Big Island Moonlight (Big Island #8)

1. Emma

Emma

It was such a gorgeous day that Emma couldn’t bring herself to climb into her car. Fluffy white clouds seemed to skim the top of the blue marble tree that shaded their verdant front yard. Even though it was late winter, the sky was a vibrant summer blue.

“Just another day in paradise,” she sighed contentedly.

“That’s what Daddy used to say,” Kai chirped from behind her.

Emma turned and smiled at her son. There was a sharp, twisting pain in her heart, but it hardly bothered her. Her grief was so familiar to her now, so bittersweet, that it couldn’t touch the happiness of the day.

“He said it all the time,” Kai continued, flicking overgrown black hair out of his eyes. “Strangers would say ‘How are you,’ and that’s what he’d say. I remember!”

“That’s what he’d say,” Emma agreed, squeezing his shoulder.

“Is it time to go yet?”

“It is if we’re going to walk.”

“Can Dio come?”

“I think that would be okay.”

“I’ll get his leash!” Kai sprinted up the porch steps with Dio right behind him.

The Belgian Malinois they had found when he was just a stray puppy was so well-behaved that he really didn’t need a leash – would, in fact, pick it up in his mouth and give it back to Kai if he fumbled it – but having that tangible connection when they ventured beyond the property line seemed to make them both happy.

This is my dog , it said. This is my boy.

They set off on foot, walking down the long green corridor of their street.

Great walls of leafy podocarpus and flowering vines rose up on either side of them.

An ocean breeze snuck through the greenery here and there, bringing salty fresh air that had picked up the scent of fruit and flowers along the way.

Emma’s heart felt buoyant in the sort of way that only came after times of great hardship. Like the near-floating feeling that came with shedding a terribly heavy backpack, she had developed an almost deliriously happy appreciation for simple pleasures.

Another day with her son, walking together beneath the clear blue sky… it was something she would never take for granted. It was something that Adam would never get. And she was determined to enjoy it enough for the both of them.

She walked up Fern and Ethan’s driveway with a gift swinging from one hand and Kai’s little fingers in hers. As soon as he saw the other kids, though, he was off and running.

“Hey Em!” Her twin brother greeted her with a broad smile and put his arms around her.

“Good morning,” Emma said, returning the hug. “Where’s the birthday boy?”

“He’s around here somewhere… kid loves getting passed from person to person. I remember Jun wouldn’t let anyone hold her but me and her mom, but Theo’s the opposite. He’s a little ham.”

Ethan beamed with pride and Emma looked at him – really looked at him for a moment. The dark circles beneath his eyes were long gone, and his skin was a healthy golden brown.

He looked a decade younger than he had eight months ago when he’d arrived in Hawaii, stooped beneath the weight of all he carried. It was astonishing to her, how much a person could transform in such a short time.

A happy shriek pulled her attention to one side, and she smiled at the sight of her nephew running towards her.

Theo was surprisingly steady for a toddler who had only been walking for a few weeks.

Given the quantum leaps that babies made from one year to the next, she shouldn’t be so surprised by how adults could make major shifts as well.

Theo flew forward, arms outstretched, and she caught him just before his face hit the ground. His musical baby laughter filled the air as she straightened up and brought him to her hip.

“I’ll just put this with the others,” Ethan said, picking her gift bag up off the ground.

“Thanks.”

Theo was wriggling to get down already, and she set him back down on the grass again. He ran towards the house, leaving a trail of laughter that was full of mischief and joy.

Emma followed, ready to scoop him up again if he fell.

“There you are!” Fern said when they came around the corner. She scooped Theo up – and this time, he didn’t fight to get down. Instead, he grabbed the silicone teething necklace that Fern wore and chewed on it, content to rest in her arms for a moment.

“I can’t believe how fast he is already!” Emma exclaimed, hugging Fern around the baby.

She laughed. “He keeps us on our toes.”

“This looks beautiful,” Emma said, looking around at the party decorations. Yoga mats carpeted the lanai, giving the other toddlers at the party a safe place to tumble and crawl. The beams were festooned with flowers and vines, and a massive hand-painted banner read Happy Birthday Theodore!

