. Mostly I'd wonder where she was, how she was, was she okay; I counted one night and came up with over four hundred ways of wondering about her life.

One evening in the afterglow of sunset, that special time of day when peace floats settles gently on the earth, I saw Martha Wells née Canova walking by. Of course, it wasn't her and I knew that at once; too tall, too thin, but a lot of similarities. I realized with a start that I had not thought of her in a long time. That made me smile. Hoping she was satisfied with her lot I quickly, with no regrets, dismissed her from my mind; put her in that certain group of memory cells where we stash the events of the past that would best be forgotten.

Chapter Three—Life Continues

Summer passed, although that is a bit of a misnomer. It's more like a dry season and a rainy season, even though the "rainy" isn't bad; it is after all, still paradise. My one-year commitment was coming to an end so I had to decide what to do, to stay in Hawaii or not. There was this fantasy I had, I'd be sitting while sipping on well-aged single malt and watching the ebb and flow of life marching resolutely up and down the beach.

I'd see a person, ambling slowly along as people tend to do on the beach. My eyes would pick out in the gathering gloom a woman, looking familiar. Closer she would come; bending over to look at a shell, maybe wading in the water as one of the waves gave up its life to tickle the toes of a pretty woman. At that point I would realize she was quite pretty and... and my heart would flutter as she tossed her hair and started walking over to me. But always it was what it was, a fantasy leaving a sour taste. Each time this happened I would go inside and try to find something to distract me.

In the end I realized there was no chance of a fairy tale reappearance of Angie. I called my boss and told him I needed to take a few months off before my next assignment. He understood, probably thinking I still hadn't got over Martha.

Packing what little I had and sent in a final report to Tim, my manager. I called him just before I left to see if he had any final questions. "Tim, I'll be up at my cabin, no phone or mail, as you remember. If you need to get hold of me, send a letter to General Deliver in Payson."

Two days later I was back at my cabin. It was a nice place, not large but a well-made log cabin. The front half was a kitchen with running water thanks to a nicely engineered mix of a spring, pipes, storage tank. The house was on the side of a slope with a place to park on a flat in front of, and slightly below the cabin. My great-grandfather built the house, his son did the piping, but the water just drained down the side of the hill.

My dad had done some extensive remodeling, paneling the inside and putting on a new copper roof. I had added a tank next to the parking area and reworked the pipes to drain into the tank. When needed a truck would come in and drain the waste water. There had been an outhouse for many years, rebuilt every so often as needed. The other thing I had done was install a drum privy. It's like an outhouse but comes with a removable fiberglass storage tank. The entire setup comes as a unit and the removable tank is on a small trailer so it can be towed out.

Once a year or so I would haul it to the dealer and I just had to unhook the trailer and hook up to one with an empty tank. It wasn't cheap but it sure was convenient. A forest service buddy told me about this. He said they used them frequently in remote spots. They can even be helicoptered in and out.

I took a few days to clean up the place and lay about enjoying the beauty of the forest. I found I had changed and was no longer interested in hunting, except once in a while when I hadn't had a chance to get into town and buy meat. I started on long hikes, once or twice staying overnight so I could try more trails. Climbing up and down the Mogollon Rim I quickly got in shape. It hadn't come to me that I'd gained a couple inches on my waist to go with about twelve more pounds. With the hikes and general maintenance, chopping wood for my fires (didn't want to fool around with propane) and clearing brush to lessen any fire danger I was back the weight I'd started the Army at and seemed to be getting a stringy, wiry body.

It was lonely, have to admit that. But it was so beautiful and serene I seemed about as happy as I was ever going to get. The agreement with Tim had been for six months but after three I started feeling antsy. A few days after I realized this I was in Payson stocking the larder and found a letter from my boss.

The gist of it was that we had gotten several major new contracts and there was a requirement that there be an on-site support manager. If I was interested in going back to Pearl Harbor he would give me a promotion, a twenty-five per cent salary increase, put me on the management incentive plan, a healthy cash bonus and a more than generous allowance to buy a house. I'd have six maintenance guys to do the equipment servicing and two software support types. If I agreed it was a good idea, he would also include a software developer and a QA person to help identify problems quickly. It seems there were some big incentives—both positive and negative.

