Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
T urns out, there are so many details to consider when upending your life for the man that you love. I have to break my lease, cancel all my utilities, forward my mail, pack all my things, locate a copy of my amended birth certificate with my order of adoption (with the help of Brian and Connie), and turn in my two weeks’ notice to Jay.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do without you,” Jay tells me with one of his rare, brisk hugs. We’ve gone back to being completely professional with each other, mutually agreeing to forget that a few weeks ago I was taunting him about not wearing any underwear. That honestly feels like a whole lifetime ago now. It feels like that all happened to a different person.
I’m Happy Matilda now. I smile more, and I am generally more patient, and I hardly ever tell off total strangers, unless they really deserve it.
“Are you getting another paralegal job in Hawai’i?” Barry wants to know.
Jay and I exchange a glance and then both burst out laughing. I laugh until I’m weeping. “No,” I tell a bemused Barry. “I’m marrying a multimillionaire. I won’t be working for pennies to make other people look good anymore.”
I can make light of it now, but it’s more complicated than that, in all honesty. I feel weird about giving up my job, since I’ve been working at least one job, usually multiple jobs, since I was eighteen. But after many long discussions—and my insistence on a prenup to show to the world I’m marrying this man for his looks instead of his money—Kimo comes up with a compromise.
“I’ll have Jay draft a prenup under one condition,” he tells me seriously. “I want you to choose a charitable cause, any cause, and create a foundation for it, then run it.”
“Me?” I blink at him, flabbergasted. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“You basically ran Eastman, Bergman & Hart. And everyone there will vouch that your talents were wasted by formatting documents and sending emails. If you put your mind to it, you can end world hunger, or whatever it is you decide you want to do.”
I don’t know about all that, but I do know what cause I want to get behind: the foster care system. I’ll start small on the Big Island and see what kind of difference we can make there. It might not change the whole world, but maybe it can help one family like mine.
It’s a daunting task to take on when I think of how badly I failed my own sisters. When I text them to tell them about my engagement, I’m surprised when Alina calls me right away.
She wants to know everything about Kimo. “I looked him up online. Isn’t he rich? Like, rich rich?”
Something about the question curdles my stomach. She hasn’t asked me anything else about him—not if he’s kind, not if he’s good to me, not if we’re happy. But I reason with myself that his wealth is the most Google-able thing about him. “He’s doing well for himself. But he’s actually trying to give most of it away to good causes.”
“I read about that, too. Any chance he’ll want to give me a house on the water? I’m a good cause, haha!”
The way she says it, it doesn’t really sound like she’s joking, more like she’s fishing. And it makes me feel sick to my stomach. The more I think about it, the more I realize that every significant interaction I’ve had with Alina since I was about sixteen has only occurred when I could do something for her—usually something to do with money. Could I give her money for a prom dress, even if it meant taking on extra jobs and missing my own prom so she could go? Could I help support her throughout her schooling? Could I cosign her student loan? She lives two hours away from me now, but I haven’t seen her in over a year, and the last time was only for a quick coffee and so I could give her a gift I’d gotten for her graduation from dental school.
Sasha waits over a week to respond to my engagement announcement, then writes a quick, unpunctuated congrats . That’s it.
Kimo comforts me as I confide the whole thing to him. “I just feel like I’ve let them down so badly,” I tell him as he gently strokes my back. “They needed me to keep our family together, and I just couldn’t.”
Two months ago, I couldn’t have fathomed being this vulnerable with anybody. Now it feels like a gift to put myself into Kimo’s hands, to show him all the best and worst parts of me, and trust that he’ll love them all unconditionally.
To my surprise, “Hmm,” is all Kimo says in response.
Frowning, I lift my head from his chest to look at him. “Hmm?” I repeat.
Kimo looks torn. “Do you want me to just listen, or do you want me to give my honest opinion?”
Does he know who he’s talking to? “Honesty, always!”
“I think maybe it’s time to set some boundaries with your sisters. I get it—it’s difficult with family, and you want to be there for them. But they need to be there for you, too. You can’t just be their ATM or someone they get to use as a punching bag because you couldn’t work miracles when you were kids.”