“Thank you. Jun’s teas are the real showstopper.” Fern gestured to the table that held Juniper’s big glass dispensers filled with herbal teas. Backlit by the morning sun, the rainbow array of liquids shone like jewels.

“Gorgeous,” she agreed. “Where is Jun?”

“Over here, Auntie Em!” Juniper waved at her from a huge beanbag chair that stood against the wall. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Weaving carefully past the toddlers that milled around the lanai, Emma took Juniper’s hands in hers and hauled her up out of the soft chair.

“Thank you,” Jun panted, grinning. She rested her arms on the shelf of her belly and smiled down at the babies. “Hard to navigate around here when I can’t see my own feet, but that chair is a death trap.”

Well into her third trimester, Juniper still hadn’t slowed down much.

She worked five farmers markets each week and spent a lot of time with her little brother as well.

The easy relationship that had grown up between Jun and her father was a balm to Emma’s heart after the stress of the previous summer.

“Let’s find you a more solid chair,” Emma suggested.

“Sounds good,” Jun agreed.

“Come on. I’ll be your eyes.”

Emma led her over to the folding tables and chairs that had been set up around the corner, and Fern tossed a cushion onto the chair in passing.

“Thanks,” Jun said.

Fern winked. “Let me grab you a plate.”

“The second trimester was easy,” Jun said, “and even the start of the third. But I’m so tired lately.”

“No wonder,” Emma said, sitting down next to her. “You’re growing a person. And that person’s getting big.”

“It’s a lot,” Jun admitted.

“Yeah. It is.” She smiled up at Kai, who was climbing trees with Luana and Kiki. “But it’s worth it. They get bigger, we get stronger. And on and on it goes.”

Fern came back with a plate full of food: white rice, lau lau, salad, and huli huli chicken.

Jun thanked her and dug in immediately.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked Emma.

“I’m fine, thanks.” She squeezed Jun’s shoulder and stood. “I’m going to go say hi to everybody.”

Juniper just nodded, her mouth full of chicken and rice.

Emma went to hug ‘ōlena and the rest of the Pualena Playschool crew, and they stood chatting for a while in the midst of the kids and chaos. Then Fern came around the corner bearing a huge cake frosted in fluffy white whipped cream, and the whole crowd sang the Hawaiian Happy Birthday song.

When Fern cut into the tower to reveal bright pink watermelon in place of cake, the reactions from the kids crowded around the table ranged from delight to betrayal. The birthday boy, at least, tore into his slice of whipped cream and watermelon with enthusiasm.

Ethan stood watching with one arm around Juniper, and tears of fierce happiness pricked at Emma’s eyes. There had been moments last year when she wasn’t sure if the growing rifts in their family would ever heal. Seeing them together now, she felt so grateful that she wanted to weep.

“Are you okay?” Lani asked, moving to stand next to her.

Emma nodded and moved away from the crowd. Lani followed.

“I’m just happy,” Emma explained, and Lani looked at her doubtfully. “I’m relieved that Jun and her dad are okay again, that’s all. I’m happy to have my brother here. I’m just… happy.”

“Okay.” Lani dragged the word out, not fully believing her.

Fair enough. Pure happiness was something that Emma didn’t ever expect to feel again.

There was always grief mixed in. Maybe that was just a part of getting older; emotions were always mixed, never uncomplicated.

If anything, though, her underlying grief made the happy moments all the more precious.

“Where’s the cake?” Rory demanded, sprinting up and skidding to a halt.

“There’s no cake,” Kai said with disgust. “It’s just fruit.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Weird.”

“Baby parties,” he grumbled. Then he shrugged. “Want to play tag?”

“Sure! Let’s find Livie. And more cousins!”

They ran off, and Emma watched them with a smile.

“Two peas in a pod,” Lani said.

“They really are.” Emma put an arm around her cousin’s shoulders. “We’ve missed you guys.”

“It’s been a couple of weeks, hasn’t it?” Lani leaned in and looped an arm around Emma’s waist. “The days just keep getting away from us. I never should have let the girls sign up for soccer.”

“But do they love it?”

Lani sighed. “Yeah, they love it.”

“Beach tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.”

