Island Hopper-Chapter 28: Just Add Water
Certain things are instant. Not usually sons.
Previously Chapter 27: So Long, Farewell Surprising things await back on Majuro.
ISLAND FEVER (Jimjeran Book 1)
ISLAND HOPPER (Jimjeran Book 2)
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Perkaj looked so small sitting next to Jamie on the Jolok boat. The breeze whipped his fine black hair around his ears. Before he was discharged that morning, Dr. Langenbelik had coached us on our goals. Perkaj, as young as he was, needed to be able to maintain his correct blood sugar level for at the least a full week by himself before we were to allow him to move back in with his family.
After that we were to spot check--stop in and have him test his blood sugars at a variety of times of day to make sure he was being consistent. The goal was for him to re-enter his family and be independent of us, but not at the cost of his health. We could also work with the family to help support him, hopefully getting their cooperation to speed the process of moving back home again.
Jamie and I had bundled up Perkaj with the few possessions he had brought along and the medical paraphernalia that he had gained during his hospitalization, along with a coterie of stuffed animals and toy cars, gifts from the nurses who had felt such pity for the unparented wee waif. We had boarded the Jolok boat just in time for departure.
Perkaj’s dark eyes sparkled with delight as he glanced back at me. He crouched to come close to me and exclaimed above the roar of the engine and surf. “We go to your house now!”
“We will also see your mama and baba,” I said.
At that, he looked giddy. “I miss them,” he admitted, then with a smile at me went back to sit with Jamie.
He was equally excited during the bumpy ride in the back of the pickup truck from Arno Arno to Ine. I realized from his enthusiastic reactions to everything we saw that he must have had no memory of his own truck ride to the air strip and plane ride to Majuro, and that this could be his first adventure outside the confines of the island.
“Let’s stop at Perkaj’s house first,” Jamie suggested as we neared Ine. I watched Perkaj’s face as we got closer, sharing in his joy as we pulled up to park on his property. Our call to the Iroij had the desired effect, as the boy’s family members came spilling out of the house to greet him. His mama was in tears, holding him by the cheeks and gazing into his face, clucking at how much weight he had lost but obviously pleased to see him looking healthy again. His father smiled gravely as he shook Jamie’s hand.
They invited us to come in, and we entered their house, nodding at the relatives we found already inside. Perkaj’s mother and father ushered us to a pandanus mat and tried to urge food on us. Jamie gestured to his stomach and explained that he was full and couldn’t eat anything. I had a feeling that his stomach was still churning from the boat ride despite motion sickness pills.
I could pick out the occasional word as Jamie explained everything to them. At his invitation, Perkaj joined us on the mat and pulled out his zippered kit with lancets, tester, and insulin. At Jamie’s nod, he took a testing strip and inserted it into the tester. The room was silent as he twisted the plastic tip off the lancet, but there was a chorus of gasps as he poked his own finger and then touched the droplet of blood to the testing strip. Quiet murmurs followed, but when the tester beeped with the results, Perkaj held it up not to show his parents, but Jamie so he could see the LCD readout.
“Emmon, good,” said Jamie. “120. Show Baba and Mama.”
Perkaj scrambled over to them, squatted between them, and pointed and explained as he looked at the monitor.
I noticed that Maria was hanging back at the side of the room, so as the attention of the crowd was on Perkaj, I motioned to her to come outside. She hung her head shamefacedly, not meeting my eyes.
“I am not good aunt,” she muttered.
“Yes you are,” I said. “You came with Perkaj to Majuro. It is very hard to take care of someone with diabetes. You remember I am a nurse, so I can help Perkaj until he can manage it himself, but you can be a helper to him when he comes back home.”
Her eyelashes fluttered as she glanced quickly up at me. “Jolok bod,” she said. “Is bad he live in your house? You and Meester Shamie are just married. Is not time for nin-nins yet.”
“Ejjelok bod. It’s okay,” I said, trying as hard as I could to mean it.
Before long, Jamie had made our excuses, Maria helped me grab a few more pairs of clothing for Perkaj, and we had our driver take us the rest of the way to the clinic. Coming around the side of the truck, I felt a hand on my arm. It was Jamie, concern on his face. “Are you all right, hen?” he asked. Perkaj was pulling his backpack out of the truck, his focus elsewhere.
“Honestly? A little terrified,” I answered, meeting Jamie’s eyes. “Wondering how we’re going to manage all of this along with the rest of our lives.”
“Just do the next right thing,” Jamie said. “That’s what my da used to say when Jenny, Willie or I were overwhelmed by a task.”
I took a deep breath, grabbed my suitcase and swung it out of the bed of the truck.
