Chapter 8 Oakley
Oakley
Oakley rose with the sun and found her husband already in the kitchen.
He must have just gotten home from his early-morning run, because his face glowed with health and exertion. He had stripped off his t-shirt and tossed it to the floor, and Oakley paused to admire his sculpted muscles.
Trent was even more handsome now than he’d been when they met.
She admired how much effort he put into caring for his health, even though he worked upwards of sixty hours a week.
He still found time to read the latest research, and he was always experimenting with some biohack or another.
Lately it was ice plunges and mushroom coffee.
When Trent saw her, he grinned and pulled her in for a sweaty kiss. Oakley accepted the kiss happily, but then she stepped back. The man might look like an Adonis, but he tasted like roadkill.
“What is that?” she asked, trying not to gag.
Trent chuckled. “Good morning to you too.”
“Seriously, though.” Oakley stepped around him and poured herself a glass of mamaki tea from the fridge.
“It’s my new protein shake! Remember that company that Brandon started?”
“The one that we invested in?” She took a swig of tea and swished it around her mouth.
“Right! This is the prototype. It’s not just protein. It has freeze-dried powdered liver for extra nutrition.”
“It tastes like death.”
“From death comes life.” He plucked the glass of tea from her hand and drained it in one long gulp.
Oakley sighed and poured herself a second glass.
Trent turned to go, but she held a hand out to stop him.
“Before the girls are up,” she began, “can we revisit the piano discussion?”
His expression shuttered. “They need to learn the fundamentals. It’s bad enough that we didn’t start when they were younger.”
She sighed and leaned back against the counter. “It’s not just piano. They’re overscheduled. When school starts up again, it’s going to be more than any of us can handle.”
“So let go of some of the less important extracurriculars.”
“But they like the ones that you don’t think are important. They need to move – especially if they’re stuck inside at school all day.”
“So you want to let them quit piano?”
“I want to let them take a break from piano.” Oakley took a deep breath and gathered her courage. “And I also want to take a break from school.”
Trent looked at her like she was stupid. “They’re on summer break right now. How much more of a break to you need?”
“I’d like to take them out of school and homeschool them instead. Just for a year,” she rushed on when he shook his head. “Just to have more time together as a family, more time outside, more time for the things that they love to do. Next summer, we could circle back and–”
“And have them be a year behind everyone else when they go back to school?”
“We would still do schoolwork at home, Trent!”
“These years are fundamental. Our daughters deserve the best possible education.”
“Who’s to say that they couldn’t get that at home?”
“You’re not a trained instructor. Do you really think that you could do as well as the best teachers on the island? People with decades of experience who specialize in their subjects?”
“Yes.” Her voice was low and dangerous. “I do.”
“Really, Oakley?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of research. We could get their lessons done in a few hours a day and have more–”
“So!” His face lit up like he’d just scored a point. “You want them to spend less time on academics?”
“We wouldn’t need as much time. Personalized instruction is more efficient!”
“And if they lose their spots? If there’s no room for them next year? What then?”
“Then we’ll get to spend more time with them before they’re grown and gone,” she burst out. “They’ll get more time with their cousins, and I’ll get more time with my sisters.”
“You want to pull Hayden and Harper out of school just so that they can play with their cousins down in Pualena? That’s ridiculous. What about their future?”
“Homeschooled kids can do anything that they want to! Colleges–” She ate the rest of her sentence when Trent held up a hand and glanced at his watch.
“I have to jump in the shower. I have a meeting in ten.”
She pressed her teeth together and let out a huff of breath. Then she asked, “Can we talk about this later?”
“It’s a no from me, Oakley. You can’t just upend their lives like that.” He patted her shoulder. “When you’ve had some time to calm down, you’ll realize that I’m right.”
He turned and walked away, leaving her fuming in the kitchen.
By the time her girls stumbled sleepy-eyed to the kitchen table, she had calmed down enough to greet them with a soft smile and warm hugs. While they ate a breakfast of sweet potato and eggs, she pulled up their piano teacher’s contact on her phone.
“What if we played hooky today?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
Harper perked up immediately. “Can we go to the beach?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Really?” Hayden grinned. “Can we go to a Kona beach?”
“Sure. Let’s do it.” She sent a quick note to their teacher saying that they couldn’t make it that day. They paid her monthly, regardless of missed lessons, so Oakley didn’t suppose that she would be too disappointed.
“Can Daddy come?” Hayden asked.
Oakley nearly told her to ask him herself, but she didn’t want Hayden to have to bear the disappointment of being shot down directly. It happened too much lately; every bid for attention was met by a dismissal or a promise of “next time”.
“I’ll ask him,” she said instead. “You wash up.”
“Okay!” Harper rushed her plate to the sink.
Oakley walked through the house and into Trent’s office.
It was the biggest room in the house, originally designed to be the master bedroom.
He’d equipped it with both a traditional desk and another desk that was high enough to be used with a treadmill.
There were weights, a yoga mat, and other fitness accessories that he used to stay active even when he was in the office twelve hours a day.
Between all of that, his protein shakes, and the private bathroom, he hardly needed to leave.
“Hey Trent,” she said softly.
“Hey!” He clicked quickly away from whatever window he’d been on, and suddenly she wondered how much of his time spent ‘working’ was really just hiding out from her and the kids.
That’s not fair, she told herself, breathing deep. Her husband worked hard to provide for them. He had at least half a dozen video conference meetings every day, and he was constantly flying to the mainland for work.
He was a good husband, and a good father.
She just needed to try a bit harder.
“Can you get away?” she asked gently. “I want to take the girls to the beach.”
“I don’t think so. I have a lot of work to do.”
She waited for him to say something about piano lessons, but his eyes just flicked back and forth between the two big screens on his desk. He cared about piano in theory, but he didn’t know Hayden and Harper’s schedules at all.
“Let’s go down to Hapuna,” she suggested. The gorgeous Hawaiian beach was only about twenty minutes away, but often they let whole months slip by without driving down to enjoy it.
“I don’t think so.” He met her eyes and softened the blow with a smile. “You go ahead. Enjoy the last few days of summer.”
“Hayden misses you,” she pressed, keeping her voice down so that the girls wouldn’t hear her pleas. “We all do, but she’s been missing you extra lately.”
He sighed impatiently. “I’m right here, Oakley.”
“Are you?”
“All day, every day.” He returned his focus to the computer.
Oakley waited a while, but he didn’t look at her again.
She walked back out to get her girls ready for the beach.