Chapter 4 Oakley
Oakley
Oakley had to sprint all the way from the Pilates studio to the elementary school theater, but she made it there with a minute to spare. She was still catching her breath when Harper and the rest of the kids were wrapping up rehearsal.
“Did you run here?” Hayden gave her the side-eye from a folding table near the door; she had opted to bring her sketchbook and sit through Harper’s hula class rather than tagging along to the Pilates studio.
The girls had already seen enough of her classes that they could probably teach Pilates themselves.
“Walk more, drive less,” Oakley said breathlessly. “Remember?”
“Right, walk. Not run across town like a crazy person. You’re all sweaty.”
“If I’d’ve walked,” she huffed, “I would have been late.”
“So? I have to stay here for rehearsal anyway.” Hayden’s musical theater program had the space right after Harper’s dance class, which had seemed convenient at the time… but somehow, Oakley still wound up running around town like a chicken with its head cut off.
“If I say I’ll be here, I’ll be here. On time. Anyway, Harper and I have to leave in a minute to get her to piano on time.”
Hayden rolled her eyes. “We don’t even like piano.”
Oakley pressed her teeth together. Her ten year old had been extra spicy lately, and she was trying her best not to take the bait.
“Hi Mom!” Harper ran through the auditorium and hit her with a hug. “Ew, you’re all wet!”
“Hi, baby.”
“Did you see me?”
“You were great.”
Hayden made a rude sound. “You weren’t even here.”
“I caught the end,” Oakley said with a warning in her voice. She looked back at Harper. “And the end was great.”
Eight-year-old Harper shrugged, unbothered. “You’ll see the whole thing when we do the show.”
“Right.” Oakley waved to the theater teacher and then turned to Hayden. “You’re up. We’ll be back before you’re done.”
“Oh no,” Harper said tragically. “Is today a piano day?”
Oakley nodded, and Harper groaned.
“I told you,” said Hayden in a singsong voice.
“Do I have to?” Harper whined.
Oakley bit her lip. She was ready to let the girls drop an extracurricular – any of them, at this point – but piano was the one activity that Trent put his foot down on.
“Can’t I skip it?” she pressed.
“Dad won’t let you,” Hayden told her.
“But I’m hungry.”
“I have a protein bar in my backpack,” Oakley offered.
Harper scrunched up her face. “I hate protein bars.”
“Well, you can eat it if you’re starving. And we’ll get a big lunch after your music lesson, I promise.”
“Fine.” Wearing a tragic expression and dragging her feet, Harper walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
“Do you need a protein bar?” Oakley asked her eldest daughter.
“I’d rather starve.” Hayden tossed her hair and ran to the stage.
Oakley looked up at the ceiling, prayed for patience, and then followed Harper outside.
Her eight year old was unusually quiet on the walk to the piano teacher’s house. Oakley’s mind ran through its usual task list, puzzle-piecing errands and chores together with her teaching schedule, the girls’ activities, and day trips down to Pualena for time with her family.
She’d read a study once showing that chess players burned through roughly six thousand calories per day on tournament days.
Since then, she often wondered how much energy mothers burned daily with the mental gymnastics required to keep their families running…
all while subsisting on toddler leftovers and sandwich crusts.
Oakley’s life had been borderline unsustainable even before her dad passed away and two of her sisters moved home to Pualena.
Now, through sheer stubbornness, she had managed to wedge multiple trips all the way down there into her schedule each week, and that had eaten up what little downtime they’d had left.
Once school started up again, she didn’t see how she could possibly manage the drive down to Pualena more than once or twice a month… and she hated that. She hated losing that time with her girls, and she hated the thought of only seeing Anne once a month when she was right there on the island.
Before her dad got sick, Oakley only drove down about once a month to spend the weekend with her parents. They were such young parents, and her life was so full; she’d always assumed that she would be able to spend more time with them later, when everything felt a bit easier.
Now Kimo was gone, and Oakley refused to take her family for granted anymore.
She could never know how much time she had left with anyone she loved.
Anne might move back to the mainland at the end of the summer. Laurie could move to another island. Worst of all, she could permanently lose another one of the people she loved most in the world.
Time was slipping away, and Oakley was stuck in an exhausting routine of her own making.
She was working herself deeper and deeper into burnout… and for what? Piano lessons? Soccer practice? A private school that was bleeding them dry and robbing her of time with her daughters?
Their childhood was slipping away, and she was missing it.
Each piece of their lives had made sense when they’d brought it into the mix. The best neighborhood, the best school, the best extracurriculars. But now she wondered what it was all for.
Her daughters enjoyed the life she’d constructed for them. But they loved running wild with their cousins. They loved beach days and family hikes and cozy mornings cuddled up with Oakley, sipping hot chocolate while she read them a book.
So again, she asked herself: Why was she trading her time away just to pay other people to raise her daughters?
It made less and less sense to her with each passing day.
“Do I have to?” Harper asked when they reached their destination. Oakley sighed and put a hand on her shoulder.
“I think that you should go in today, because it’s unkind to cancel on your teacher at the last minute.”
