Chapter 27 Anne
Anne
Tourist traffic slowed down as summer mellowed into fall.
Pualena was even more gorgeous in the autumn than it was during the hot summer months – more rain, more rainbows – but it seemed that most tourists were hemmed in by school schedules.
Anne had hoped to escape that same fate when she quit the mainland rat race, but things hadn’t worked out that way. She supposed it was for the best. Pete was having a blast at Pualena Playschool, and Claire seemed happy at Kea?au High – or at least happy enough to stay the course.
Noah’s foster daughter, Jasmine, had taken the ninth grader under her wing. Having a local sophomore to look after her had paved the way for an easier start, and Anne was grateful for that.
With both kids occupied all day, she suddenly had plenty of spare time.
Less tourists meant less work. The spare rooms were still mostly booked, but now she had rest days where she only had to make breakfast – something that she would have done for her family anyhow – and didn’t have to worry about check-ins or check-outs.
That left her free to explore with her kids in the afternoons.
And when they were in school, she was able to spend time with the rest of her family.
She loved slow mornings on the back porch with Akemi and in the bookshop with Laurie, just doing life together with her sisters. She loved rocking her little nephew to sleep, and she loved cataloging books with her little sister.
Whatever restlessness had driven her away from the island as a teen was gone now, and in its place was a grounded contentment. It felt easy to enjoy the simple rhythm of island life with her loved ones.
Even Zoe accepted her company every now and then. Sometimes Anne tagged along with her eldest daughter to help with a harvest or trim trees. Oakley came down most weekends, and their mom came down to breakfast every morning.
Dawn was herself again, nothing like the sad shell of a woman Anne had found when she came home just a few months before.
She was still grieving – they all would, for the rest of their lives – but she had grown strong enough to carry her grief and still find the joy in life.
She made time for solo days with each of her grandchildren, and she doted daily on little Kaleo.
Akemi was glowing with happiness. She and Lorenzo were in a strange sort of orbit around their new baby.
Anne couldn’t quite understand it, but it seemed to work for them.
They were still in separate rooms; each parent took the baby into their room for half of the night and slept uninterrupted for the other half.
It was unconventional, to say the least, and sometimes Anne worried about the long-term outlook for their strange relationship – but for now, her baby sister was thriving, and that was all that mattered.
Meanwhile, Anne and her eldest were nurturing a fragile sort of peace.
Zoe hadn’t gone from spouting vitriol to acting warm and fuzzy overnight, but she had stopped being actively unpleasant, and that was major progress.
Anne was walking a fine line of interacting with Zoe as much as she would allow without pulling away, earning her trust one millimeter at a time.
Eventually, Zoe would realize that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Anne was alone in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes when her eldest daughter walked in. She blinked in surprise and stared for a moment before fully registering who it was.
Zoe’s long hair – always some outlandish color, most recently purple – was gone.
She had shaved it nearly down to her scalp, leaving only about an inch of unbleached hair behind.
Her natural hair color was a deep auburn; without any sunshine to lighten it, the short pixie cut was the near-black of dark chocolate.
“You cut your hair,” Anne said before she could stop herself.
Zoe nodded, her expression guarded. Her silver eyes were bright, and her striking features were all the more beautiful without the mess of faded dye that always used to drag the eye away from her face.
“It suits you.”
“Yeah, well… I bleached it so many times that it was all breaking off.” She ran a hand over her spiky hair, and a smile ghosted across her face. “It feels good.”
“It looks good.” Anne gestured to the stove. “There’s still porridge left, if you’re hungry.”
“Sure.” She glanced out the front window and frowned. “Oakley’s here.”
“On a weekday?” Anne walked across the kitchen and the living room to meet her sister at the front door. She was shocked to see tears on Oakley’s face.
Oakley didn’t cry. Anne had never seen her sister cry for anything short of a death in the family – at least, not since they were little kids.
Miscarriages and the death of their father. Those were the only times that she had seen Oakley cry as an adult. So seeing her tears now struck a deep and immediate fear into Anne’s heart.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, pushing through the screen door. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Oakley said, but her voice broke on the word.
