6. Lani
Lani
“Mom, watch this!” Rory leaped from a concrete cliff and landed in the water with a splash.
They had only been there for half an hour, and Lani had already heard those words about a hundred times. But it was her baby’s birthday, and so when Rory resurfaced, Lani cheered and clapped like it was the first time that Rory had ever jumped into a pool.
Rory’s sixth birthday had landed on a Saturday.
They’d celebrated the day before with all of the playschool kids, and then they’d woken up before dawn on her actual birthday to drive across the island.
Rory had requested a day at one of the Kona-side resorts in lieu of a birthday gift.
The rooms were way beyond their budget, but they could manage a day pass.
Lani and Tenn were lounging in the shade while the girls raced down the waterslides and played in the artificial waterfalls.
It wasn’t her favorite place on the island – she much preferred the salt tang of the beach or even the muddy smell of the jungle to the chlorine-saturated air of the resorts - but the air was full of the girls’ laughter, and that was more than enough to make the day a good one.
“Dad!” Olivia hauled herself out of the pool to stand in front of them. Her long golden braids dripped water onto the parched concrete. “I want to do flips.”
Tenn peered at her through his sunglasses. “Now?”
“Right now!” Rory shouted from the pool.
Olivia grinned triumphantly. “Birthday girl says.”
“As the birthday girl commands,” he said with exaggerated reluctance. The girls urged him on as he rose slowly from his lounge chair, then shrieked with laughter when he toppled dramatically into the water.
Standing near the middle of the pool, he put his hands under Olivia’s feet while she balanced herself and stood. Then, with a sudden upward push, he sent her flying through the air in a backflip. She landed a moment later with a splash, and Rory cheered.
Lani took a couple of videos, recording one flip for each of the girls, and then she dropped her phone – still on airplane mode – back into her bag. She hadn’t brought her tablet either, not even to draw. She was determined to enjoy the day without a screen between her and her loved ones.
The girls played all morning as the resort became more and more crowded. They went down the slides countless times and made friends with other kids their age. Finally, hunger drove them ashore.
“I’m famished!” Rory said emphatically.
Lani laughed. “Good word.”
“Can we have lunch now?”
“Yep. But there’s no food allowed in here, so we need to go someplace else to eat.”
“They have food!” Rory cried, pointing at another family a few feet away.
“They bought that food here.”
“Why can’t we buy food here?” she demanded.
“It’s junk,” Olivia said.
“Expensive junk,” Lani agreed quietly.
“But it’s my birthday,” Rory whined.
“That’s why Dad packed you a special birthday lunch!” Olivia told her.
Rory’s lower lip still trembled.
“There you are!” Tenn walked over, still dripping. “I thought you were going to come down the slide.”
“We can’t,” said Rory dramatically. “We’re starving to death.”
He laughed. “Okay. Let’s go eat.”
“But I don’t want to leave!”
“We’ll come back,” Lani promised. “Your wristbands are good all day. We’ll go someplace pretty, eat a healthy lunch, and come back. Okay?”
Rory’s eyes were full of tears, but she nodded. Meltdown averted. Lani knew that she must be really hungry to be this wobbly, so she found their shoes and herded the girls back to the parking lot, where she gave them emergency snacks to hold them over on the drive.
Some miles past the resort area, Tenn pulled into a picturesque spot with plenty of shade and an ocean view.
He spread out a picnic blanket and unloaded all of Rory’s favorite foods from the cooler.
He’d made spam musubis, mac salad, and Rory’s favorite dip with lots of veggie sticks to accompany it.
Rory inhaled the first musubi, and her mood stabilized.
“Did Babbo call yet?” she asked between bites of mac salad. “He said he would call for my birthday.”
“Let me check.” Lani pulled her phone out of the bag and took it out of airplane mode. Right away, it started to vibrate with a series of texts and missed calls from friends and family. Half of them were from Lorenzo. “Yeah, he did try to call.”
“Call him back!”
Lani frowned, hesitant to bring anyone else into their perfect family day. But it was late already in Italy, nearly midnight, and she felt guilty for leaving her phone off all morning. She glanced at Tenn, who gave her a half smile and a nod.
She tapped Lorenzo’s name and handed the phone to Rory.