They stood quietly for a while, just watching the kids play and enjoying the cool winter breeze.

A figure moved towards them through the crowd, and a jolt of awareness went through Emma’s body even before her brain registered who it was.

His thick, sun-streaked hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, and a fitted Pualena Permaculture t-shirt highlighted the muscles he had earned working ten hours a day in the food forests he’d created.

Keith’s clear blue eyes brightened when he caught her gaze. When he reached them, he held out the gift bag he carried to Emma as if it were her party.

“For your nephew,” he said.

Lani tried to slip away, but Emma tightened her grip on her cousin’s shoulders, using her like a human shield. Then she realized what she was doing, and she let her go.

There was no reason to be nervous around Keith.

She wasn’t nervous. They saw each other at least once a week; Keith had helped her to redesign the community garden and bring it to life.

They were good friends, these days. Even so, the electric current that buzzed through her arms when he singled her out in a crowd felt a lot like nerves.

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the gift. It was heavy.

“Where’s the birthday boy?”

She scanned the crowd, a chaotic maelstrom of overexcited toddlers and hovering parents. Finally she spotted Theo under a table, painting the chair in front of him with whipped cream. She laughed and pointed him out to Keith.

“I’ve gotta run,” he said. “I just had a few minutes between classes, so I thought I’d bring this over.”

“What is it?”

“Go ahead and peek.” He glanced at the birthday boy, who was now licking whipped cream off of a table leg. “I don’t think he’ll mind.”

She snorted a laugh and peeked beneath the tropical foliage that Keith had used in place of tissue paper. The gift bag contained a beautiful selection of wooden blocks, all of them sanded until the corners were round and then polished to a shine.

“These are beautiful,” she said.

“Thanks. I was glad to put the scrap wood to good use. And I just used beeswax on them, so they’re safe for babies.”

“You made these?” Emma reached into the bag and picked up one of the blocks; it gleamed in the sunlight. “They’re amazing!”

Keith grinned affectionately. “They’re just blocks, Em.”

“They’re perfect.”

For a moment, as his eyes held hers, the rest of the world faded out of her awareness. Keith leaned towards her, not seeming to realize what he was doing – and then he stepped away.

“Tuesday?” he asked. “Community garden? I was thinking we could harvest the last of the turnips for the food bank and then plant more root vegetables.”

The world around them rushed back in, and Emma nodded. “See you then.”

Her eyes followed him as he wove back through the crowd and out of sight.

“Giiirl,” Lani said under her breath, coming to stand next to her again.

“What?” Emma huffed.

“The electricity between you two just about burned this place down.”

“We’re just friends.”

Lani laughed. “Okay. Sure.”

The crowd thinned as parents took toddlers home for nap time, and before long it was down to their core group. The birthday boy crashed right there in the middle of it all, sound asleep on a yoga mat in the middle of the lanai.

When it was just family, Ethan and Fern sat Juniper down at an empty table. Emma was a few feet away, collecting dirty plates.

“Fern and I have been talking,” Ethan said, and then trailed off. Fern gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. “We’re wondering if you’d like to move into the apartment downstairs.”

Juniper’s hazel green eyes went wide.

“I know you’re happy living with Em,” he continued with an apologetic glance towards his twin, “but climbing those stairs is just going to keep getting harder. Here you’d be on the ground floor, and you would still have family right here to help you when the baby comes.”

There was a ground-floor bedroom at the Kealoha place too, but Emma pressed her lips together and kept collecting plates.

If Juniper wanted to use the stairs as an excuse for changing houses – if she wanted to further repair her relationship with her father – Emma would miss her, but she wouldn’t say anything against it.

“I don’t know,” Jun said slowly.

“Think about it,” Ethan urged. “You don’t have to make a decision now. But if those stairs get to be too much, well… you always have a place here.”

“Thank you. I will. Think about it, I mean.”

The three of them exchanged strained smiles, then got to their feet and joined Emma in party cleanup. The mood was strangely sober after the cheer and success of the day.

They’d had a long, quiet interlude these past few months… but Emma had the feeling that this newfound peace wouldn’t last forever. Change was coming. She just hoped that it was for the best.