I looked out the window of the grocery store/post office and instantly an image of bikini-Angie came to me, then the dampness of my eyes, blurred the image. I knew at once I had to go back and resolve my feelings. I went over the restaurant and had a cold beer in the deserted place while I thought things out. Making a decision which I knew wasn't as sudden as it seemed, I went back to the store and called Tim.

"I guess you got my letter, what do you think?"

"Let's do it Tim! And I want the developer and QA staff. My experience tells me we can nip most problems in the bud. These guys can talk directly to their counterparts and hone in on problems a lot quicker. They will be able to help with training too, not just leaving it to the instructors."

When can you go Jerry? Of course, I need you there last month."

I laughed. "Well, I can't make it last month, but I can be there in a week."

"Okay, where you get wrapped up there, come down to the office and get with personnel and work with the managers to get your people. I'll make sure they give you someone good."

"Sounds great. A thought just came to me. Why don't we rotate the developer and QA person on a staggered basis? That way it's like a reward to them to go work in Hawaii for a while."

"Great idea, I'll get things rolling on this end. By the way, I have an agent in Hawaii looking for a building. I'll allow for significant growth. If we get a couple more contracts like the last ones, we might even open a development center down there. I'll come out after you are there for three months or so and see how things are going. See you in a day or two."

I only picked up supplies for a couple days and went back and started cleaning up and shutting down everything. Three days later I was back at work making things happen and feeling a lot more excited than I thought I would. It took the better part of a week and I had a lot of time to spend with my sister. I gave her keys and things and encouraged her to use the cabin. Before I knew it I was on the long flight to Honolulu.

Chapter Four—The Beginning of the End

Things moved fast right off the bat and I didn't have time to think much about anything. I met with our engineers that were onsite at customer installations and let them know they would be based on the customer site or in the new building, however they wanted it. I met with a Real Estate Agent and went over our needs. He told me he would have some sites to look at fairly soon. Our customers were all government agencies and based at Pearl Harbor, or near there.

In the event we found a new building slightly larger than we were looking for, but in a great location. It was in Waipahu, just west of Pearl Harbor and just north of Ewa Beach. This steered me to look around a house near where I had stayed before. I thought maybe I'd try to rent the place I'd been in for a couple of months, the Ala Moana was just too far away. I drove by and found it was empty. There was a sign "For Sale by Owner" and the phone number was from the woman I'd leased it from.

She lived about a mile away so I drove on over. She was surprised and happy to see me. We talked for a few minutes then I asked her why she was selling.

"We thought we would be here forever. We own this house, the one you were in, and a larger house near the University. When we moved our kids, Judith and Robert came out fairly often and always had a lot of fun. They would come every Christmas and for a couple of weeks in the summer. Now they are so busy, Judith is a professor at Arizona State and Robert works for a bank in downtown Phoenix.

"With their kids in school and their work, more often than not we fly back there. Finally we decided to move back. We already have offers for this house and the larger one. But I love that little house on Ewa. That's where we stayed when we first came out. I don't want to sell it to just anyone. If we don't find someone we like we will keep it for a vacation house for the kids and grandkids as they get older."

I told her about my new situation, and said "Actually I came by to see if it was available for a couple months while I look for a house to buy."

"Well, we never leased it after you left. It was so spotless, and you fixed so many things, we wanted to keep it looking nice. I guess it would be alright if you stayed there for a month or two. We wouldn't even charge you as long as you kept it nice."

My brain grabbed my attention by hitting me over the head with a baseball bat. An idea popped out before I could even think about it. "If I could buy that place it would be perfect. I love the house, the location is great. I just don't know if I could afford it."