I stare at him, aghast. What he’s saying makes sense on an intellectual level, but in my gut...it feels like a betrayal. I can’t admit that my sisters aren’t there for me because then I really did fail at keeping our family together.
I swallow heavily. “My sisters are my only family. I can’t just cut them off.”
“No one said you have to cut them off. But they can’t treat you like they do and still expect you to drop everything for them whenever they need you. They’re both grown-ups now.” Kimo pulls me close again. “And who says they’re your only family? Family isn’t just the people we were born to. It’s the people we choose, and the people who choose us.”
I guess...I guess he’s not entirely wrong. The Kaponos—not just Kimo, but Nalani and Makoa and Aunty Kapono, too—they’ve taken me in and made me completely their own. Dominika and I have been emailing again and we’re planning on having dinner before I move. Brian and Connie and I have been getting breakfast every week and catching up. And of course, I have Helen and Nina. Grady and Thad.
I’ve known for a long time now I was a Gibbler, not a Tanner. I wasn’t born into the perfect sitcom family. My life is weird and complicated. My personality is abrasive and not everyone’s cup of tea. But just like Kimmy, I found a family I wanted to be a part of, and I forced my way in. I wore them down until they finally realized they had no choice but to keep me.
I lost two sisters when my family was torn apart so many years ago. It felt like my life was ending. It felt like something I could never recover from. But I did, even if it took me a very long time. And I gained two sisters along the way: Helen and Nina.
Which is why the next time I break down in tears, Helen is the one that I call. “I can’t do it,” I sob to her. “I can’t marry Kimo.”
* * *
Even though it’s two in the morning, Helen comes straight over. She’s wearing her pajamas, and she has a grumpy Thad in tow, but she leaves him on the couch and comes into my bedroom to talk me through it.
“What’s going on, Matilda?” Her eyes search mine worriedly. “Did something happen with Kimo?”
“No.” I let out a sobbing hiccup. “He’s perfect. The best man that has ever lived, and I’ll always love him. But he needs to be in Hawai’i and I need to be here, so we can’t be together.”
Helen’s tired, beautiful angel face creases into a frown. “I thought that was all decided? You’ve broken your lease and forwarded your mail.”
“But I’ll be leaving!” I gesture around my room wildly, to all the packed boxes and bare walls. “I’m not the one who leaves. I’m the one who gets left behind. And now I finally have people here who love me, and I’m going to abandon that? I must have been crazy to think I could.”
“Matilda.” Helen pulls me into a tight, bracing hug. “This is just life, you know? We were all bound to move on at some point. Get married. Have babies. Move for our work. Whatever it was, it wasn’t possible to keep everyone together forever.”
I stifle another sob. “Maybe you can all move to Hawai’i? I’m rich now. I’ll pay for it!”
Helen laughs quietly. “We’ll come to visit. And you’ll come here to visit. And we’ll do video calls and Nina will send you all her gifs, and we’ll find a way to stay in touch.”
“That won’t work.” I shake my head decisively. “We’ll drift apart. Everything will be different.”
“Everything will be different, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be bad. It will just be...different. And it might be a little awkward sometimes, but we’ll push through it. You don’t leave behind the people that you love. You carry them with you, wherever you go.”
After a moment’s pause, I pull back, making a face at her. “That’s so cheesy.”
Helen laughs, wiping at my eyes with her palm. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but love is cheesy. It’s scary and it’s cheesy. It’s—casu martzu.”
I frown at her. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s that cheese with the live maggots in it. It was the scariest cheese I could think of.”
At my aghast look, Helen laughs, then shows me a picture of it on her phone. Truly horrific stuff. Then that turns into looking at pictures of Hawai’i and planning when Helen will be able to come visit, until we remember that it’s almost three in the morning now and we snuggle in together to fall asleep on the bed. “What about Thad?” I ask on a yawn.
“Guaranteed he’s already asleep on the couch,” Helen tells me with a fond roll of her eyes. “That man can fall asleep anywhere. I guess it comes from sleeping in weird hotels and in his car and whatnot while he’s bounty hunting.”
I’m usually not much of a snuggler, but tonight I’m so happy Helen is here with me. “Will you still send me videos of maggot cheese when I’m in Hawai’i?”
She leans her head on my shoulder. “Just try and stop me.”