Chapter 10
Jake
Sunday dinners at Diamond Head have a sound.
Overlapping voices. Someone arguing about something that doesn’t matter. Poppy’s feet on hardwood floors. Lucas being wrong about something on purpose just to watch Noah’s eye twitch.
Tonight has all of it.
“That’s not what I said.” Lucas points his fork across the table at Noah. “I said the assessment was incomplete. Not wrong. Incomplete.”
“You said inadequate.”
“That’s a synonym.”
“It is not a synonym.”
“Name one difference.”
“Inadequate implies a failure to meet a required standard. Incomplete implies something unfinished. They aren’t the same word, Lucas.”
Isla puts her hand on Lucas’s arm. Not to stop him, just to brace herself because she already knows where this is going and she wants no part of the collateral damage.
Lucas looks at me anyway. “Is he always like this at dinner?”
“You’ve eaten at this table your entire life.”
“I keep hoping he’ll relax.”
Noah picks up his water glass and says nothing. Isla quietly steals a piece of bread off Lucas’s plate while he’s distracted, and doesn’t even look guilty about it.
Dane is at the far end of the table on his phone. Quiet conversation, probably Tokyo. Completely unbothered by the fact that his brothers are rehashing a work argument at our mother’s dinner table on a Sunday night. Sienna refills her wine beside him and doesn’t glance up.
Poppy tears through the hallway barefoot for the third time. Mom calls after her to slow down without lifting her eyes from the table or pausing her conversation with Leah, without missing a single thing happening in this room.
I’ve watched her do that my whole life. Still can’t figure out how she does it.
I’m half-listening to Lucas and Noah go at it when I notice it.
Lucas slides a drink down the table toward Emilia mid-conversation. She picks it up without pausing her sentence to Sienna. No thank you. No acknowledgment. Like it’s just what happens.
Leah reaches for Emilia’s arm when she needs help shifting in her chair. Not Noah’s, Emilia’s. Noah doesn’t even notice because he’s too busy telling Lucas why he’s wrong.
Then Mom does it.
She’s talking to Isla, completely absorbed, and she just picks up the serving bowl and holds it out toward Emilia. No eye contact. No “could you pass this.” The same way you’d hand something to someone who’s been sitting at your table for years.
Emilia takes it the same way.
Like she’s always sitting here.
I run back through the last few weeks without meaning to. Preschool pickup. The foundation donor call Thursday morning. Emilia’s coffee mug on my kitchen counter. The way Poppy reaches for her hand in parking lots without thinking about it.
My brain stopped separating things at some point. It just quietly filed all of it under the same category.
I’m so fucked.
I’m still sitting with that when Leah goes completely still.
Noah notices first. His hand stops midair. His eyes go straight to her face and stay there.
“Leah?”
She has both hands flat on the edge of the table. Very calm. Very deliberate.
“I think my water just broke.”
The table detonates.
Poppy materializes from somewhere down the hallway at full speed. “THE BABY ESCAPED?”
Lucas shoves back from his chair hard enough to scrape it across the floor. He’s already laughing before he’s fully standing, which earns him a look from Leah that would level a lesser man. It doesn’t level Lucas.
Isla grabs his arm. “Don’t laugh at her right now.”
“I’m not laughing at her. I’m laughing at the situation.”
“Same thing. Stop.”
He stops. Mostly.
Mom is already moving. She pulls a packed overnight bag from the entryway closet. Noah has one here and one at home, because Noah has a bag packed everywhere. She hands it to him without a word. He takes it and immediately starts telling everyone in the room what to do.
Four instructions. Ten seconds. Two of them contradict each other directly.
“Noah.” Dane’s voice cuts clean across the room. One word. Noah stops. Dane is already on a separate phone talking to the hospital like he’s been planning this moment for weeks.
Lucas announces he should lead the convoy for morale purposes. Isla tells him to get his keys.
Poppy grabs my sleeve with both hands. “Where do babies come from?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“But where are they before they escape?”
