12. Lani
12
Lani
“ W ho wants more pancakes?” Tenn asked.
A chorus of me ’s went up from all four of the little girls at their kitchen table.
“See, this is why I waited to ask until I had a stack of eight. Am I a genius, or am I a genius?”
“These are the best pancakes I ever had!” Kiki shouted. “Right, Lulu?”
Luana just nodded. She had already stuffed a huge bite into her mouth.
“I mean, it’s kind of his job,” Olivia said, calmly cutting her own pancakes with a butterknife.
“Can I have more mango syrup, Uncle?” Kiki asked.
“Sure thing.” Tenn leaned across the table and poured her more of their homemade syrup.
Lani stood with both hands around a hot cup of coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter and watching him in awe. The man worked in his cafe most days, quick to jump into the lineup in the kitchen whenever they were a man down, and yet he still managed to make healthy meals for his family every single day.
He caught her staring and winked, giving her a cheeky grin.
“Did you get enough to eat?”
“I’m good,” she assured him. Their little kitchen table only had four chairs, and so she and Tenn had eaten their breakfast standing up.
“Okay. I should head into work.” He kissed her – a real kiss, heedless of how it made the girls giggle – and headed out the door, pausing to say goodbye to the girls on his way out.
Lani watched him go, her heart full to bursting with love and gratitude.
Life was good.
“Auntie!” Luana said, her voice high and reedy. “Kiki spilled the syrup!”
“Did not!” Kiki shouted.
Lani hurried to mop up the sticky orange syrup that was slowly spreading across the table. She could clearly remember days when she was so stressed and overwhelmed that even a minor mess like this one would have felt like a big deal. Now, it didn’t even faze her. She cleaned it up with a smile on her face and a few words of reassurance to the girls.
“I didn’t spill it,” Kiki insisted.
“You did,” her sister said.
“It was an accident,” Rory said.
“Yeah, but she still spilled it. You can’t lie about something just because it’s an accident.”
“I’m not lying!” Kiki shrieked.
“Maybe she didn’t even see she spilled it,” Olivia offered. “She was trying to reach the bacon.”
“I didn’t spill it!” Kiki shot up from the table and ran out of the kitchen.
“Now look!” Rory said. “You made her sad!
“It’s just the truth.” Luana shrugged, unfazed.
Rory made to follow her cousin, but Lani held up a hand.
“You eat. I’ll get her.”
She paused to wet a paper towel before going to find Kiki, who was crying behind the couch in the living room.
“Hey there, little cousin,” Lani said, sitting down next to her. “Let me clean you up.”
“No!” Kiki turned away, still crying.
“If we get mango syrup everywhere, the ants will come.”
“Good! I like ants.”
“No ants allowed inside. That’s the rule.”
“Just aunties!” Rory peeked around the couch and giggled at her own joke.
“Back to the table,” Lani ordered.
“But I’m done!”
“Then go wash your hands.”
“Fine!”
Lani turned back to Kiki. “Do you want to wash your hands at the sink, or do you want to let me clean you up right here?”
Wordlessly, Kiana held out her hands. She was still for a moment while Lani mopped up syrup and snot and tears. When that was done, she fell forward into Lani’s lap.
“I miss my mom,” she whimpered, drawing the last word out into a long whine.
“I know you do.” Lani put both arms around Kiki and shifted her until she was sitting on her lap.
“And I miss my dad. But I miss my mom more.”
“Yeah.” Lani nodded along, stroking Kiki’s long black hair.
“I just want to go home.”
“We can go to your house for a while today, if you think that would help you feel better.”
“But they’re not there,” Kiki wailed.
“No, they’re not.”
“How many more days until they’re back?”
“Four more days.”
“But that’s so many!”
“People used to go on honeymoon for a whole month.”
“That’s why they called it a moon,” Luana volunteered as she tiptoed over to join them.
“I didn’t spill it!” Kiki shouted.
Luana shrugged and sat down next to them. “Okay.”
“And a whole moon is too long!”
“Yeah. That’s why Mom and Dad only went for a week.”
“It’s still too long.”
“Yeah.” Luana paused thoughtfully. “Do you want to use my good markers?”
Kiki sat up straight, skull colliding with Lani’s chin.
“You mean it?”
“Yeah. Come on, you can use them for ten minutes.”
“Auntie Lani, will you set a timer?” Kiki asked with full intensity.
“Sure.”
“But don’t start it until I say!” She stood up and bolted down the hall.
Luana stood and ambled after her.
Lani just smiled and shook her head, leaning back against the couch. It was chaotic, having two extra kids for a week. But it was a happy kind of chaos.
“Mommy, can we get the beads out?” Rory stood in the doorway, her hands pressed together in a please .
“Did you wash your hands?”
“Yes!” She held them both out, demonstrating the absence of mango syrup.
