Chapter 6 - Solomon
Jack, it’s Gavin. Mom got some letter, an airmail letter that was forwarded to her from your old apartment address in Columbus. I can mail it or bring it when I come up to visit, just let me know what to do with it.
Jack listened to the voicemail from his brother twice, not quite sure who’d be sending him a letter from outside the country, especially to the apartment he lived in during his senior year at Ohio State. After his return from Fiji, he spent a month with his parents in Cincinnati before striking off for grad school at Penn State.
School was going well, his wound had healed nicely, and he was already looking forward to Spring Break 1994, a return to Hawaii, where he and Wyatt would keep themselves sharp for a trip to Australia in the summer.
Jack phoned his older brother Gavin regarding the mysterious letter.
“Dude, just go ahead and open it. Read it to me. I have no clue,” Jack requested.
“Sure thing, give me a sec. Okay, it’s from…holy shit, Jack.”
“What? Who’s it from?” Jack heard laughter coming through the line, then Gavin cleared his throat and composed himself.
“You didn’t tell me how much fun you had in Fiji, bro.”
“I almost got my leg bitten off by a shark. ‘Fun’ isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.”
“And what did you do for ‘physical therapy’ following the accident? Does the name Karalaini ring a bell?”
“Yeah, of course, she was a girl I…” Jack’s voice trailed off.
“A girl you what, bro? Had unprotected sex with?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jack sat down, suddenly feeling lightheaded.
“Wish I was. Looks like you left a souvenir behind in Fiji. This Karalaini is pregnant and she says it’s yours.”
Jack had always been careful. He’d had more than his share of fun and had no problem attracting women, but he was always adamant about a condom being involved.
Well, almost always.
* * *
Once Karalaini realized she was late, got a test, and her suspicion was confirmed, she immediately knew who the father had to be. The American, Jack. There had been no other.
She briefly considered finding a way to terminate the pregnancy, as she was nineteen, barely knew the father, had no real way to contact him, and was positive he’d deny everything and pretend she and her child didn’t exist, anyway.
But abortion was only legal in Fiji if either her life or the life of the baby were in danger, and she didn’t relish the thought of either of them being at risk. Her best friend, Lucy, had family in Australia, and she thought that laws were different there, but she didn’t have the money to make that a reality, either.
Besides, it had never been a question she would keep the baby. Despite what many would have told her, she knew it was her destiny. Jack had come into her life for a reason. And now she knew why.
She had enough family to help her, and despite whatever embarrassment the whole ordeal would cause her own parents, she couldn’t imagine that they’d turn their backs on her, especially once the baby arrived.
She had to at least try to find Jack, if not for financial assistance, simply because it was the right thing to do. He deserved to know he was going to be a father. The hospital had to have some sort of contact information for Jack, and although they were reluctant to release it to her, she eventually talked an administrator into slipping her a mailing address for the local mini-celebrity, their American shark bite victim, Jack O’Connor.
Karalaini wrote a letter and mailed it to an apartment located someplace called Columbus, Ohio.
The letter arrived to find Jack long gone, but the new tenant decided, fortunately, that an airmail letter was likely of some value and the piece of mail meandered its way from the landlord, to Ohio State University, to Mrs. Margaret O’Connor, Jack’s mother, and finally to Jack’s eldest sibling, Gavin.
The call went silent so long that Gavin thought his brother must have hung up, but finally Jack spoke. “Wow. Uncle Gavin has quite a ring to it, eh?”
Gavin chuckled. “So, do I get a sister-in-law out of this deal? And does she have any sisters?”
Both brothers laughed, but Jack knew the time for mirth was past. On a speck in the ocean, half a world away, his baby was coming.
* * *
Jack O’Connor cancelled a dinner date he’d arranged with a pretty young Penn State coed and he sat in his apartment just off campus with a six pack while he stared out the window, watching the afternoon sun set and the stars begin to fill the sky.
After mulling it over for several days, Jack O’Connor picked up the phone and dialed the number Laini had put in her letter. Living with extended family, a group sharing one telephone, and with a sixteen-hour time difference, it took the better part of three more days for the pair to make contact.
Karalaini’s voice trembled when she picked up the receiver after being summoned to the phone by her cousin.
“Bula! Jack, is it really you?” Karalaini greeted Jack with the Fijian version of “aloha,” the versatile “bula,” a word Jack grew familiar with during his stay the previous summer.
“Bula, Laini. I got your letter. Well, obviously I got your letter. How are you? How’s the…is the baby okay?” Jack’s reply included “bula,” which best translates to English as “health,” wishing good health to the recipient. He’d never meant it more.
Jack heard her exhale. She couldn’t quite believe this was happening, that she’d actually tracked him down, and that he responded, when her friends had convinced her that no guy on the other side of the planet would bother to take responsibility for something that he’d inevitably think of as a holiday fling.
“Yes, Jack, the baby is great. I’m fine. I’m so glad I found you, that you called. How are you? Your leg?”
“As you might imagine, I’m a little surprised by all of this, I mean I’ve thought of you so much, and I was so frustrated that I didn’t have a way to contact you once I got home. My leg is perfect. What does your family think about you being, you know, about you having a baby?” Jack couldn’t get over hearing her voice again. He would have done anything at that moment to climb through the phone and hold her. She had to be terrified.
“They’re excited, most of them, but it’s hard for my parents, this isn’t at all how they expected to become grandparents. I mean they haven’t even met you,” she explained.
“I intend to rectify that just as soon as I can. I’m in school now, but I have a break for Christmas and then Spring Break a few months later. I wanted to see if I could visit for one or both if I could,” Jack offered, suddenly realizing how badly he needed to see her again.
“I’d like that very much. Calling here must be so expensive. You have my address. Let’s write and maybe we can talk sometimes and you can tell me when you can come. I miss you, Jack.”
* * *
With Wyatt’s help, Jack scraped together the money for a December visit, and despite the insistence of his parents that they accompany him, he made the trip alone.
He and Laini spent a heavenly week together, a reunion marked by a feast in his honor thrown by Karalaini’s family at which he met so many Fijians, with so many vowels in their names, that his head spun.
They made love again. And again. And again. It was better than they both remembered, each time better than the last. Jack couldn’t get enough of Laini and Laini couldn’t bear to be more than a few inches away from Jack at all times.
On the eve of his return to the States, Jack promised to return in the Spring, hopefully to coincide with the stork’s arrival. She’d been adamant that she didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, and he didn’t pressure her.
His second trip to Fiji convinced him that he was in love with her, and that he could make a happy life for himself in the islands. It was the right thing to do, she deserved it, and the baby needed it – he intended to propose on his next visit.