“Later, baby. Go find your shoes.”
She runs for the hallway. I’m not confident she’s getting her shoes.
Then I see Emilia.
She’s already beside Leah. Quiet. No announcement, no “do you need help,” just there. She says something low near Leah’s ear, and Leah exhales and actually smiles, which is more than any of the rest of us have managed.
Noah is still issuing instructions to the room. Leah is ignoring all of them. She’s listening to Emilia.
She never checks whether it’s her place. She just handles it.
I grab Poppy when she reappears, shoes miraculously on the correct feet, and steer her toward the front door.
Noah and Leah leave first.
Before Mom gets in the car, she stops in the driveway, phone to her ear.
Her voice is low and steady. I catch enough to hear that she’s talking to Leah’s mother in Korea.
Mom tells her it’s time, that everything is fine, that she’ll call the moment there’s news.
She listens for a second, says something soft in response, then hangs up and gets in the car.
Noah takes the corner out of the driveway at a speed that makes no sense given the circumstances.
Dane and Sienna follow in their car.
Lucas and Isla pull out behind them. Lucas has his hand out the window, giving the convoy a thumbs-up nobody asked for.
I strap Poppy in. She immediately unstraps herself to locate her water bottle. I find the water bottle. Re-strap her. She asks if the baby will have a name. I say yes. She asks if the name can be Turtle.
Emilia gets in the passenger seat and I pull out.
Noah’s SUV is two cars ahead of us on the H1.
I know it’s him because of the hazard lights. There’s no reason for hazard lights. He’s not stopped. He’s not pulling over. He has simply decided this qualifies as a motorcade and he’s leading it.
He makes a lane change that makes my back teeth press together.
Emilia grabs the dashboard with both hands. “Is he trying to get Leah to the hospital or drive us off a cliff?”
“Honestly? Could go either way.”
“Why is Uncle Noah driving so fast?” Poppy presses her face against the window to watch him.
Emilia tightens her grip on the dashboard. “Good question, baby.”
I laugh. Real, out-loud, can’t-stop-it laugh. I can’t remember the last time that happened this easily.
Noah cuts across two lanes ahead of us. I ease off the accelerator because I have a four-year-old in the car and I’m not dying following my brother to a maternity ward.
Poppy narrates everything she sees out the window. A gas station. A man walking a dog. Questions about the dog. Questions about whether the baby will be able to talk right away. Questions about whether the baby will like sharks.
Emilia turns around in her seat and answers all of it with complete patience while Honolulu moves past and the radio plays low.
I glance over at her while she’s turned away.
Her hand is resting on the back of the headrest. She’s laughing at something Poppy said. City lights catch the side of her face.
My penthouse used to feel peaceful when it was quiet. Good scotch, no noise, no one in my space. I told myself that was what I wanted.
Now when they leave it just feels wrong. Too still. I turn the TV on just to fill the silence, because the quiet is too loud without Poppy talking over everything and Emilia sighing at me from across the kitchen.
I don’t say any of that.
I just drive.
The Hale family hits Kapi?olani Medical Center the way we do most things, loudly and all at once.
The staff handles it well. Probably because Dane spoke to hospital administration before we left Diamond Head.
Noah tries to question the intake nurse about the delivery team’s credentials. Dane appears at his shoulder. “Noah. Sit down.”
“I just want to know who’s—”
“She’s a medical professional doing her job. Sit. Down.”
Noah sits. He doesn’t look happy about it.
Lucas finds the vending machines and returns with both arms full of things nobody asked for. He distributes them like he’s running humanitarian aid. He gives Poppy gummy bears. I give him a look. He shrugs. “It’s a celebration.”
Mom finds the family waiting room coffee station and comes back with cups for everyone. She hands Emilia hers, squeezes her arm once, and moves on.
Simple. Easy. Like she’s done it before.
I find two chairs in the waiting area and get Poppy settled.
She fights sleep for forty minutes. She has so many questions about the baby.
Questions about where Noah went. Questions about whether babies can eat gummy bears.