“Well,” I said, with a hesitant smile at Jamie, “let’s get inside and make a spot for Perkaj.”
After dropping my luggage by the kitchen table, I went around the apartment opening up the louvered windows and curtains which had been closed for more than a week. Without a breeze to move the air it made little difference. It was still stuffy and hot.
Perkaj wandered around the apartment, stopping in front of the pantry with its rows of cans and tubs of dry goods. “Ebol mona,” he marveled, opening his arms to show how much food we seemed to have.
“Eh bowl?” I asked Jamie. “I know mona is food.”
“It means full… a lot.”
After pulling our bed closer to the west wall of the apartment, Jamie moved the couch to create a barrier between the table and the back wall to give Perkaj a spot of his own.
Glancing at me occasionally, Jamie set up the space. He pulled a quilt from our storage tub, folded it several times and laid it on the floor, topping it with the pandanus mat Perkaj’s mom had carefully rolled up for her son. I pulled one of the extra pillows from our bed and put on a fresh pillowcase, handing a sheet to Jamie to put on top of the mat.
Looking through the back window, I caught sight of my raised beds. Having seen the dry yellow grass along the sides of the road , the drooping palm fronds and wilting jungle plants on the way from Arno Arno, I’d had a sinking feeling. I still saw green peeking up above the wooden walls of the beds, so I invited Perkaj out to see my plants.
Though most of the plants looked a little limp, as I dug down into the soil surrounding them I discovered that just an inch under the surface of the ground there was moisture. It was only a minute later that Anni wandered over.
“Meester Shamie asked me to water the plants,” she said, smiling. Perkaj stood up on tiptoes to peek into the box, then grabbed the bucket to go to the well. He lugged it back having to use both hands to carry it, water sloshing out on his feet. But he was fascinated and helpful as we dipped cups of water and gently poured them at the base of each plant.
By the time we went back inside, Jamie had stretched wire from one rafter to the other and was hanging up a sheet to separate Perkaj's little room from ours.
“Let’s do coconut rice and fish,” Jamie suggested, nodding towards our little visitor. He had reached into the dresser, grabbed swim trunks, and was about to drop his pants when he thought again.
“Do you want to see how yer bed feels?” He asked Perkaj, rattling off the translation in Majol afterwards. Once Perkaj had rounded the curtain, Jamie whipped off his clothing and pulled on the trunks, his back to the room. After a pleasant eyeful, and having never seen the man sheepish about being naked, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Perkaj was still happily sitting on his bed, setting his zoo of stuffed animals around the perimeter when Jamie joined me in the kitchen.
“Obviously, I need to rethink the space,” he whispered. “No’ enough privacy yet,”
“You think he’s never seen a naked man before?” I asked in an undertone.
“Aye, I’m sure the lad has, but he doesna need to be subjected to the vision of a large, naked white Scotsman.”
“That would be a traumatizing nightmare,” I joked. Jamie smirked, kissed me, and headed out the door with his fish spear.
“Itok, Perkaj,” I called out. “Can you help me find a coconut for the rice?”
Prepping dinner took a good hour, followed by testing his blood sugar, giving Perkaj short-acting insulin, measuring portions, eating, and cleaning up after the meal. By 7:45 I couldn’t tell who was more exhausted--us or Perkaj. Jamie meticulously wrote down everything in the blood sugar/insulin log, and then we met each other’s eyes, an identical question on our faces. “What now?”
We were used to freedom in the evenings, our time being our own to read or write letters, to flirt and joke and laugh, to kiss and cuddle, to freely shed our clothing and make as much noise as we wanted. But now there was an unfamiliar guest in our sacred space.
For the first time, I thought I saw it register on Jamie’s face-the sense of anxiety and discomfort I was feeling. But then he frowned determinedly and turned to Perkaj.
“Ej awa in kiki,” he said. “It’s time to sleep. What do mama and baba do to help you rest?”
“Erro bwebwenato,” Perkaj replied. His voice held a tinge of sadness.
“They tell you a story?” Jamie repeated, translating. “Well, come & lie down in your bed, and I’ll tell ye a story. I have one that’s called Jock & his Mother.”
We turned on a lamp by our bed and turned off the main lights. While the boys were on one side of the sheet I put on my pajamas, choosing a longer pair of shorts in case Perkaj saw me in the morning.
The story was a little like one I’d heard before, where a simple-minded boy keeps following his mother’s advice a bit too late. Jock brings home a needle in a bundle of hay, and his mother tells him he should have put it in his hat. The next day he brings home a plough, and following his mother’s advice, puts it on his hat. Of course, it’s so heavy it falls into the river.
“She said to him, ‘You silly boy! Ye should have tied a rope to it and pulled it behind you!’” Jamie said, giving the mother the voice of an old crone. Perkaj giggled.
