14. Lani
14
Lani
“ R eady?” Lani asked, holding Olivia’s hand.
Tenn had gone into the cafe to cover for his head chef at the last minute, and so the little girl was stuck with her stepmom for yet another trip to the hospital. She had at least brightened a bit when Lani revealed matching dresses, each of them blue with dolphins swimming near the hem.
Olivia’s eyes were wide as she stared at the cast saw. But when the nurse moved to set the tool against her rainbow-covered cast, she jerked her arm away.
“It can’t hurt you,” the nurse told her. “Watch this.”
She put the buzzing saw against her own skin, where it vibrated but didn’t cut.
“It only cuts through the cast. Okay? Not skin.”
“But Mom,” Olivia said, looking up at Lani, “your art!”
“It’s okay,” Lani said with a laugh. “We’ll make more art on canvas, on shoes, wherever you like. The important thing is that you’ll be able to use your arm and your hand again.”
“Are you ready to hold still?” the nurse asked in a kind voice.
Olivia nodded again, and her grip on Lani’s hand tightened.
“It tickles!” she said as the saw cut through the top layer of the cast.
Working quickly, the nurse cut a straight line down one side of the cast, and then another line down the opposite side. Olivia watched, fascinated, as the tool cut through Lani’s drawings of dolphins and hibiscus flowers.
“Okay,” the nurse said, “now we cut through the next layer. These scissors won’t hurt you either, see? The ends aren’t sharp.”
“Like baby scissors!”
“Yep, just like that.” She cut through the soft layer of bandages with long, blunt-nosed scissors and then opened the cast up like a book, revealing Olivia’s forearm.
Olivia stared with fascination at the tan line that the cast had left and the moon-pale skin underneath, fully flexing her fingers for the first time since the car accident that had broken her arm.
“All done!” the nurse chirped.
“Thank you so much,” Lani said.
“No worries.” She looked back to Olivia and said, “Your arm might feel stiff for a while. Just keep moving it, and it will be back to normal soon.”
“It’s smaller than my other arm,” Olivia marveled, holding them side by side.
“Yep, that happens. When we don’t use our muscles, they get smaller. We’ll send your mom a link to a video of some exercises that you can do to get your strength and flexibility back sooner. Sound good?”
“She’s not really my mom,” Olivia said, and Lani’s blood pressure spiked in surprise. “She’s my stepmom. My mom had yellow hair like me, but she died. My dad was supposed to come with me, but Chris called in sick, so my dad had to go to work at the cafe and Lani got me from school early instead. Rory wanted to stay because they’re gonna do a water fight later.”
“Okay,” the nurse said, unphased. “We’ll send your dad and Lani some videos of exercises you can do at home. If you do them every day, your arm will be back to normal in no time.”
“Thank you,” Lani said again, more awkwardly now.
The nurse gave her a sympathetic smile. “Want a lollipop?” she asked Olivia.
“No thanks,” she said morosely, sliding down off of the exam table.
“You two take care. Aloha.”
“Bye,” Olivia said, slouching towards the door.
“Mahalo,” Lani said quickly to the nurse, following her stepdaughter.
She took Olivia’s hand as they walked out into the misty drizzle of the parking lot. She wanted to say something to her about what she had said inside – not to chastise her, but to better understand what she was dealing with – but she had no idea what to say.
“Hey Mom?” Olivia asked, looking up at her.
“Yeah?”
“Can we get cheeseburgers?”
Lani laughed in relief at the mundane question. “Sure.”
Olivia played her favorite audiobook as soon as they were back in the car, and it was a quiet ride back to Pualena.
They stopped at the cafe, where Tenn took a few minutes off from the lunch rush to marvel over Olivia’s arm and make them a couple of cheeseburgers to go. He added a massive bag of fries and gave them each a kiss before shooing them out of the kitchen.
At home, Lani and Olivia unwrapped their burgers at the kitchen table. It was rare for the two of them to be alone together, and the house felt quiet without Rory and Tenn around.
As much as Lani would have loved for her relationship with her stepdaughter to be as easy and natural as her relationship with Rory, it just wasn’t. And she didn’t know how to get them there. Maybe they just needed more time.
“Can I watch a movie?” Olivia asked after they’d eaten.
“There’s something I want to show you first.”
The little girl perked up a bit. “What?”
“Come see.”
Lani went into the living room and opened the box that she had picked up that morning after taking the girls to school. She moved the first layer of packing material to reveal a family photo from their early morning by the sea cliffs. It was big, nearly as tall and wide as the box, and it made Lani smile.
Alohi had caught the two little girls laughing. Olivia’s head was thrown back, laughing so hard that her eyes were closed, and Rory’s face was scrunched up with mirth. Lani and Tenn were a little ways behind them, walking hand and hand, both smiling at the girls with whole-hearted joy.
“Rory’s so funny,” Olivia said, grinning.
“There’s another one too.” Lani took the photo out along with another layer of packing material revealing the next photo. She’d had the more traditional family photo framed too, the one with all of them smiling at the camera. “I think I’ll put the laughing one here in the living room, and your dad can put this one up at the cafe. What do you think?”