I had another great idea. I told her about the cabin, what and where and all that. "If you could cut some off the price of the house I would give you a lease, say for fifty years, that anytime myself or my sister's family weren't using it, you and your kids and grandkids could use it whenever you want. It's a beautiful country with lots of trails and fishing and hunting as good as it gets."

So we worked out a deal, I used the same agent I was working with on the new building and things came together quicker than I would have believed. The company was paying one third and I had to sign an agreement to stay with the company at least five years. For each year I stayed I would accrue twenty per cent of the amount they paid.

They had offered to let me move in at once, which I did. I remembered my grandfather telling me, "Jerry, if you need more than a handshake to seal a deal, just walk away from it. Without trust there is nothing."

A vision of Angie walking with me on a soft island evening came to me, of how her beauty and our feelings made it a perfect evening. I had trusted her with all the commitment love could bring. I confess to a bit of bitterness as I realized there would never be another perfect evening unless I let the pain and hard feelings go. Trust!

That aside, things moved fast and in a fairly short time I had a new house. Well, not new, but nice. I settled in to work and made steady progress. I had full support from the home office and a good relationship with the customer. Yeah, they trusted me.

The house came fully furnished which was part of the deal. Most of the stuff was fairly nice, but I changed a few things like adding a comfortable red leather recliner, new mattress, and added a dishwasher. The floor was bamboo but it needed the refinishing I gave it. Adding a new paint job inside and out pretty well wrapped up things. I did most of the work by myself, but hired a local guy I met on the beach to do a few plumbing things and redo some of the wiring.

I was lonely—how could I be lonely in the middle of paradise?—but busy. I tried surfing again but got tired of falling off the board. Mostly I did it because there seemed like a lot of bikinis involved in the sport.

There were much better results with running. I'd done some at the cabin but never really got into it. This time I stuck with it and made steady progress. I found a place I really liked: I'd start at Kuhio Beach Park, run through the zoo and Kapiolani Park and around Diamond Head to the far side. There was an entrance to the center of the old volcano and I run around that a few times and back to Kuhio.

I adapted to the warm temperatures and the humidity and gradually increased my pace. At the end of each run I'd jump in the ocean and swim vigorously for about ten minutes, then easy for another ten. After a few months I started entering some local five and ten kilometer runs and did better than I expected. I found a competitive streak I didn't know existed.

Finally I let myself get talked into running a marathon. I bumped up my mileage and felt ready for the big day. My goal was three and a half hours and I had my pace all figured out. The first few miles I was running a bit faster than I had planned, worried about it for a while, and then said the hell with it. I could always drop out.

I was feeling the pain but in (what seemed) no time I could see the finish line ahead of me. I picked up the pace but nothing close to a sprint. Suddenly a guy cut in front of me, causing me to trip and make a very ungraceful fall about ten feet from the finish line. Knees and hands skinned, a painful ankle and a gritty determination to finish lead me crawling the final few feet. As I crossed a huge cheer roared for me: a combination of recognition of my pain and in breaking three hours by less than a minute!

I was happy but in a world of hurt as a couple of people led me to the first aid tent. A doctor was fooling around with my ankle (causing immense pain) and with a gruff voice said I had a sprained ankle and if I was wise I'd get it x-rayed. He turned to a nurse, and asked, "Kim, could you take care of the scrapes?"

I turned my head to the nurse and felt a lot better. She was some mix of Korean/Hawaiian and truly lovely. I'm not much into measurement, but she sure seemed just about right. She fussed over me, salved my wounds, salved my loneliness, and made me think very grown up thoughts. Figuring, hell, I was a grownup I gave her a big smile and asked if she would like to go eat at the Ala Moana ... after I had recuperated for a few days.

She gave me a judicious look, a big smile, and said sure! We agreed on a date and time then relaxed as best I could while they got someone to get me crutches and someone to agree to drive me home if I paid the taxi back.

Once I got home and relaxed in my new chair with a large glass of Buffalo Trace bourbon, one of Kentucky's finest. It had a long, lush finish that led me to try another glass to make sure, and yes, it was a great finish.