“Go ahead. You can make something while I clean up, and then we can all go to the beach.”
“Best day ever!” Rory shouted, running down the hall.
“Hey Mom?” Olivia stood by the front window, lines of sunlight striping her face through the blinds.
“What’s up, Livie?”
“My grandma’s here.”
Lani’s stomach dropped. “She is?”
“Yeah, she’s getting out of her car. Can I open the door?”
“Of course. Go say hello.”
Olivia ran out the front door and shouted from the porch, “Hi, Grandma! Daddy’s not here!”
“Well that’s okay,” Sonya called back. “I’m here to see you!”
“I’ve got the beads!” Rory shouted, running back into the living room. She stumbled to a stop and looked around in confusion. “Where’s Livie?”
Olivia’s voice came through the open door: “But I was about to make necklaces with Rory.”
“You can do that any day,” Sonya told her in a syrup-sweet voice. “It’s not every day that Grandma gets a day off of work. Don’t you want to come to the movies?”
“I guess,” Olivia said.
“Movies?” Rory gasped. She dropped the box of beads and ran to the door. “Can I come?”
“Hello, Rory.” Sonya’s voice took on a sharper edge.
“Can I come to the movies?”
“Not today.”
“Why can’t she come?” Olivia asked.
“Well, I only have two tickets. Today’s some special Grandma and Olivia time. And Rory, you can have special time with your mom. Sound good?”
Rory ran back into the house with tears in her eyes. Lani opened her arms, and her daughter crawled into her lap. Every time that Tenn’s mother picked up Olivia and left Rory behind, it hit her a little bit harder.
“Why can’t I go?” she asked.
“You weren’t invited,” Lani said as gently as she could. “It’s just Livie and Sonya today.”
“Why don’t I get a grandma?” Rory demanded.
Grief stabbed Lani in the solar plexus, and she took a breath.
“Every family looks different, baby. Livie’s grandma wants time with her, just like your Babbo wants time with you.”
Rory’s biological dad was still in Pualena, spending as much time with Rory as Lani was willing to give him. She did her best to plan it so that Rory was with Lorenzo whenever Olivia was with her grandmother, but Sonya had an unfortunate habit of stopping by unannounced.
“Then can I see Babbo today?” she asked, sniffling.
“Your cousins are here today. We’ll do something fun with them.”
“Okay.” Rory sighed and wilted against Lani’s chest.
“Hey Mom?” Olivia tiptoed into the room, looking guilty.
“Yeah?” Lani smiled at her stepdaughter. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault that Sonya wanted nothing to do with her – or, by extension, Rory.
“I’m gonna go with my grandma. She said to tell you that I’ll be home at dinnertime.”
“Okay, Livie. Have fun.”
Olivia nodded somberly and went back outside.
“Auntie!” Luana marched into the room, hands on her hips. “Isn’t it ten minutes yet?”
“One more minute, Lulu.”
“You didn’t even look at your phone!’
“Tell Kiki she has one more minute.”
She huffed out a breath and stomped back down the hall.
“Do we have to do something with my cousins?” Rory grumbled.
Lani laughed and squeezed her tighter.
“You love your cousins!”
“Yeah, but I’m tired of having them in the house. It’s a lot of people.”
“It is a lot of people,” Lani agreed. “But we’re going to take good care of them until Auntie ‘ōlena gets back. Right?”
“Right,” Rory said with a sigh.
“Which beach should we go to today?”
Rory sat up straighter. “I get to pick?”
“You get to pick.”
“Let’s go to the river!”
“You want to go to Honoli‘i?”
“Yeah! The beach where you got your wedding!”
“Okay.” Lani grinned and kissed Rory’s forehead. “Let’s go.”
Rory sprang up off of her lap and sprinted down the hallway.
“Beach time!” she shouted.
“Time to put the markers away!” Lani added. “Everybody into their bathing suits!”
She went into the kitchen to load the dishwasher while the girls got ready. Through the kitchen window, she watched Sonya’s car back out of the driveway and disappear from sight.
Her mother-in-law hadn’t thawed towards her in the slightest since the wedding. It was an ongoing source of tension, and it was hard on Rory, but it felt like it was out of Lani’s hands.
Tenn had made multiple comments to his mother about how Olivia would love to have Rory along, but it hadn’t done any good. And if Sonya wouldn’t budge for her beloved son, she certainly wouldn’t change for the woman who had nearly gotten him killed.
If an icy mother-in-law was the major stumbling block of her life these days, Lani reminded herself, then life was good. Up until recently she’d had much, much bigger problems to worry about.
So why did it feel like there was a stone sitting in the pit of her stomach?
She shook her head and got to work packing snacks for the beach. Maybe, eventually, Sonya would thaw. Until then, she refused to let the woman ruin her day.