“ Buongiorno principessa !” he answered immediately.
“Aloha Babbo!” Rory shouted back.
“ Buon compleanno, stellina! Are you having a happy birthday?”
“Yes! We were swimming all day, and there were water slides!”
Rapid-fire Italian sounded in the background, and Lorenzo’s mother pushed her way into the frame.
“ Tantissimi auguri !” she said, beaming. “ Cento di questi giorni!”
“What’s that mean?” Rory asked.
“She is wishing you many good things and also one hundred more birthdays,” Lorenzo told her.
“ Grazie, Nonna !” she said with a grin. This set off another string of cooing Italian from her grandmother. Rory listened with a smile, taking in the love if not the words.
Tenn walked away, back to his truck, and Olivia followed.
Rory and her father talked for a few more minutes. She filled him in on her week, and he translated for his mother.
Then Tenn returned carrying a small cake covered in fluffy blue frosting (he had boiled butterfly pea petals while the girls slept to make his own natural dye) topped with plastic dolphins and a circle of six candles. Olivia burst into the birthday song, and all three of Rory’s parents joined in.
“Blow out the candles!” Olivia said when the song was finished.
Rory blew them out in one try, aided by the ocean breeze that Tenn had been blocking with one hand, and everyone cheered.
“Make a wish!”
“I wish–”
“No!” Olivia interrupted. “Not out loud! It has to be a secret, or it won’t work.”
Rory closed her eyes and screwed up her face, wishing with all of her might.
“There,” Olivia said, looking impressed. “That should do it.”
Lorenzo and his mother said their goodbyes, and Tenn cut the small cake into four equal pieces. Eating the homemade cake with her family while leaves rustled overhead and the ocean shone out to the horizon, Lani feld a deep sense of peace.
“Mama,” Rory said after she’d licked her plate clean, “I need to pee.”
“Okay.” Lani stood and scanned the lava rock that stretched out in frozen waves alongside the road. “We’ll find you a spot. Olivia, do you want to come?”
“No thanks. I can wait.”
“Okay. We’ll be right back.”
“And then more waterslides?” Rory stood and danced in place.
“And then more waterslides,” Lani reassured her. “Come on.”
“I’ll get this cleaned up,” Tenn said.
“Thank you.” Lani bent to press a kiss to his temple, then took Rory’s hand and started out across the rocks.
“I’ll help!” Olivia chirped, jumping to her feet.
Lani stopped at the first likely spot, where a great outcropping of rock would hide Rory from the road. The newly-minted six year old emptied her bladder and then scrambled back up to stand next to her mom.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked as they walked back hand in hand.
“You can tell me anything, baby.”
“And it can still be a secret?”
“Sure.” Lani looked down at her, confused, and Rory met her gaze with wide brown eyes.
“It’s my birthday wish.”
Lani grinned, and the tension that had been gathering in her body flowed away.
“I want to know Italian, like Babbo and Nonna.”
“That’s a good wish.”
“You think I can do it?”
“You’ve already started to learn.”
“But can I speak it now?”
“You can speak some,” Lani hedged, not understanding.
“But it was my birthday wish,” she pressed. “So can I know it all now? Can I understand my nonna?”
Understanding washed through Lani, and she knelt on the sun-baked lava rock to look her daughter in the face.
“Wishes don’t usually work that way,” she told her. “Usually, they take time and hard work. But this is a wish that you can make come true, if you keep trying.”
“Will you help me?”
“Sure.” Lani wasn’t sure where to begin, but there were countless resources out there. Surely she could find something for Rory, even if that was just watching familiar cartoons in Italian. Wasn’t that how kids all over the world learned common languages like English or Spanish? “I’ll help you.”
Rory leapt forward with a hug that nearly sent Lani toppling off of the lava rock. Lani grabbed onto a corner of the coarse rock to keep her balance, and then she returned her daughter’s hug.
“Mama?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“This is the best birthday I ever had.”
Warmth rushed through Lani’s chest, a gratitude so fierce that it brought tears to her eyes.
“Good,” she said to her daughter. “I’m glad.”
“And now more waterslides?”
Lani laughed. “Yes, and now more waterslides.”
She took Rory’s hand in hers, and they walked back to the road.