My mother needed to return home in order to nurse her niece back to health. I called her aunty sally because that's what you do here in Hawai'i, its a sign of respect.
Sally's son Paul was my cousin and Roland her husband, worked in construction. He was a really nice guy and everyone liked him. There's was a bit of prejudice regarding Sally being Portuguese and Roland being Filipino, but I remember at a family gathering the last time we were on the valley isle, my father put his foot down and said that what matters is they both love each other and they're both Catholic. Nothing else should matter. All of the adults and elders agreed. Roland and Sally were married a few months later. As kids, Paul and I made our best effort to stay out of our parents' way, no one was sure why my aunty sally was sick actually. All we knew is that she refused the help of any doctor and would only allow my mother to care for her.
~
Paul and I sat on the fence, fronting the tall mock orange hedges fronting his yard. We made enough sandwiches in a brown paper bag to last us most of the afternoon. His dad's old cooler was filled with ice and blue cans of RC Cola. We enjoyed the scenery and ate more than we talked, periodically we would say something about school or share some gross secret about our older siblings. "I hear my mom and dad oofing some times," Paul said with a mouth full of a salami and cheese sandwich. "She makes a lot of noise, it's so funny."
"You mean you stand outside the door and listen?" I shrieked.
"No, stupid," he chuckled. "My mom just screams all the time, Roland oh my god, Roland uh, uh Roland! Kinda like that."
"Ugh, that's sickening," I took another huge bite out of my sandwich.
"What about your folks?" Paul asked. "Do you hear them do it?"
"No," I shook my head. "They just grumble at each other before they fall asleep, they don't do it."
Just then, a blue 1965 Chevy Impala drove by. The two of us were stunned by how the sunlight brought out the rich hue of that particular color. We couldn't help but notice that strips of Ti Leaf were tied on the door handles. "Shit!" Paul screamed. "Don't look!" It was too late; we'd already got a glimpse of the rear passenger window, which was rolled down only slightly. We saw her. She was translucent, see-through, not corporeal. She was a ghost of a young Filipino girl our age, wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. She looked as if she were underwater because her hair floated around her. The apparition waved at us with a fatalistic expression that said that this was her circumstance, and she was doomed to accept it. The Impala passed, and she, along with the vehicle, was gone.
When we finally calmed down and were too hoarse to scream anymore, Paul told me that a neighbor who lived further up the road, just below the sand dunes near the old heiau, had bought the 65 Impala as a restoration project. The original owner was drunk one evening and fell asleep at the wheel. Somehow, he drove it into the Iao stream during the last great flood. In his inebriated state, he forgot that his daughter was asleep in the back seat. The father managed to escape, but the daughter drowned. "That's why the guy who owns the car drives around with Ti-leaf on the door handles, he thinks it will bless the car and send the girl away," Paul's tone was quiet.
"But the girl haunts the car?"
"Yeah," Paul nodded.
"Why doesn't the guy get rid of the car then?" I wondered.
"He's a mortician," Paul replied.
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