“That’s nice,” she said politely. “Can I go now?”
“Wait, there’s more,” Lani said, feeling like a desperate salesperson.
Olivia sighed and settled back down on the rug.
“I framed some photos of the rest of our family too. Will you help me take them out of the box and put them on the coffee table? Then we can decide where they’ll go on the wall.”
“The nurse did say I’m supposed to use my arm,” she said without enthusiasm.
“Yep.” Lani made a show of taking art down from the living room wall to make room for photos, but really she was watching Olivia as she carefully took the pictures out one by one. Livie’s expression softened and then brightened as she saw the photos of her grandparents, ‘ōlena’s family, and Kai.
“Who’s that?” she asked, pointing to Adam. It was an older photo that showed Kai and his parents in the redwood forest where he’d spent the first six years of his life.
“That’s Kai’s dad,” Lani said, returning to sit next to her. “My cousin.”
“Does he live on the mainland like Sasha’s dad?”
“No. He died when Kai was six years old.”
“Like my mom died when I was five.” She bent closer to peer at Adam’s laughing face. “He looks happy.”
“He usually was. I miss him a lot.”
Olivia looked at her, taking that in. Then she returned to the box.
“It’s Rory’s babbo. Is he part of our family?”
“He’s Rory’s family, which makes him our family.”
“I have more family than I thought, huh?”
Lani grinned at her. “I guess so.”
Olivia dove in for the last of the photos, excited now. But the next picture elicited a puzzled frown.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s my mom and dad,” Lani said softly.
It was her favorite photo of her parents, taken just before her mom got sick. Her dad was wearing a faded old Hawaiian shirt, and her mom had on her favorite sundress. Knowing how the rest of that year went for them, their carefree smiles just about broke her heart.
Olivia watched her for a long time, her expression thoughtful.
“Your mom’s dead too? Like mine?”
Lani nodded, swallowing her tears. “Yep.”
“And your dad too?” she asked, looking between Lani and the picture.
“My dad too.” A tear fell, and Lani brushed it away.
“We visited them,” Olivia remembered. “At the gravepark.”
A one-note laugh escaped through Lani’s tears. “Yeah, we did.”
“Your grandparents are there too.”
“Yeah.”
Olivia reached out and patted her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
When Olivia reached in and pulled the next frame from the bottom of the box, she gasped.
“It’s me! It’s me and my mom! I mean, my first mom.” She looked uncertainly at Lani, who smiled softly and nodded. “My grandma has this one too.”
“I made a copy so we could have one here.”
“ You got a photo from my grandma?” Devilish humor glinted in Olivia’s eyes.
“ Yes, I got a photo from your grandma. We get along now!”
“Kind of,” she teased.
“What do you think?” Lani asked, gesturing to the framed photo.
“I think that’s good!” She looked back at the photo and giggled. “I have no hair at all.”
“That is one bald baby,” Lani agreed, leaning closer to look at the photo. Olivia’s mother had a mass of curly blonde hair and big blue eyes. Her face shone with happiness.
“You think she liked me?” Olivia asked, her voice quiet.
“Your mom?” Lani asked in surprise.
Olivia nodded, still looking at the picture.
“She liked you and she loved you,” Lani said with certainty.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Look how happy she is just to be holding you.”
That made Olivia smile.
“There’s one more.” Lani reached into the box and pulled out the last photo. “I thought that we could put one up on the wall and the other one in your room.”
“I want this one out here,” she said decisively, holding the photo from her fifth birthday party. Her mom looked worse for wear in that one, prematurely aged by her addictions, but in that moment she still looked thrilled to be there with her daughter. “Next to the picture of Rory and her babbo.”
“Good plan,” Lani agreed. “Would you help me decide where all of them should go?”
Olivia bounced up on her knees. “Sure!”
“Let’s start with the big one.” Lani picked up their family photo and held it up to the wall. “Is this a good spot?”
Olivia looked on with a critical eye, putting her hand to her chin in thought.
“No?”
“A little to the left,” she said. “A little more… a little more… there!”
“Okay!” Grab that pencil from the table and help me make some little marks so I know where to put the nail.
They had a good time hanging all of the photos together, a shining constellation of their extended family. By the time Tenn brought Rory home from school, all of the pictures were in place.
“Wow!” Rory shouted when she saw it. She scrambled up onto the couch to get a better look. “I see Auntie ‘ōlena and Lulu and Kiki and Emma and Kai and who’s that lady?”
“That’s my mom,” Olivia said proudly.
“Cool! And there’s your grandma and your grandpa and my grandma and my grandpa and my babbo ?! What?! This is so cool!”
“I helped Mom hang them up!”
“What?” Rory turned and glared at Lani, hands on her hips. “Why didn’t I help?”
“We wanted to surprise you,” Lani said.
Rory looked at her for another moment with narrowed eyes, then turned back to the photos.
“What do you think?” Lani asked as Tenn came up beside her.
“I think that it’s perfect.” He put an arm around her waist and kissed her temple. “And so are you.”