Her eyes get heavier with every answer until she’s out mid-sentence, completely slack against my shoulder, one fist curled near her chin.
Emilia is across the room, talking quietly with Sienna and Isla.
She shifts without thinking, checking the side pocket of her bag for Poppy’s backup water bottle.
She packed it before we left the estate.
She’s had Poppy’s spare hair tie on her wrist all night.
She’s started tracking what Poppy needs before I know to ask for it.
Nobody told her to do that.
Sienna says something and Emilia tips her head back and laughs, quietly so she doesn’t wake anyone. Lucas is slumped in his chair with his eyes closed, gummy bear bag empty in his lap. Dane has his laptop out.
I look back at Emilia.
She looks up at the same moment, and our eyes meet across the waiting room. She holds it for a second, then goes back to her conversation.
A while later Mom steps away from the group, phone to her ear, walking toward the far end of the hall. Leah’s mom. Keeping her promise.
That’s just who she is.
Noah comes out after.
He walks through the door and heads straight for Mom first. Says something low. She puts both hands on his face for a second and then nods.
He takes us back in small groups. Leah’s room is quiet and warm and she looks exhausted in the way that has nothing to do with weakness. The baby is in her arms, tiny and wrapped tight.
“She’s perfect,” Mom says quietly. Her eyes are wet, and she doesn’t bother hiding it.
Noah takes his daughter back when Leah needs to rest, and my brother’s face does something I’ve never seen it do.
I watch him for a long time.
For weeks I’ve been afraid I’m failing at this. That I don’t know the right move often enough. That I keep showing up and still getting it wrong.
But Noah plans everything. He needs every variable locked down before he commits to anything. And he’s standing there holding that baby like none of that matters anymore. Like he’d blow up every plan he ever made and not think twice about it.
He chose Leah. He chose this. That look on his face has nothing to do with being prepared and everything to do with not giving a damn whether he was.
I look over at Emilia.
She’s watching Noah with the baby. There’s something quiet in her expression that she’s keeping to herself.
Poppy is still asleep against my shoulder with one fist near her chin, the way she always sleeps.
Shit. I would burn everything down before I let anyone take her from me. I know that already. Looking at Noah with the baby just strips away any illusion that this is temporary.
Emilia and I end up in the hallway outside the maternity wing after midnight.
Everyone else is still inside. Poppy shifted while I carried her out, her head in Emilia’s lap now, feet across mine on the bench. The hallway is quiet. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead.
I lean back against the wall.
“I finally get it,” I say. “Why my brothers changed after they fell in love.”
Emilia looks at me. “What do you mean?”
“I always thought they got heavier. Like love cost them something they used to have.” I keep my voice low so I don’t wake Poppy. “But Noah just looks like someone gave him permission to stop bracing for impact.”
She’s quiet. Then: “Is that how it feels? With Poppy?”
I think about it honestly instead of giving her the easy answer. “It feels like I finally know what I’m building toward.” I look down at Poppy. “I didn’t have that before. Didn’t know I was missing it.”
Emilia doesn’t answer right away. She brushes a piece of hair off Poppy’s forehead with the same easy care she always has with her. Like it’s automatic. Like Poppy is already hers to look after.
We stay like that for a while without talking.
Then I look up and catch her eyes, and this time she doesn’t look away fast enough.
She was thinking about something. I don’t know what. But whatever it was, she didn’t want me to see it.
She drops her eyes first.
But I saw it.
My chest pulls tight in a way I’m done pretending is nothing.
A month ago I would’ve said the penthouse and the foundation and a good Saturday on the water was plenty. That I wasn’t built for more than that.
I can’t make myself believe that anymore.
And that scares the hell out of me. Because wanting a future means I have something real to lose.
Poppy shifts in her sleep and makes a small sound. Emilia settles her back without missing a beat. Patient. Certain. Like she’s done it a hundred times.
Her hand goes still against Poppy’s back.
And I realize I stopped thinking of this as temporary somewhere along the way.