NATIA & The Invisible Island of Sawaiki

Natia was jolted out of her sleep by the ring of the doorbell. She groaned after looking at her timepiece. It was only six in the morning. She only got a few hours' sleep. They had arrived from their camping trip late last night and she was really tired. ‘Who the hell was at their door this early! If it’s their neighbor Mrs.Jones again, she is going to give her an earful. She might get scolded by grandpa later, for talking rudely to an elder, but she has had enough. That old lady has made it a habit to ring the doorbell at odd hours for no good reason.’ She got up from her bed and stretched.   An ocean breeze entered the room through the open windows. She went to the windows and looked outside. The ocean was calm. All the five bedrooms in their house have a view to the ocean. A private staircase descended from their house to the beach. It was a favorite spot of her mother and hers. They used to spend hours in the night swimming in the ocean. Her throat tightened at the memory of her mother. Mom’s first anniversary of death is coming next month. She missed her mother. Being a social pariah, Natia didn't have any friends at school. Her mother was her one and only friend. She made a mental note to go down to the beach later. The doorbell rang again and Natia was interrupted from her thoughts. ‘Go and get the damn door Natee. Don’t let them wake up grandfather too’. She chided herself and went downstairs. Just as she reached the last step of the stairs, she heard the front door opening. ‘Ah! Sorry grandpa.’ She muttered. Instead of going to the front door, she proceeded back upstairs. ‘No one is going to ask for her exclusively. So she might as well get back to bed.’ “Mr. Chen?” Natia halted on her steps and listened. ‘That accent...’ “Yes?” “I am Aleksandr.” ‘That accent was definitely Russian. Did papa send someone? But why would he send someone? Did something happen?’ All kinds of thoughts rushed to her mind and she began to panic. There was a tiny voice of reason in her mind telling her to calm down, along with a feeling that she should know that name, which she ignored. After her mother’s accident and death, she was always in a default mode to receive bad news. There was a pause. Natia deduced that grandfather also didn’t know the incomer. The person spoke again. “Aleksandr Andreyevich.” Natia’s eyes widened in realization. Aleksandr Andreyevich!! That was her brother. Half brother that is. A brother she has never seen...yet. She ran to the front door and screeched to a halt near grandfather. The person who was starting to speak again halted and shifted his eyes to her, then resumed. “Aleksandr Andreyevich Orlov.” He then gave her a once over and frowned. “Maria?” “Uh..Y Yes..Trinity Maria. That’s me.” ‘Why are you stuttering Natia? What’s wrong with you?’ The names both almost felt foreign on her tongue. Only her father ever called her Maria. She was named ‘Trinity Chen’ by her mother. Father later gave her the name Maria, after his mother, and she became ‘Trinity Maria Chen-Orlova’. She was called Trinity only at school when teachers used your full name. The students though.....Well, she used to go by a lot of names among the students. They ranged from 'alien' to 'hippo'. When she changed schools, new names appeared for her. And she changed schools all the time as her mother shifted places frequently due to her research. Her current name was ‘white rhino’. And it was almost stuck with her as she was going to the same school for more than a year for the first time. Natia was a nickname for Trinity. Weird, right? It’s totally another name!!She always thought it was such an unusual nickname for Trinity. Grandma came up with that. And she always claimed it was an obvious choice; from Tri-nuh-tee to Nah-tee-ah; and with a suitable meaning too. Natia meant hidden in many languages. Well...she was a hidden child after all. So it somehow makes sense. But her mother never called her that. She just shortened it and called her Natee. Someone nudged her. “Please come in.” Grandpa’s voice broke her train of thoughts. “Earth to, Natia.” Grandpa whisper-scolded her before leading Aleksander inside. Natia grimaced. She was just staring at her brother without inviting him in. She always imagined meeting her father’s family, especially her half brother and sister. However, she never imagined a scene like this. It was always her father taking her to meet them; not one of them coming to meet her...alone. Why was Aleksandr here? Her mind again wandered to all the worst possibilities. Aleksandr followed grandpa to the living area. He was looking around like he was inspecting everything and seemed amused for a moment at their indoor/outdoor pool. Their house had a semi-open floor plan. The indoor pool started near the living area and extended to an outdoor one, separated by a glass door. The pool was an important part of their daily life. Everyone spends sometime daily in the pool, especially her mother and grandmother. Used to spend. She corrected herself. After grandmother’s death, grandfather stayed away from the pool. It was like a painful memory to him even though grandmother’s death had nothing to do with the pool. She died of old age. And the time Trinity herself spent in the pool was reduced considerably after her mother’s death. She looked at Aleksandr again. He looked so much like their father, yet somehow so different. Tall, beige color skin, brown hair and light brown eyes. He was five years older than her. So he must be twenty-two now and Sofia, her sister, nineteen. “Papa couldn’t reach you.” There was a little annoyance in his voice. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else but here. She could tell now what the main difference was. It was more internal than external: their feelings towards her. Papa looked at her with so much love and affection, while Aleksandr.... Aleksandr disliked her. She could tell that much. It was written all over his face and he made no attempt to hide it either. But, what caused it? She doesn’t know. ‘Well...there was no particular reason for him to like his father’s illegitimate child whom he was meeting for the first time. Still...There is no reason to hate her either, right? It’s not like papa cheated on his mother with her mother or something. They were divorced when he met her mother. Is it because of how she looked?’ She was short- a little less than five feet; had unusually big eyes and big ears on a small face. Her reddish brown hair lacked volume. She was almost bald when she was little and kids used to ask her if she had cancer or something. But her main problem was her skin. She has a hereditary genetic condition that makes her skin pale, thick and hard. It was less thick at the joints, which made her body appear like segments. Sometimes it will get too thick and peels off. Her mother and grandmother had it worse. They lacked sweat glands. They lived by taking dips in water to cool off every couple of hours since they couldn’t sit in an air-conditioned room. Somehow it didn’t pass on to her. She was so ridiculed her whole life for how she looked that she no longer cared about her appearances. She wondered if she should have made an effort to make a first impression. Maybe rushing in with bed-hair and unwashed face was not a good idea. ‘But, why do you want him to like you so badly, Trinity? If he doesn’t like you, you don’t like him either. It’s as simple as that.’ She nodded to herself. Still, she doesn’t want him to hate her. He was her brother, after all. “We went camping. Signal was bad there. I did text papa though. To inform him about the trip and to tell him he may not be able to reach us.” The camping trip was not planned. The plan was a summer vacation in Hawaii with her father. She was really looking forward to it. It was the only time she got to spend with her father. They always go somewhere after celebrating her birthday. She didn’t want to celebrate her birthday this time. Her first birthday without mom. Papa said they would skip the celebration and just go for a holiday trip. But he never made it. He was busy with some work. It was the first time he had missed her birthday. The first time since the time he came to find her, that is: since her seventh birthday. “He got the text, alright. He just thought it was a week-end trip and not a week-long trip. You didn’t mention when you would be back. When he couldn’t reach you after he was back from the hospital, he was worried. And he sent me to check up on you since he couldn’t make it. I reached here yesterday. The old lady next door told me, you take long camping trips, one or two weeks at the least. And if it was a week-long trip, you would probably have been back yesterday. She was kind enough to inform me last night that you are back.” ‘Mrs.Jones! Her lights were still on when they arrived last night. Only she would be able to tell their schedule with this accuracy. She probably would have called Aleksandr the moment they reached here. Wait a minute...’ “HOSPITAL?!!”