Chapter 3
Oakley
It was a gorgeous day in Waimea, vivid blue skies punctuated by fluffy white clouds and glowing green hills. Oakley’s heart was light as she pulled up to the martial arts studio and waved to her eight-year-old daughter.
“Hi Mom!” Harper bounced into the back seat.
“Hi, baby. How was capoeira?”
“It was so much fun! They let me play the berimbau!”
“That’s great!” Oakley grinned at her daughter and then straightened in her seat to start the car. “Buckle up.”
“Is Hayden still at soccer?” Harper asked, clicking into her seat.
“Soccer’s tomorrow.” Oakley drove out of her parking spot and down the street. “Today we’re picking her up from rehearsal.”
“Right.” Harper drummed on her knees. “Hey, are Pete and Claire here yet?”
“Yep! Their plane landed in Kona last night. They should be at grandma’s house by now.”
“Are we gonna go see them?”
“Of course! We’ll drive down to Pualena as soon as we get Hayden.”
“Sweet!”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes!”
Oakley grabbed one of the lunchboxes from the front seat and handed it back.
A moment later, the air was filled with the smell of humus and the crunch of carrots.
They drove past the huge, colorful playground where Oakley had spent countless hours pushing her girls on the swings and chasing them across bridges.
She felt the bittersweet pull of nostalgia thinking of those days when her girls were still so little and the three of them were together all day long.
The playground had undergone a massive rebuild shortly after Oakley and Trent bought a house just down the street. There was an amazing private school right there too – the perfect place to start a family.
Oakley lost her first baby while the house was in escrow. She lost her second just after they finished the nursery. They tried to adopt a newborn, and the birth mother changed her mind at the last possible moment.
What had originally felt like kismet slowly morphed into a cruel joke as Oakley drove past the school and park day after day.
Not one to wallow in self pity, she had opened her heart to foster kids instead.
One stayed for six months, others for just a night or two, but filling the empty room gave her a sense of purpose.
The new playground opened the same week that Harper and Hayden came to her, and it felt like fate. From the first moment that she met them, those girls felt like hers. And eventually, miracle of miracles, they were – officially – hers.
Pualena was her first home, but there was no place on Earth that she loved better than Waimea. The weather was perfect, all crisp mountain air instead of the humid damp of Hilo or the brutal heat of Kona. She couldn’t imagine a better place for her girls to grow up.
It took just a few minutes to drive across town to the community theater. Hayden waited outside with a few of her friends. Oakley gave the horn a quick, cheerful double-tap, and Hayden came running.
She was nearly identical to her sister, just with an extra two years and two inches. At eight and ten, they both still had baby-round faces and cheeky smiles. Hayden’s glossy black hair hung straight down her back; Harper’s was in a messy braid with escaped pieces plastered to her face.
“Mom!” Hayden rolled her eyes in a friendly sort of way as she buckled her seatbelt. “You’re staring.”
“Sorry!” Oakley grinned at her in the rearview mirror. “You’re just so precious!”
“Gross!” There was a smile in Hayden’s voice, and Oakley couldn’t resist another glance at the mirror to see her girls’ dimpled grins.
They looked nothing like her. Oakley’s blonde hair and blue eyes were an anomaly in Hawaii (though less so in the odd little highland bubble of Waimea).
There was a time that the stark contrast between her and the girls had made her heart ache; she wished that people could see instantly that they were hers.
But eventually, she had stopped taking the looks of confusion personally.
And always, always, she was grateful for the privilege of raising these two beautiful girls.
“How was practice?” she asked, handing back Hayden’s lunchbox.
“You mean rehearsal?”
“That’s what I said!”
“It was fine.”
“That’s all I get? Fine?”
“Okay, it was splendiferous.”
Oakley chuckled and stopped pestering her.
She hit play on a history podcast for kids and enjoyed the splendiferous drive south, soaking in the vibrant colors of the island: turquoise sky, sapphire sea, bright green hills.
Here and there along the highway, African tulip trees blazed with an abundance of orange flowers.
The ninety-minute drive from home to her hometown was breathtakingly beautiful, with varied greenery and sweeping ocean views. Between the scenery and the stories, the time passed quickly.
When they pulled up to the house, Anne and her kids were sitting out on the lanai.
“Claire!” Harper shouted, clawing at the sliding door of the van. “Pete!”
“Hey!” Oakley shot her a look. “Keep your arms and legs inside until the vehicle has come to a complete stop.”