“The next day,” Jamie said, “The boy earned a leg o’ mutton... well, they dinna have those on Arno, so maybe it was a… roasted chicken. What do you think he did with it?”
“Tie it with rope?” Perkaj offered.
“And pulled it all the way home!” Jamie answered. The answering peal of laughter made me smile. I sat on the bed, arms hugged around my knees. All this time I hadn’t realized this talent of Jamie’s. My only bedtime story from him had been the boring recitation of Scottish history.
Poor Jock tried to carry a horse on his shoulder and then rode a cow, which of course helped a sad princess to laugh and so they got married. Jamie slowed his sentences and lowered his voice as the story continued, and just before I heard the floor creak with the movement of Jamie pushing himself up off the floor, I heard a little voice murmur something in Marshallese.
Jamie crept around the curtain, smiling when he saw me. He joined me on the bed and was reaching for a book when I whispered, “What did he say? I didn’t hear him well enough.”
I could have sworn there was a little mist in Jamie’s eyes as he answered. “He said ‘Ainikiom ekakiiki ao.’” He paused, the effort of translating wrinkling his forehead. “It means,” he blushed and met my eyes. “The sound of your voice lulls my soul to sleep.”
I felt a lump in my throat, the sting of tears in my own eyes as I leaned my head on Jamie’s shoulder. He pressed a kiss onto my forehead and wrapped an arm around me.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Exhausted,” I answered.
“I don’t even think I can read tonight,” he said, reaching over me to turn off the lamp.
“I won’t argue with that,” I responded, getting up to turn the covers down and pull up the single top sheet. It was still hot and windless.
Jamie cuddled me for a moment when he got under the covers, but then pulled away.
“It’s so hot,” he groaned. “I’m missing air conditioning already.”
It was pitch black inside and out when I startled awake.
“I want to go home,” a small voice quavered. “Ikonaan mama im baba. In my house, my brother sleeps next to me,” Perkaj cried. “I am alone here.”
“Jab jan”, Jamie said reassuringly. “Don’t cry. Here. You can sleep next to me.”
He flipped on the lamp, pushed the sheet out of the way, pulled the mat over until it was touching the side of our bed and tucked Perkaj in again. Jamie then got into bed, kindly turning toward the little boy and scooting closer to the edge that faced him.
For the next few minutes, I could hear Marshallese as Jamie murmured reassurances to Perkaj. The low rumble of foreign speech patterns soothed me as well, and soon I fell back asleep.
In the predawn hours, I was awakened by large, warm hands that gently stroked my back. They found their way to the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders, then ran fingers through my hair to massage my scalp.
I shivered at a kiss on my shoulder blade, at which Jamie scooted closer to me and put his arm over me.
“Cold, hen?” he asked.
“Actually, no,” I said, smiling to myself.
“Me neither,” he whispered, a hand meandering down my side, lazily tracing the waistband of my shorts before slipping fingers under the elastic.
“Whatcha doing?” I whispered playfully, rolling toward him and being rewarded by an enthusiastic caress of my breast and a thorough kiss.
“Dying,” was Jamie’s response. “A busy week at your parents’ house, then sleeping apart from ye at the hospital, and now we have an instant son? God, I'm starving for ye.”
No words were needed to tell him I felt the same. I’d been trying not to be selfish and resentful, but it was challenging to not feel deprived and disconnected.
I helped him finish what he had started, wriggling out of my shorts and kicking them onto the floor, then climbing atop Jamie, who made quick work of pulling off my tank top over my head, throwing it to the side to join its companion on the floor.
“Ifrinn,” he gasped as I used a hand to guide him in, lowering myself onto him.
Perkaj won’t wake up, I assured myself, confident the darkness would hide us. He was turned away from us anyway, his breath coming out in a low, even snore. I leaned toward him just to make sure he wasn’t looking in our direction.
Jamie must have noticed my movement because he hissed under his breath, “It won’t be the first time he’s heard these noi… Oh, God… oh, Christ...”
I put my hand over his mouth, increasing my pace. I was close, he was close, and then, a plaintive voice interrupted the process. “Meester Shamie?”
I froze. Jamie desperately tried to hold my hips to keep me in place, but I was instantly out of the mood, melting down next to Jamie like an ice cube on a hot car.
“No no no no no no no…” Jamie pleaded. I pulled the sheet up, panting. “Bollocks,” he swore, then modulated his voice after a deep sigh. “Ijin,” he said calmly, rolling away from me toward Perkaj. “I’m right here.”
Next up on Island Hopper:
Chapter 28b: Just Add Water, part 2 Shots & the “Shungle”