“Are the girls okay?”
“They’re fine. They’re at school.”
Anne stepped forward and tried to put an arm around her sister, but Oakley moved away.
“Can we walk? I can’t– I don’t– I just need to move.”
“Sure.” Anne quickly slipped on her sandals and grabbed a hat. “Let’s walk.”
They went through the backyard and out along the cliffs. They had nearly reached the woods before Oakley finally said something.
“I think my marriage is over.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Oakley said, and fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “I just… I can feel him slipping away. He wants nothing to do with me. He’s barely even there for the girls.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know. Years, maybe. But when the girls were little, they took all my attention.
And he worked such long hours. If something was off between us, I hardly noticed.
I thought it was temporary. The past couple of years, it’s been more obvious.
This year I’ve really been trying to draw him out, but nothing works. ”
“Did something happen today?” Anne asked. Despite the repeated answers of ‘nothing’, she knew that Oakley hadn’t come crying to Pualena for no reason at all.
“We had a fight,” Oakley admitted. “But it’s the same fight we’ve been having.”
“And what fight is that?”
“I try to get him to spend more time with us, and no matter how I ask or what it is, it only seems to push him further away.”
“What was it today?”
“He’s headed to the mainland. Again. He told me the same day as his flight.”
“That’s strange.”
“I swear he’s just making up work trips at this point to get away from me.”
“Did you say that?”
“Not in so many words. But I questioned whether he really needed to go, and he went off on me. Called me jealous and controlling and left for the airport. Didn’t even wait until the girls were home from school. Didn’t say goodbye.”
“That doesn’t sound like Trent.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought so either. But he’s not himself lately. Not for a long time. I feel like I hardly know him anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
They were in the shade of the trees now, and Oakley paused to scrub the tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
“Have you considered counseling?” Anne asked.
“I’ve brought it up more than once. He just shoots me down. He always shoots me down, on everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to be here,” Oakley said in a rush, and more tears fell.
Her eyes were red, which turned her irises an extra brilliant shade of blue.
“I want to live in Pualena and homeschool the girls and just slow down. I want to be closer to all of you. But anytime I try to talk to Trent about any of that, he acts like I’ve lost my mind. ”
“He’s either in his office or on the mainland,” Anne said with a frown. “It doesn’t seem like it would change his life much.”
“Exactly!” Oakley burst out, throwing her arms wide. “That’s what I said!”
“And? What did he say to that?”
“He acts like I’d be ruining the girls’ lives by taking them out of private school to teach them myself. Every time we talk about it, he manages to convince me that I’m being horrible and selfish to even consider uprooting them like that.”
“You’re an amazing mother,” Anne said quietly, squeezing her sister’s arm. “You would never do anything that wasn’t in their best interest.”
“I just want more time with them. But maybe he’s right. Maybe that is selfish.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know how we got here. Anne, I don’t think he loves me anymore. He doesn’t even like me anymore.” Oakley put her face in her hands and began to sob.
Anne put both arms around her sister and held her until she finally stopped crying.
“Sorry,” Oakley said when she got her breath back. She brushed at the spot on Anne’s shoulders where her tears had soaked the fabric of her sister’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“This is so stupid. I’m flipping out over nothing.”
“Your marriage is on the rocks. That’s not nothing.”
“But I have everything I always wanted. I built this perfect life for us. I should be happy.” She broke down sobbing again and collapsed in slow motion, sitting on the forest floor and burying her face in her knees.
Anne sat down beside her and rubbed her back until she stopped crying. Eventually, Oakley untied the bandana that was holding her blonde hair back; she used it to blow her nose and mop up her face.
“Sorry,” she said again. “I’m a mess.”
“Please stop apologizing. I’m here for you. Always.”
“I miss you.”
“I’m right here.”
“Two hours is too far. It feels like I’m cramming my whole life into the weekends and just going through the motions the rest of the time.”
“That’s no good.”
“I’m trying to find a balance. I pared way back on the girls’ activities so that we can come down here most weekends. But it’s still not enough. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“You’re not crazy,” Anne said firmly.