Sinking Suspicions

Chapter 21

120 Chapter 21 Sadie found her seat on the airplane, pushed her carry-on into the compartment above her head, and settled in next to the window. She was exhausted. She looked out the window at the nearby palm trees and the distant mountains as she thought about the day’s events. On the ferry ride back to Maui from Lāna‘i, Pua had made nonstop calls until she had rescheduled Sadie’s flight back to Oklahoma. That left Sadie with only a few hours to pack and say her good-byes to the people she had met before rushing to catch the red-eye flight back to the mainland. Pua saved precious minutes by helping Sadie return her rental car and then navigate the crowded airport. Using Pua’s cell phone, Sadie called Lance and, just as she had been forced to do for the last three days, left him a message. This would be her last chance to call before arriving in Tulsa, she told him. She repeated her flight number and arrival time to him three times. As her place in line approached the security checkpoint, Sadie turned and hugged Pua. “Thank you for everything,” she said. Pua pulled a lei out of her straw bag and placed it around Sadie’s neck. “Come back soon,” Pua said, “and next time, bring your fellow with you. There’s so much you didn’t have time to see. We will go back and visit Tutu Lehua. I think she liked you a lot.” 121 “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll call you when I get to the office. Give me a day or so.” Sadie turned and placed her items on the conveyor belt and walked through the metal detector toward the escalator that would take her to her gate. Turning back, she saw Pua blow her a kiss. Sadie waved, blinking back tears. How could she become so attached to a place and people in such a short period of time? Then she remembered her grandfather’s words. They call it the aloha spirit, he had said. She finally understood. Once the plane was in the air, Sadie settled in and began to replay in her mind the events of the last few days. Losing touch with Lance unnerved her. She missed hearing his voice and longed to feel his arms around her. She continued to worry about Buck. Managing a smile, she thought surely he was home by now. He’d probably been out visiting friends or looking for horses. There were endless possibilities to explain his absence. At any rate, she felt better knowing she would be home by noon tomorrow in case she needed to help with the search. Her thoughts turned to Pua and her mother. Visiting Lāna‘i had turned out to be the best part of the trip. Learning about Tutu’s life during the war and the loss of her lover, Pua’s father, tugged at Sadie’s heart. She couldn’t begin to imagine how painful it would be to lose Lance like that. She wished she could have learned more about Pua’s father. Ohia seemed to be a nickname, and she thought it sounded Hawaiian. She tried to remember what Tutu had said his real name was, but she couldn’t. She knew it didn’t sound like a Cherokee name, even though Tutu had insisted he had been a Cherokee man. “Why does everyone want to be a Cherokee?” she muttered. Everywhere she went, people, upon learning she was Cherokee, would launch into some story about a long-lost relative being Cherokee. When she would ask about tribal citizenship, they would always have some reason why none of their ancestors were on the rolls. In the end, none of them had proof of Cherokee blood, just something their great-great-whatever had told them. Everyone wants to belong to a tribe, even though they aren’t Indian, she thought. At that rate, practically everyone alive would be Cherokee. The nonsense annoyed her. Before long, the flight attendant dimmed the lights in the cabin for the movie. Sadie gave in to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep. She dreamed 122 first of hula dancers and soldiers at war, then she dreamed of her home, her horse, her wolf-dog, and then she dreamed about falling into the arms of the man she...