25. Emma
25
Emma
“ I should head out,” Lani said when an alarm went off on her phone. “I have a meeting in Hilo.”
“What for?” Emma sat up, pushing the blankets off of them.
“You know that marine center by the bridge? The one with activities for kids and the model boat and stuff?”
“Yeah, Kai loves that place.”
“They want me to do a big mural upstairs, all local marine life.”
“Lani, that’s amazing!”
“I’m excited,” she said with a small smile. “I drew up a bunch of possibilities on my tablet, so I’m going in today to talk through some ideas.”
“Get going, then.” Her cousin gave her a friendly shove. “Do you want a snack for the road?”
She shook her head. “Tenn made me lunch.”
“Of course he did,” Emma pulled her into a tight hug and then released her.
Lani went to the doorway, then paused and looked back. “He’s a good guy, you know.”
Emma tilted her head to one side; her smile was confused. “Of course. Tenn’s the best.”
“Duh.” She grinned in amusement and shook her head. “But no. I meant Keith.”
Before Emma could formulate a response to that, Lani was down the hall and out of sight.
She shook her head and pushed any thought of Keith away. No doubt she’d scared him away for good this time, having an emotional breakdown over a tiny jaboticaba tree.
Oh well. It was probably for the best.
Emma clearly wasn’t ready for romance. She didn’t know if she ever would be. Keith was a good guy, and it wouldn’t be fair to expect — or even ask — him to wait around for a nebulous someday.
Being healed enough to parent and garden and make new friends and live a decent life… Emma had accomplished all of that sooner than she’d thought possible. She had a good life in Pualena. Good enough, anyway. Kai was thriving; that was the main thing.
But she would never fully heal. There would always be a jagged canyon in her soul, an ache that would never really go away.
Maybe someday she would be healed enough for romance… but in that moment, it was an impossible thing to try and wrap her head around.
Eventually she dragged herself out of bed and went into the bathroom to wash up. Her eyes were still red from crying, and her face was swollen. She looked a decade older than she had before her husband died. Her hair was a rat’s nest, and she wore one of Adam’s old t-shirts.
What did Keith even see in her?
Maybe he really did just want to be friends. She was deluded to think that he’d wanted anything more.
“I mean, look at yourself.” Emma turned away from the mirror in disgust.
It would be best for everyone if Keith just wanted to be friends. Or if he just quietly slipped out of her life entirely. It would be selfish of her to want anything more when she had nothing to give. She wasn’t the kind of person to string someone along when she had no interest in a relationship.
So why did the thought of him slipping silently out of her life make her feel all hollowed out?
Was it just pride? The lingering need to feel desirable, even if she had lost the capacity for desire?
Maybe. But the more she probed her heart and soul, the more she wondered if there was more to it than that. She did like Keith. She did care about him. And if she were really honest with herself, there might be a glimmer of something more… but that fragile glint of light was so easily eclipsed by her grief.
It was just as well. She obviously had a lot of healing to do before she was fit to be anyone’s partner.
Sitting on the quilts that Adam’s little hands had helped to make so many years ago, she took the time to brush out her hair. It was a small act of self care, a reminder that she still lived in her body and needed to look after it as best she could.
She swapped out her pajama pants and oversized shirt for a sundress, because the day was getting warm — but also because of the way that Kai’s face lit up whenever she put the slightest bit of care into her appearance. He loved it when she brushed her auburn hair to a shine and put on a dress. Maybe he also needed the reassurance that she had both feet planted in this world.
Kai wasn’t in his room or downstairs, so she stepped outside to look for him.
What she saw there in the yard made her breath catch in her throat.
Keith lobbed a tennis ball gently up in the air, and Kai caught it with both hands. Then he threw the ball back to Keith. Dio raced back and forth between them, like a game of monkey in the middle.
Emma’s heart cracked open when she saw the smile on Kai’s face. So much joy over something so simple. Just a game of catch.
But Emma hadn’t played catch with him, not once in the year since his dad had died. That had been their thing, and it hadn’t occurred to her to offer. Kai hadn’t even asked. But watching him now, she could see how much he had missed it.
How many other things had she not even thought to offer him?
Kai would barely remember Adam; already his memories were fading. But if Emma allowed other people to step in, maybe her son could find healthy role models to fill the gap. He deserved to have good men in his life, even if they could never fully take the place of the man he had lost.
