Chapter 2
Laurie
Anne stood frozen, staring at her eldest daughter.
Born when Anne was still in high school, Zoe was raised by her grandparents. She’d been a happy little girl, and the whole family had doted on her… but then, near the start of her teen years, she’d retreated into herself.
It was an impulse that Laurie sympathized with.
Zoe had silver-gray eyes and dark golden skin, a contrast that made everyone stare. Worse, she had the kind of body that attracted attention even from a distance. That had been true for a long time, ever since adolescence.
It was awful, the way men leered at thirteen-year-old girls.
But Zoe had retreated from everyone, including Laurie. Even now, well into her twenties, she kept the entire family at arm’s length.
Laurie had tried to connect with her; they all had. Some of the family came close – Zoe loved her little cousins, and she’d adored her grandfather – but she never really connected with anyone on a deeper level.
There was a wall there that no one could get past.
It seemed as though Zoe didn’t know how to lower her defenses, even around her family… a feeling that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Laurie.
Despite growing up in a loving home, Zoe had grown up to be more closed off than any of the Aloha sisters – or even most of the foster kids who’d passed through the Kalama place, many of whom had stayed in touch ever since.
Laurie didn’t fully understand why her niece was so guarded, but she did her best to be there for her. Throughout everything that had happened in her own life, she’d worked to keep the lines of communication open so that Zoe could open up if she ever felt ready.
She was fully walled off that day, though. Arms crossed over her chest, staring at her mother with a glare that pinned her to the floor.
Anne’s relationship with Zoe had never been easy, but they had reached a fragile truce in recent years… a peace that seemed to have dissolved in the wake of Kimo’s death, along with so many other things.
Pete came barrelling through the room, breaking the spell on Anne. Zoe thawed too, smiling at her little brother. He threw his arms open to hug her; she dodged him playfully, then ruffled his hair and offered him a double high five.
Anne turned away and started hauling her biggest suitcase upstairs.
“Hey Pizza,” Zoe said. “How was your flight?”
Pete’s response was long and enthusiastic. He was turned away from Laurie, so she heard only a faint stream of sound. Something about the movies he watched on the plane, maybe. Unless she could see someone’s face to read their lips, she didn’t hear enough to understand much.
Even when she paired lipreading with her hearing aids, her comprehension was never quite one hundred percent – but then again, as her adoptive mom liked to remind her, nobody understood anybody one hundred percent of the time.
Growing up, it was a refrain that occasionally comforted Laurie…
or more often made her feel even more frustrated and misunderstood.
Claire came through the door and grinned at her big sister. Half sister, technically, but that modifier was never used in the Kalama family. It was doubly irrelevant in a culture where every neighbor was a ‘cousin’ and elders were called Auntie or Uncle.
Zoe was cooler with Claire than with Pete, but still kinder than she ever was to Anne. The lanky teenager and her much-older sister looked so alike that Laurie couldn’t stop staring.
Laurie didn’t resemble anyone she knew – not her daughter, not her birth mother, and certainly not her adopted family. Her high cheekbones and clear brown eyes had come from relatives she had never seen, not even in photos.
The face in the mirror didn’t look like anyone she had ever known.
And so she was always entranced by family resemblances. Those shared features always felt miraculous to her, especially when they were as pronounced as they were with Anne’s kids.
Claire looked like a carbon copy of her mother, from her vibrant red hair to the abundance of freckles that marched across her nose and cheeks. The resemblance was so strong that it gave Laurie flashbacks to her own childhood.
Zoe looked different at first glance, more like her dad than her mom. But she had those same silver-gray eyes, all the more startling in a face the color of dark honey.
Pete was something else altogether, a bundle of energy with his grandma’s bright blue eyes and sandy blond hair – and an ability to tan that he must have inherited from his dad. He was still chattering away, practically vibrating with excitement.
Mia waved at Laurie to get her attention.
What’s up? she asked her daughter.
“Can I show Pete the bunnies across the street?” she asked, speaking and signing at the same time.
Sure, Laurie signed.
Thanks!
All three of Anne’s kids followed Mia out the door. Even fourteen-year-old Claire and grown-up Zoe couldn’t resist the promise of baby bunnies.
Laurie grabbed a couple of bags and went upstairs in search of her sister.
Dawn’s door was open, and she stopped to look in. Her adopted mother sat in the dark, face illuminated by white-blue screenlight as she played some mindless game on her tablet. Laurie set the bags down and walked into the room.