“She’s unkind,” Harper muttered, kicking at the gravel path.
“And then tonight at dinner, we can talk to dad about taking a break.”
She looked up, eyes wide. “A break from piano?”
“Yeah.” Oakley brushed a strand of hair away from her daughter’s beautiful face and tucked it behind her ear. “Sound good?”
“You’ve got yourself a deal!” Harper sprinted up the path, and Oakley chuckled.
She settled herself beneath a tree out front and caught up on work emails while Harper plugged dutifully away at the piano keys inside.
When the lesson was done, they walked into town and bought poke bowls for lunch before swinging by the theater to pick Hayden up on the way home.
They walked past the colorful Anuenue Playground and down their quiet road, past their white picket fence, and into the house that Oakley had cultivated with such care.
Her life was picture perfect.
So why did she long to trade it all in for something simpler?
“Dad!” Harper shouted as they walked through the front door. “Lunch time!”
Trent worked from home, primarily as an app developer. If he was in town, he could almost always be found in his home office. Lately, though, he spent as much time traveling to the mainland for business as he did on the island.
Oakley set out the poke bowls and poured four tall glasses of mamaki tea.
“I don’t think he heard you,” Hayden said. “He probably has his noise-cancelling headphones on.”
“I’ll get him!” Harper danced away… and then trudged back ten seconds later.
“He’s on a call?” Hayden guessed.
“Yeah, but he’ll come out when he’s done.” She sat down and dug into her poke bowl.
Hayden looked to Oakley. “Should we wait?”
“You can if you want to.” Oakley sat down and spooned up a big bite of fish and rice. “I’m starved.”
“I’m hungry too.” Hayden sighed and sat down at the table.
“It could be forever,” Harper said through a mouthful of food.
They were just scraping the bottoms of their bowls when Trent came out of his office. He was in a good mood that day: shoulders back and a big grin for his family. Oakley returned her husband’s smile.
The man was even more handsome now than he’d been when they met.
It had been a whirlwind romance, with a honeymoon phase that went on for years; they traveled all seven continents together before they finally settled down in Waimea.
Their relationship had changed in recent years, with parenthood eclipsing everything else, but Oakley still felt proud to have such a gorgeous adventurer by her side.
“There’s my girls!” He ruffled Harper’s hair and gave Hayden a fist bump across the table. “How’s your day going?”
“Mom says I don’t have to do piano anymore,” Harper announced.
“Dude.” Hayden rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t even sat down yet.”
Trent took a seat and raised his eyebrows at Oakley.
“I said that we could talk about it,” she clarified.
“Music lessons are important,” he said, digging a spoon into his poke bowl. “Learning piano isn’t just about the music. It’s about brain development, coordination, memory–”
Harper tipped her head back and groaned in frustration.
“You’re going to have to come up with a more articulate argument than that one, kiddo.”
“I know all that stuff already! Mrs. Chen just makes me do the same things over and over and over again!”
“Mrs. Chen is the best teacher in town,” Trent said calmly. “If she’s asking you to do the same exercises, it’s because you still need to improve in those areas.”
“Mom!” Harper looked at her with pleading eyes.
“They’re overbooked, Trent. Something’s gotta give.”
“So drop something,” he said with a shrug.
“I want to drop piano!” Harper insisted.
“Indoor voice, kiddo.”
“I want to drop piano,” she hissed.
“Do you really need to do karate and capoeira and hula?” he asked between bites. “Wouldn’t it makes sense to drop one of those?”
“But I like all of those!”
“If you really need to let go of something, take a break from one of those. I know they’re fun, but music theory is important. One day you’ll thank us for encouraging you to see it through.”
“I like piano,” Hayden said, flipping her hair over one shoulder.
Harper glared at her and slammed a fist down on the table.
“Take it easy,” Trent said. “We’re just having a calm discussion. There’s no need to get upset.”
“You can’t make me do piano,” she insisted. “I’ll just sit there and I won’t even move my hands. I’ll do a strike!”
Trent glanced at his watch and passed a hand over his eyes, looking suddenly tired. He bolted down the rest of his lunch, gulped his tea, and stood.
“Where are you going?” Hayden asked.
“I’ve got another call.”
“We’re not done with this discussion, old man,” Harper said severely.
Oakley clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a laugh – but even Trent looked amused.
“What did you just call me?” he asked.
“You call me young lady! You say, ‘We’re not done with this discussion, young lady.’ You say it all the time!”
“That is so not the same thing,” Hayden told her.
“It is!”
“Is not.”
“Enough,” Oakley said firmly.
“We’re not done!” Harper shouted when Trent stepped away from the table.
“Then I guess we’ll have to pick this discussion back up another time.” He moved to ruffle her hair again, but she slapped his hand away.
He shot Oakley a look like, Would you deal with this?
That was Trent, she thought with a sigh as he disappeared into his office.
He was a perfect parent in theory, but who was left to put all of that theory into practice ninety-nine percent of the time? Who actually made things happen and kept their lives running?
Mom. It was always Mom.