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“My native name—Etana. It means strong, or firm. It’s what my mother called me, so most of the people here still use it.”
“Which suits you,” she said rather weakly, as her hands began to tremble.
He shrugged. “Grant’s good, too. It was my grandfather’s name. He was a missionary to the islands.”
“A haole?” she asked.
“A foreigner, yes. For a time. But once he settled here he never left. People tend to do that here. Come for a little while and never leave.” He smiled, but this time the deviousness of it was missing. It was a genuine smile, and a gentle one. “The lure of the islands.”
“And you use his name now because…?”
“Let’s just say that I wasn’t the perfect child. Got into a lot of trouble. People here still remember that and associate it with Etana. So when I returned here after medical school I had the bright idea that changing my name made me a new person.”
“Has it worked?” It hadn’t for her, because Susan Ridgeway by any other name was still Walter Ridgeway’s daughter.
He laughed, shaking his head. “Do you hear anybody calling me Grant?”
“Well, maybe in time…”
“Or not. Sometimes, you are who you are, and nothing will change that fact. Not even a different name. I treat Omar Lahani for angina, he takes my advice, takes the pills I prescribe, but he never forgets that I was the one who broke the brand-new picture window he’d just had put in his house.”
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