“Mom?” she said, and Dawn looked up. You OK?
Fine, Dawn signed.
Laurie sighed. She crossed the room and opened the drapes to reveal the huge windows her dad had installed. Out past the cliffs, the ocean flashed silver beneath a white sky.
Dawn winced at the sudden brightness, then looked back down at her tablet.
“You hardly said two words to Anne,” Laurie said.
I’m tired, she signed without looking up.
“Have you eaten today?”
Dawn shrugged.
Laurie pressed her eyes shut and fought to swallow the fierce irritation that rose in her chest.
She desperately wanted Dawn to get better, to come back to herself, to be their mother again. But the loss of their dad had been even harder on Dawn than it had been on his kids.
It had only been a few months, and Kimo had been Dawn’s partner her whole adult life. Her hero. Her better half.
Laurie would never know what that was like. She could hardly imagine.
“I’ll warm up some of that soup before I go,” she said.
Thanks, Dawn signed distractedly.
Laurie found Anne in her old room, long since converted to a guest room. She was hanging clothes in the open-air closet, getting settled in.
“Hey. Are you hungry? I’m going to warm up some kabocha squash soup.”
Anne paused what she was doing and turned to face Laurie. Signing while she spoke, she said, “I’m not hungry, but I should eat. The kids too.”
“How’d they take the news?” Laurie asked.
Anne frowned. “What news?”
“Moving to Hawaii?”
Anne’s hands stilled and dropped to her sides. Her face took on a guilty expression.
“You haven’t told them?!” Laurie demanded.
“They know that things are still… up in the air,” Anne said, using the sign for uncertain.
“Are they?”
“I mean…” Anne stopped signing and threw her hands up in frustration, leaving Laurie to read her lips. She caught the main words. Something about an affordable house and a great job just falling into her lap.
“So… not really.”
“No, not really.” Anne dropped onto the bed, looking defeated. Signing again, she said, “I don’t know what to do. Surviving in Hawaii is even harder than back in California, but we don’t have any family there. Here at least we have a place to stay, but Mom’s obviously not thrilled that we’re here.”
“Don’t take it personally. She’s still struggling.”
Anne nodded and changed the subject. “How about you?”
“We’re good,” Laurie said, putting on a grin. “Mia’s been practicing every day for the island-wide spelling bee. She’s amazing.”
“And Chris?” Anne asked, peering into her eyes.
“Fine,” she said quickly. “He’s good. Plenty of work.”
“Okay… are you–”
Laurie turned away, losing the rest of what Anne was saying. “I’ll just get that soup on the stove, yeah? We have to head home soon.”
She hurried down the stairs, heart pounding in the way it always did when her family tried to pry into her marriage.
They’d reached a balance, her and Chris. They were fine. He’d even let her use the car that day. There was no reason to worry him, staying out past dark.
Laurie poured the soup into a pot and lit the burner beneath it, then put some ready-made rolls in the oven. That buttery smell could usually entice Dawn to eat when nothing else would.
The kids came back in a sudden flurry of activity, all talking at the same time. Mia’s round face was bright with excitement, thrilled to be with her cousins again, and Laurie felt a twist of some complicated emotion in her chest.
She wished that they could stay, even just for a night.
Anne came down, and Zoe disappeared. Anne said something to her kids, pointing at their bags and then up the stairs. Claire rolled her eyes and grabbed a backpack, then trudged upstairs to choose a room.
“Soup’s ready,” Laurie told her sister. “And there are rolls in the oven. They’ll be ready in a few minutes; just keep an eye on them.”
Anne’s face fell. “Are you leaving already?”
“Yeah.” She looked at Mia and said, “Time to head home.”
It broke her heart to see the way that Mia deflated at those words. Her smile fell, and she seemed to get smaller. But she didn’t try to argue.
Anne flapped a hand to get her attention. “Can’t you stay a while?”
“Chris doesn’t like it when we’re out too long. He worries about me driving at night.”
“You have plenty of time,” Anne said, glancing out at the sky.
“It’s a long way back. Anyway, I have to get dinner going.”
Anne’s expression was anxious, but she didn’t argue. “Okay. Thank you for picking us up today.” She pulled her in for a hug and then stepped back. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too. I’ll see you again soon, okay?”
“Okay. See you soon.”
She could feel Anne’s eyes on her back as she walked out the door.