I reflected on the race with residual pain giving me perspective on the day. When I'd started thinking on doing a marathon, I figured if I could start with a target of and three and a half hours and gradually work up to three hours, that would be a good lifetime goal. Now that I had made my lifetime goal, and feeling the pain, I decided my competitive days were over. I wanted to keep running, but for fun, with no time expectations.

Just as I was getting ready to take a pill and go off to la-la land, Kim called and offered to take me in the next morning for the x-ray. I slept soundly waking early and feeling much better. I knew the ankle wasn't broken, but better safe than sorry (I think my mom told me that).

Kim escorted me through the process, and yup, no problems. She took me home and we sat out my veranda people watching with me. She was easy to talk to and we quickly got to know each other. She was born on Maui, her father was a Korean diplomat and her mom was from Thailand. She had an exotic beauty, but somehow she seemed more like a friend that a sex object (I know, I know!).

A few days later we did the messy ribs at the steak place, came back and had mad monkey sex. When we finished we were laying side by side and as we looked at each other we both started laughing. We both loved the sex but neither of us felt any emotional attachment. From then on we became the best of friends. Sure, we got together when we were feeling lonely (read horny), but really the friendship was more important to us.

I told her about Angie, she told me her sad stories. I felt my story was the sadder but hers were quite exciting. She had led an interesting life and I felt that, in retrospect, I was one of life's innocents. But it was fun to get together for a dinner, swimming in the ocean, walking along the beach. We had nothing to prove to each other, there was an acceptance of our likenesses and our differences. Over time we spent less time in bed and more time being friends.

Work could not have been better. It was challenging, but with each solved problem it came to be more and more rewarding. I grew to love Hawaii and Honolulu. I met a number of people that said the true Hawaii was the other islands, not Oahu. But I was frequently finding little gems, like the Waikiki Beach side of Diamond Head had a tunnel in the wall of the old volcano that looked right down on the hotels and beaches of Waikiki. It had been a gun emplacement during the war, but now it was a great vantage point.

Life drifted on, the loneliness improved as I met more people and became more philosophical about Angie. I came to feel that this would always be my home; my house was the very epitome of a home, sans children and a mate. I lived each day to the fullest I could, not dreaming of tomorrow and trying not to regret the past. When I had a good day I would celebrate by watching the people on the beach and walking past my veranda. A nice single malt scotch or and smoky bourbon seemed to fit in nicely.

The bad days, really the not as good days—there weren't any real bad days—I would take a long run on the beach, take a quick shower and hit the sack ... sleeping the dreams of the innocent.

The problem of living in paradise is that there is a certain sameness to the days. Each day seemed so much like the previous one the there was an inevitability about life. Get up, do what one does, go to bed, get up and do what one does, go to bed.

Life was good, it was predictable, until one day, it wasn't as expected.

Chapter Five—The End of all Things (which is the beginning of everything)

Time passed, as it tends to do. Work fell into a familiarity that was comfortable. The boss was happy, the customer was happy, I was getting regular raises and some quite nice bonuses. I kept up the running, but no more organized races, particularly no more marathons.

More and more I would drive over to somewhere around Waikiki or the zoo and park, then run around and into the Diamond Head crater. I would always finish up with a somewhat short swim in the water out from the Ala Moana Hotel. It wasn't so much to cool off—the water was always comfortably warm. But when I came out of the water wet, into the summer wind, it did feel refreshing, even a bit cool.

On this particular day mostly looking down at the sand with a good deal of fatigue, I saw something incongruous; or, as it turned out to be, very congruent. It was just a flash, no, two flashes, of bikinis of different sizes. Of course, my immediate reaction was ... Angie! I stopped and took a long look. Yeah, maybe Angie, same hair, may a trifle (a very small trifle) thicker, with a matching toddler type girl in a matching bikini. But then there was the obvious inconsistency, Angie didn't have any children.

I stood there in a fog of my own making, certainly not caused by the warm air of the ocean. God knows how long I might have stood there were it not for the Angie wannabe standing up and intruding into my personal space.