Maybe she did too.
She stood deep in the shade of the lanai, and it was a while before either of them spotted her.
When Keith saw her, he fumbled the tennis ball. Dio seized it in his jaws and raced off through the orchard with Kai in pursuit.
“Get back here, Diogie!” he shouted. “We’re using that!”
Emma moved to the railing, and Keith smiled up at her in a bashful sort of way.
“I hope you don’t mind me hanging around a while,” he said.
“How could I?” A quick glance around the yard showed her that he had finished cleaning up all of the fallen branches. “You did my work for me.”
“There’s always more work to be done.”
“I got the ball back!” Kai shouted, running up to the house. He gasped when he saw her. “Mama! You look so pretty.”
“Thank you,” Emma said. She looked towards Keith but didn’t meet his eyes. “He’s easily impressed.”
“You do look pretty.” Keith’s tone was serious, and she felt her cheeks color.
“Do you want to play catch?” Kai asked her.
“In a little bit,” she replied. “Have you fed your animals yet today?”
Kai sighed dramatically and turned his face up to the blue sky. “No.”
“The sun’s so high already. They must be hungry.”
“Nell feeds Zuko all the time, so much he practically lives there,” Kai grumped. “But I’ll feed Dio.”
“And the ducks,” she reminded him. “You could throw some scratch to the chickens too.”
“Fine.” He shoved the ball in his pocket and stomped off towards the duck pond.
Emma looked at Keith. Standing four feet off the ground on her lanai, she felt a bit like Juliet on her balcony. This would-be romance had about as much hope as those two foolish teenagers in Shakespeare’s Verona.
“Thanks for your help.”
“It’s work I enjoy,” he said with a shrug. “Would you come out into the yard for a minute?”
Emma’s heart froze at the thought of the ruined jaboticaba tree. She didn’t feel ready to face it. Not yet.
But Keith persisted. “Please? There’s something I want to show you.”
She nodded soberly and walked down the stairs, looping around the side of the house with Keith walking next to her. She surveyed the front yard, neat and shining after the work he had done that morning. She took it all in, looking everywhere but the spot where the little sapling had once stood.
Then Keith took her hand. She looked at him in surprise, startled again at the sight of his bright blue eyes, and looked away.
Her eyes landed on the jaboticaba sapling at their feet.
It was still standing.
Or, more accurately, standing again.
“How did you…?” Her voice faltered, and she slipped her hand out of his so that she could crouch down to examine the tree. Keith knelt beside her.
“I grafted it back together.” He had made clean cuts on either side of the broken piece and bound the trunk back together, splinting it with another bit of wood to hold it steady. “I pruned it way back, because it won’t be able to support fruit while it heals. But it can heal, with a bit of luck.”
Emma pressed a hand over her mouth, holding back another wave of tears.
“Sorry,” she said after a moment. She stood and wiped the tears from her face. “I thought I was all cried out.”
Keith stood and looked at her. His expression was thoughtful, his gaze steady on hers.
“Thank you.” Emma tried to say more, but her throat was too tight to get the words out.
“I know that you’re still grieving,” he told her quietly, “and that he’ll always be your first love. I just want you to know that I’m here for you — even if that’s just as a friend.”
“I think that’s all that I’m ready for.” But as she stood there, his gaze holding hers, that felt… not entirely true. There was a buzzing current between them that couldn’t be ignored.
“There!” Kai came barreling around the side of the house, Dio loping by his side. “I fed everybody! Can we play now?”
Keith looked to Emma with a question, and she responded with the barest nod of her head.
“Sure,” he said to Kai. “Let’s play catch.”
“Mom too!” Kai insisted.
They both looked at her, waiting for an answer.
She nodded, swallowing back tears. But the overflow of emotion wasn’t grief this time — at least not entirely. There was gratitude too, and love for her son, and more that she wasn’t ready to name.
There was goodness mixed in the grief… which made it all the more overwhelming at times, but also easier to bear.
Kai tossed her the ball, and she snatched it out of the air.
She threw it back to him, and he threw it to Keith.
They stood there for a long time, playing catch in the dappled sunlight of the front yard. It felt like the start of something, albeit something as fragile and uncertain as a newly planted sapling.