Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
It was the first week of February on Oahu Island when Jasmine woke up from a knock on her front door.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it.
She padded from her bedroom to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, then stretched her arms through the air and considered the day ahead—the hours she had to work at the convenience store and the homework she’d promised to help Jade with.
And then, she heard the knock on the door again and shot straight for it, petrified.
People didn’t usually knock before seven in the morning. It meant something was wrong.
Standing on Jasmine’s front stoop was her daughter, Jenny.
She was red-eyed and underslept, and she looked as though she’d lost a bit of weight, so much so that her jeans hung around her waist. Jenny hadn’t wanted to see Jasmine in weeks and had mostly avoided her, but the sight of her like this, so meek and tired, made Jasmine forget all that.
She pulled her daughter into her and hugged her till Jenny stopped shaking.
“Come inside for some coffee,” she said, her voice quiet.
And then she asked, “Are the kids all right?”
“Alyssa and Jade are on their way to school,” Jenny said glumly. She followed Jasmine into the kitchen and collapsed at the table.
Jasmine set to work, pouring coffee and putting bread in the toaster.
Her daughter drank the coffee without looking up at her.
Jasmine ached with dread, but reminded herself that everything was okay.
Jenny was here, with her. Whatever had happened could be dealt with.
In a way, she’d been waiting for this moment for months and months.
Jasmine smeared peanut butter and strawberry jam over two pieces of toast and set them in front of her daughter, remembering how much Jenny had liked that when she’d been young.
If she had to guess, Jenny hadn’t had anything like that in years.
She’d probably wanted to stay ultra-thin for Walton.
Jasmine told herself to stop shaking with rage and fear.
Jenny reached for the first slice of toast and raised it, looking at it as though she’d never seen anything like it before. She set it down. “I can’t believe you opened the door,” she said.
Jasmine couldn’t think of anything to say. She pressed her hand against her chest.
“I mean, I’ve been terrible to you,” Jenny went on. “As things got worse and worse at home, my biggest fear was that you’d figure it out. I knew you knew, somehow. I knew you wanted to get me out of there. But all I wanted to do was fix it.”
Jasmine felt she could see herself in her daughter’s expression. She could see her ancient sorrow, her ancient fear—all of which still lurked somewhere in Jasmine’s own heart, even so many years after she’d left.
“You knew this day would come,” Jenny said. “You should say whatever you need to say. You should tell me, ‘I told you so.’”
Jasmine furrowed her brow. “You really think I’d say that to you?”
Jenny let her eyes flutter to the ground.
“You really think I’d say ‘I told you so’ to my own daughter? Honey, no.” She shook her head vehemently. “You’re the most important person in the world to me.”
What she wanted to say was When you married Walton, I prayed that you weren’t making a mistake, but I knew in my bones you were. But she didn’t want to rub it in.
“What happened?” Jasmine asked.
Jenny’s lower lip trembled. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Jasmine assured her.
But Jenny was quiet, maybe because she didn’t want to come out and say it. Jasmine stood and searched for her phone on the counter. Within two minutes, she had her boss on the line. “I can’t make it in today,” she explained. “It’s an emergency.”
Jenny’s eyes were vacuous. She seemed to open her mouth to tell Jasmine to stop, to go into work if she had to.
But Jasmine shook her head and thanked her boss for being so understanding.
When she got off the phone, she said to her daughter, “Let’s go for a walk.
There are things you need to know about me.
There are things I never told you because I wanted to protect you.
But I think it’s finally time you know.”
Jasmine went back to her room to get dressed and put on a pair of tennis shoes.
She was slightly dizzy with the task of telling her daughter everything.
Raising Jenny in Hawaii had been a gorgeous undertaking, a time of upheaval followed by peace.
Walton had destroyed that peace. Like so many men, he’d torn through their lives and reminded them of the nature of old-fashioned relationships: you were meant to bend to the will of your husband.
“Not anymore,” Jasmine muttered, anger boiling in her stomach.
When Jasmine returned to the kitchen, she found Jenny nibbling at the edge of a piece of peanut butter and jelly toast. Her heart lifted. Maybe there was hope.
Outside of Jasmine’s apartment, they traced a path past the gas station and through the cracked basketball court, all the way to the beach. Once there, they removed their shoes and walked quietly for a while. The wind fluttered through their hair.
“I want to thank you for spending so much time with the kids the past few months,” Jenny said. “I imagine they’ve told you what’s been going on?”
“Not really,” Jasmine said, although of course she’d read the signs.
Jenny walked into the water so that she stood ankle-deep. “I hope they don’t remember me this way. Long after they leave my house, I hope they don’t think back and remember me as a weak woman who let her husband—their father—walk all over her. And goodness, I hope Chase doesn’t become like Walton.”
Jasmine felt it heavy on her chest. “He won’t,” she said. “Chase is a fantastic young man. He’s kind and open-hearted. He always watches out for his sisters. And he worries about you.”
Jenny winced.
Jasmine wanted to tell her daughter that this was the first step: admitting something was wrong.
Next was probably moving out of Walton’s place, calling a divorce lawyer.
Because everything in Jenny’s and Jasmine’s lives was here in Hawaii, it wasn’t like Jenny could pack up her things and flee in the middle of the night.
It would be messier. But Jasmine would help her every step of the way.
Jenny turned to face Jasmine and raised her chin. “You said you had something to tell me. I think I might be ready to hear it.”
Jasmine’s stomach heaved with panic. But she set her chin and told herself to be brave—yet again—for her daughter. It was what she’d been put on this earth to do.