With a calmness I could never have mustered, she said, "Jerry, how are you? You're looking great!"

"Unh ... Angie?" I was noted far and wide as a smooth talker.

"Yes, I'm Angie. Was that a question?"

"You're Angie?"

"Yeah, Jerry, and I'm pretty sure you are Jerry. Please let me know if in fact you are not Jerry."

Gathering myself, I responded, somewhat glibly if I do say so, "Yes of course, I'm Jerry. Jerry Kinsolving. Damn Angie is it really you?"

With a good deal of patience she said, "Yes, and this cute little child is Angela Marie."

Wisely, I replied, "Ummm, that's a girl. Uh, is that your daughter?"

A deep sigh, "Jerry, this beautiful creature is my daughter ... and yours. Could you pick me up in front of the hotel in half an hour? I'll explain everything then."

Finally something I could understand—action.

I was parked in front of the Ala Moana in five minutes. My mind was in what my grandma used to call a tizzy. It was clearly Angie. If the visual evidence hadn't been enough her voice was distinctive. But what was this little girl, this Angela Marie? Did she really say this was my daughter? Wow.

In due course she came down, I helped them in the car, and asked her, "Where to?"

"Well, I hope you have a place to stay. It's too expensive to keep staying in the hotel."

It was quiet during the drive and I came to believe that the cute thing in the back seat might really be mine. I got hung up on the how. Well, of course I knew how, but not the details. Angie was very quiet as I drove; my impression was that she was regretting being in Hawaii. As we neared my house, she said, "Are you still in the same place?"

"Yeah, Angie, I bought it."

I pulled in and as we got out Angie gave me the girl child to carry in. She was a cute little thing. I noticed that her ears were exactly like my Aunt Mary's had been, and with the intensely curly hair of my mom ... not to mention my baby blue eyes (eat your heart out Frank!) Maybe she was mine. And if so, what in the hell was going on?

Angie took the toddler into my bedroom and came back a few minutes later. "Jerry, can I have a beer?"

I grabbed us both a cold one.

"You are obviously confused ... I assume you would like to know what's going on?"

"Unh..." I said, always the master of bon mots and other tricky conversational tools.

"Okay, I understand, this is a shock and I'm sprung it on you with no warning. Just to throw it all out at once I found out I was pregnant and I panicked. "

"Good." I threw that out to show that I was still in the game.

"Well, that takes a load off my mind, Jerry. I was afraid you would be upset." That said as she threw herself at me and gave me a hair-raising kiss.

Actually, that was good. I could work with that. I smoothly kissed her back and then leaned over and picked up the little girl child. I held her up in front of me and was rewarded by a mesmerizing smile. I was doubly in love.

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And that was my life from then on.

Angie told me how confused she was and apologized many times for not talking to me about it, or even writing a letter. "Jerry, remember that I was an officer. Being an unwed mother and an officer is a big can of worms, nothing but trouble. I knew I loved you and I knew I would keep the baby, but other than that my mind was a mess. So, like I said, I panicked. I resigned my commission and took off for home.

"As Angela Marie grew I knew we had to be together, that we belonged together ... that our girl needed her father. I never had any doubts that you would love and adore her. But as time kept flying by I found it harder and harder to face you. Finally, I just packed up and came out." --------∞∞∞--------

We stayed in Hawaii for a few years. We loved the house and being on the beach. By the time we had added Billy and Cathy, the house we loved so much was too small. My sister and I sold the lovely cabin in the forest near the Mogollon Rim to the woman I'd leased, and then purchased the house in Ewa. With Angie's salary as a nurse and with my having been promoted to area manager of the company's development center in Hawaii; we were able to afford a great place on the beach under Diamond Head.

Angie went to school at the University of Hawaii and got a Master of Science degree and became a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She enjoyed her work and led a full life. The kids seemed to have an innate ability to "ride the waves" that I never had.

It was good life, a life of paradise as near as I could make it.

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My fickle friend, The summer wind The summer wind warm summer wind Mmm the summer wind