“Mom,” she groaned, wiggling the handle.
Oakley threw the car into park and unlocked the doors.
“Yo Petey!” Harper was out like a shot with Hayden right behind her. And Oakley was right behind them, just as excited to see her sister as they were to see their cousins.
“Annie Oakley!” they shouted in unison the moment their eyes met. Anne barrelled down the steps and into Oakley’s arms, nearly knocking her over.
“I missed you so much!” Oakley hugged her sister so tight that her toes came off the ground, and she spun her in a circle.
When she put her down, there were tears streaming down her freckled cheeks. Oakley took Anne’s face in her hands, wiping the tears away with both thumbs.
“What’s wrong?”
Anne grinned through her tears. “I’m just happy to see you.”
True, she knew, but not the whole truth. Good enough for now, with their four kids chattering just a few feet away on the lanai.
She hugged her again, squeezing her tight.
They looked nothing alike, had not a single ancestor in common (as far as they knew), but Anne and Oakley were as close as twins.
Even now, having her sister back felt like regaining a missing limb.
Their entire childhood, they were inseparable.
They were born just a few months apart and raised in the big house behind them nearly from the start.
Tutu Kalama – Kimo’s mother and the family matriarch – had fostered Oakley for years, ever since she was a baby.
Eventually, Dawn and Kimo had officially adopted her.
With some reluctance, Oakley released her sister and went to greet her niece and nephew. She hardly remembered seeing them at the memorial service that spring; they had only been there for a few days, and that whole month was a haze in her memory, clouded by stress and earthshattering grief.
Months later, coming home to the house where Dad wasn’t still made her want to break down and cry. Instead, she fixed her smile to greet Pete and Claire.
“You’re looking so grown up,” she said, hugging them. “Are you excited for summer break?”
“Nothing says summer like mold and roaches.” Claire’s voice was mocking-bright.
“Most kids would be thrilled to come to Hawaii.”
She rolled her eyes. “You sound just like my mom. People come here on vacation. They don’t leave their whole life behind to move to moldy old Pualena.”
“Tell us how you really feel,” Oakley teased.
“That pretty much covers it.”
“Have you seen the rabbit kits across the street?” Pete asked Harper. She gasped and looked at Oakley.
“Mom, can we?”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“They were just over there an hour ago,” Anne worried.
“It’s fine. Auntie Kim loves the company.” She looked around. “Where’s Mia?”
“They went home.”
“Already?” Oakley’s arms flew out in frustration. “I can’t believe we missed them!”
Anne gave her a worried frown. “Laurie was in a hurry.”
It was only then that Oakley noticed how worn out her sister was. There were bluish circles beneath her eyes and new stress lines on her forehead. She looked exhausted.
“Do you want to go for a walk on the cliffs?” she asked. There was nothing like those endless ocean views and the misting explosions of water on rock to wake a body up. Even on this side of the house, there was a salty tang to the air.
“What about the kids?” Anne glanced across the street.
“They’ll be fine. Mom’s here, isn’t she?”
Anne gave her a loaded look, and Oakley just smiled.
“Come on. It’ll do you good. And our babies aren’t exactly babies anymore.”
“True that.” She sighed and started off through the yard.
Gravel crunched beneath the grass as they walked, and Oakley took a deep breath of the sea air. Her heart lifted as they came around the side of the house and the view in front of them opened up to include the wide blue Pacific.
Most of the houses had nothing at all between them and the ocean, but the Kalama place had an old wooden fence that their dad had built decades before to keep the younger kids away from the high cliffs. Oakley unlatched the gate and held it open for her sister.
“It’s been cloudy all day,” Anne remarked as they picked their way through the brush to the clear black rock of the cliffs. “It only just cleared up.”
“I bring the sunshine,” Oakley said lightly.
Anne huffed a laugh. “You always have.”
“How are you, really?”
She was quiet for a moment, looking out towards the water. Finally she said, “Mom hasn’t come out of her room since we got here. She didn’t even say hello to the kids.”
“I’ve been trying to get her to see a therapist. I think you can more or less predict how those conversations have gone.”
“Is it even a conversation when she doesn’t reply?”
“Exactly.” Oakley stopped at a high point on the rocks and stuck her hands in her pockets. A wave met the cliffs with a thunderous crash, shaking the ground beneath their feet. “I miss him like crazy.”
“Dad?” Anne asked.
She nodded.