Last chapter
Monday 11.14.2016
Big Island, Hawaii
With a flick of the light switch, Josh walked into his cozy home, dropping keys and a take-out box of Loco Moco on the dining table. Emma loved this mom and pop restaurant that offered comfort food just like the dishes her mom used to make. She'd order eggs over easy and watch the yolk run down the saucy beef patty and steamed rice underneath after she broke it with chopsticks. Josh smiled, thinking of the way she chuckled when he wiped the corner of her plump lips with his finger and licked it clean. Well, don't know why that always turned him on, or why she ran out of his house this morning like a startled rabbit jumping in the bushes. Josh picked up the cellphone she had left, and frowned. 13 missed calls from Kayla. That was odd. Josh quickly dialed her home number on his phone.
"Hi Kayla. It's me, Josh. Can I talk to Emma?"
"Isn't she with you?" Kayla replied with a question, apparently surprised by the call.
"No. She told me she was going for a photo shoot with YOU when she left this morning." An uncomfortable feeling rose from the back of Josh's mind.
"She didn't come to the photo shoot at all. I took all the heat from the couple that waited 3 hours on the beach for her. Now they are demanding a refund and will bad-mouth us online I am sure! I had a fight with her about missing the appointment after I came back this afternoon. She left home afterwards. I thought she went to cool down at your place." Kayla still sounded agitated from the other side of the phone.
Josh's heart skipped a beat, a sudden chill ran down his back in the warm night.
"No, she did not." He answered, passing his concern to Kayla electronically.
"You mean she's not with you or me?" Kayla felt stupid the second she heard her own question. Collecting her thoughts, she slowly sorted out the sequence of events, "So, she ran out of your house this morning saying she was going to the photo shoot, hid at home or wherever all day, had a fight with me after I came home, then disappeared after I left?" She was satisfied with her speculation but absolutely not happy about it.
"Where could she be? It's almost 9 PM! She doesn't have friends to go to at this time of the day..." Words rolled out of her tongue without much processing as she started to panic.
"Okay, CALM DOWN, Kayla. Has she mentioned she needed to go somewhere or will come home late today?
"No. Really, no." Worry was killing her by the second.
"Okay, I'll come to your house right now. You call anybody, any place, you can think of that Emma might go to." Josh tried to steady his nerves, gathered both phones in his shorts, and jumped in his car with a hard slam of the door.
Kayla and Emma's house hid among a variety of tropical flowers on a slight, grassy slope, with man-high bushes and papaya trees blocking what had been a divine ocean view. Kayla and Emma didn't bother to attend to the garden after their parents died of the car accident 5 years ago. Kayla, the younger sister, took over the household and ran it better than mama. The business at the photographic studio they inherited from their daddy, now also managed by Kayla, boomed by the day with Emma's growing reputation as the most recognized photographer on the Big Island of Hawaii.
All the while, however, Emma shut the door to her heart as the bond broke between her and mama, her only soul friend. What the world and others beyond family perceived her, was an award winning photographer newly weds raved about for a custom piece of art to crystallize their love on this romantic island. Behind the public eye though, this born art talent locked in a dungeon of secrecy the fact that she was burdened by epilepsy, a permanent condition by which she defined her inner self, an illness that needed mama's indispensable spiritual remedy in addition to prescribed medicine, and the basis on which she formed the conclusion that the probability of finding love on her own was next or zero.
Emma's perspective on life changed after she met Josh, a freelancer taking shelter on this island from the girl who had broken his heart. Josh's feeling towards her was genuine, no signs of using her as a rebound. Just as a reference, he passed all the personality tests with an "A" from the picky Kayla. Emma returned his affection with graduate approval after initial doubts, slowly embracing a love she'd never encountered, receiving a tender care from someone besides mama, and fulfilling a need even Kayla and Daddy were unaware of. But the repercussion of sharing her true self and a fact more private than her body haunted her like an endless nightmare as Josh's love intensified, so much so that Emma started to fear a forthcoming proposal, which was confirmed when she discovered a ring in a small velvet jewelry box hidden in his drawer chest this morning.
Take the chance, or run away?
For the past 28 years, she had been the eye witness of a family who had to deal with the daily challenges that came with her absence seizures and muscle twitches, the constant caution they excised to prevent sudden collapses that could result in a serious injury (or worse, sudden death), and the wealth her parents worked hard to build based on the prediction that she might not be able to support herself with a job in adulthood and eventually would die alone without a family of her own. Though it ended up as a pleasant surprise to earn herself not just a living but nationwide recognition in the profession world of photography, this artistic talent, a byproduct of the illness, was a born gift she'd give away to anyone, anytime, as a trade for the mental label of "normal" she put on herself. In the end, this well-intentioned safety harbor they created became a jail that confined the regular person she was or could've become.
Five years ago, the discovery of both Emma and Kayla's names on the house title and estate per their parents' will only revealed a reality that, from Emma's point of view anyway, she had been a duty to her family and would be a burden too heavy to take on willingly by anyone without a birth connection.
Depression followed.
More drugs prescribed, yet no perfect formula found.
After Emma's request for a better control on the recent reoccurrence of seizures and depression, the neurologist gave her a new drug that came out of the market only a year ago, which explained the change of moods and quite possibly, thoughts of suicide.
The race was on.
