9. Akemi
Akemi
In Hawaii, Akemi was quickly learning that parenting was easier outside.
When she let Kaleo roam the beach parks and splash in the water, he was happy as could be.
It was a beautiful, healthy childhood, filled with green grass and fresh air.
Showing her son the sea turtles and ironwood forests that she had grown up with brought Akemi some of the greatest joy she had ever felt.
Their bodies finally readjusted to the time zone that they had both been born into, and their weeks took on an easy rhythm full of family and sunshine.
Every time that she returned to the windward side of the Big Island, she felt like she could finally breathe deep again. Perched on the edge of the cliffs, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, her childhood home must have the best air in the whole world.
Their days were beautiful… but getting work done was no easier than before.
Her family took Kaleo here and there, but they were all busy with their own lives; she couldn’t rely on any of them for consistent childcare. And by the time Kaleo fell asleep at night, Akemi was too tired to accomplish much of anything.
Her mind clamped onto her vision of a café and wouldn’t let go.
There must be so many other mothers juggling the same things that she was, desperately trying to balance work and childcare. She was lucky that her work schedule was completely flexible; other mothers with more demanding jobs must have an even tougher time of it.
She was desperate to get her idea off the ground…
but starting a project that would help give her more time and space to work because she already had so little time and space to work was a frustrating paradox.
It felt very ‘it takes money to make money’…
and when it came to time, Akemi was pretty much broke.
Her business was going well, and she did have some money to invest. But when she lay in bed at night next to her sleeping baby, scrolling through sales pages for espresso machines and playground equipment, she realized that startup costs would be a tight squeeze with her modest savings account.
Even so, she was starting to figure things out.
She had cobbled together a business plan in stolen moments, trailing Kaleo around the backyard or sitting on the front steps while he napped in his stroller. Somewhere along the way, her dream of a café started to feel like a concrete possibility.
Their outing that day was to a beach park in Hilo. She had hitched a ride with Jasmine and Claire, who were sprawled in the shade of a tree with their schoolbooks.
“I would have loved to do school like this,” Akemi said. She sat crosslegged on the grass and wrestled Kaleo into a swimsuit.
“It’s pretty sweet,” Claire said.
“It’s still boring,” Jasmine huffed, flipping through one of the books, “but at least we’re outside.”
“Amen to that.” Akemi stood to follow Kaleo as he raced towards the water.
She caught him before he tumbled down the lava-rock steps, scooped him up, and set him safely onto the sand.
It was a super low tide that morning, which meant that nearly the whole lagoon was shallow enough for him to walk and splash and play.
He ran to a spot where the water was about two inches deep, squealing and laughing and splashing until he fell back on his butt. Then he got up and did the whole thing again.
Akemi called Lorenzo and flipped the camera so that he could see Kaleo splash and play.
“Ma che meraviglia!” he exclaimed. “What a beautiful life he has there!”
“You should come,” she blurted without forethought. “We miss you.”
“I miss you too, amore. I will come as soon as I can. Right now I’m sorry I must go, I have a tour beginning in just a minute.”
“At night?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes, we have added a food and wine tour of Firenze. It’s very popular.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I will call you in the morning, before Kaleo falls asleep tonight.”
“Okay,” she said again, feeling suddenly down.
“Ciao, amore. Give our leoncino many kisses from his babbo.”
“Sure.” Akemi hit the red button and put her phone in her pocket.
Lorenzo was all sweet words and promises. But he was on the other side of the world. What could he do for them, really?
Did Kaleo even remember him? Did he have any sense of who his father was?
It was her fault, she supposed. She and Kaleo had an open invitation to move to Tuscany. But secretly, she wondered if it was an empty offer.
How would Lorenzo really feel if they arrived to stay?
It was a pointless question to dwell on, because she didn’t want to move to Italy. Not permanently. It felt too much like trying to shoehorn herself into Lorenzo’s life.
There was nothing wrong with life in a Tuscan villa; for any number of other women, it would be a dream come true. But it wasn’t her dream. And she refused to live a life that didn’t feel authentically her.
For as long as she could remember, travel called her name.
But ever since Kaleo, she had felt torn between travel and the island.
She would never stop traveling altogether, but she felt a new and growing longing for a steady home base. And if she was going to build a life anywhere, it would be here with her family, surrounded by the gorgeous and varied paradise of Hawaii.
While she chased her dreams, though, Lorenzo was missing out on so many milestones. Didn’t he care?
Was it selfish of her to raise her son so far from his father?
But why should she be the one to move?
Lorenzo had a daughter right here in Pualena. Rory was growing up without him – and now, so was Kaleo. Both of his children lived in the same town, and he still refused to move.
When she thought of it that way, it felt a lot less like her problem and more like his own failing.
Kaleo wandered into deeper water, and she scooped him up before he could go under. Back in the shallows, she built sandcastles for him to stomp on.
However she might try to resent Lorenzo for staying rooted in one place, she missed him terribly. No amount of inward grumbling succeeded in erasing her longing for him. Even beyond any romantic fantasies she might harbor, she longed for the three of them to be a family – a real family.
Sometimes she looked at her three divorced sisters and lost all hope. Broken families all, and they had each given marriage a real go.
Surely she and Lorenzo didn’t stand a chance.
Would they ever be a real couple?
Was there another woman in his life?
She was terrified to ask. Then she would get off the phone and curse herself as a coward for never bringing it up.
What even were they?
With so much uncertainty coloring the rest of her life, Akemi felt even more driven to build something steady. And she wanted to do it right there in Hawaii, surrounded by people she knew she could always count on.
Akemi thought of the empty space beside Paradise Books and imagined what it could be. She summoned her courage. It was time to take action.
While Kaleo napped in the shade near Claire and Jasmine, Akemi edited and polished her business plan. She emailed it to a print shop in Hilo, and they swung by to pick up a professional-looking copy on the way to Pualena.
When the girls stopped in town for shave ice, Akemi strapped Kaleo into his stroller and set off down the road to speak to Auntie Kua.
It was time to make the leap.