Chapter 8 Anne
Anne
A single day spent cleaning the house and pacing the cliffs had Anne feeling like a restless, stranded teenager. It was an uncomfortable throwback to her restless adolescence, that old feeling that she had outgrown her family home, her small town, and even the Big Island itself.
Living at the edge of the cliffs was enviable, she knew… but it could also leave her feeling as though she were stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
And in a way, she was.
The next day, she borrowed her mom’s car to run some errands in Hilo. The old Honda was the same age as she was, but it was still chugging along well enough. With the kids in tow, she loaded up on library books and groceries.
“Where are we going?” Claire protested when Anne pulled off the highway in Kea‘au. “I thought we were going home.”
“I just need to stop at the post office.”
“Doesn’t Pualena have a post office?” Pete asked.
“It’s too small,” Claire said. “Grandma doesn’t even get mail.”
“Right.” Anne kept her voice upbeat. “That’s why we’re stopping by her PO Box.”
“I hate it here.” Claire pulled at her seatbelt, holding it away from her shoulder.
Every glance at her daughter brought a fresh wave of guilt for Anne. Despite a thick layer of sunscreen in the morning and then a sneak-attack of sunscreen spray in the afternoon, their day at the river had left Claire’s skin a painful shade of pink. Her nose was already starting to peel.
“Nothing like a sunburn to remind us that we have no business living here,” she griped.
“I’m not sunburned,” Pete said cheerfully.
“Whatever. You’re not supposed to be here either.”
“Why not?”
“We’re colonizers.”
A huff of frustration escaped Anne’s throat.
“What?” The freshly minted fourteen year old held her ground.
“Come on, Claire. I was born here.”
“Well, I was born in San Diego,” she snapped.
“Not exactly indigenous there either, are we?”
“We’d best move to Scotland,” Pete interjected in a truly terrible Scottish accent. Anne had to laugh.
“It literally never stops raining in Scotland,” Claire grumbled.
“Exactly!” Anne said. “No sunburns. Home of the redheads! Let’s go!”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I like it here,” Pete said.
“Me too,” Anne agreed.
“Two to one!” he crowed. “We win!”
“This is so unfair,” Claire groaned.
“This tropical island is the worst,” he groaned, mimicking her tone. “The sun is too sunny! The water’s too watery! Paradise is so lame.”
“Shut up, Pete! Sunburns and moldy shoes and gecko poop on my pillow is not my idea of paradise.”
“You’re not allowed to tell me to shut up! Mom!”
“Hush, both of you.” She turned into the post office parking lot and found an empty spot. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
The long line out front was not encouraging.
It was too hot for the kids to wait in the car, so they stood with her, pressed against the post office wall in a thin line of shade.
Forty minutes later, laden with packages and Dawn’s uncollected mail, they finally headed home.
It felt strange to drive along the familiar highway. The high green walls on either side were drastically different from the desiccated landscape that she’d grown used to in San Diego.
Even in the midst of everything else – her messy divorce, resentful daughters, an empty savings account, the loss of her father, and now her mounting credit card debt – Anne was deeply grateful to be back in Pualena.
She felt a deep sense of home there that she had never been able to find or create on the mainland.
And this was the first time she had been home, truly home – not just a quick trip for Christmas or a wedding or adoption ceremony or memorial service – since she moved away at the age of eighteen.
She’d been proud of her business on the mainland, content to run her boutique hotel in La Jolla – until her husband’s debts ruined them.
But even in the good years, underneath all that happy busyness, she was never quite content.
Never truly fulfilled living a money-driven life in Southern California.
Their family was picture perfect – handsome husband, wonderful children, an ocean-view house in La Jolla – but they hadn’t been close. Not really.
Her marriage was an unhappy one, more often than not.
She had lost enough of Claire’s life to nannies and school that her daughter kept her at arm’s length.
If she had kept going like that, she might have ended up with as much of a relationship with Claire as she had with Zoe – which was to say, nearly none at all.
Sometimes she worried that it was too late to fully repair her relationship with either one of her daughters.
Pete was young enough to forgive all of her shortcomings. Anne hoped that she could still forge a strong relationship with her son… because prioritizing her career over her daughters had been the worst mistake of her life.
“Do you know what Pualena means?” Anne asked as she drove through town.
“Pua means pig,” Pete volunteered.
She laughed. “Pua?a is pig. Pua means flower. But pualena means the first golden light of dawn.”
“Very poetic,” Claire said sourly.
“I always thought so,” Anne said, keeping her voice light. Any negativity she showed to her teen came back to her tenfold. But if she could just stay positive long enough, she could eventually cajole Claire back into a good mood.
Not so with her elder daughter.
Zoe sat on the lanai, drinking coconut water straight from the fresh green sphere with a steel straw.
A faded gray baseball cap was pulled low over her eyes, her acid-green braid threaded through the back.
She wore cargo pants and a long-sleeved men’s t-shirt, armor that she maintained even in the summer heat.
Anne gathered the packages that they had piled on top of their groceries, dropped them on the lanai, and then went back to rescue bags of frozen food from the rapidly heating car.
“That’s a lot of shopping for someone who’s supposed to be broke.” Zoe eyed the brown bags with distaste.
Anne took a calming breath. “It’s mostly groceries. It’s cheaper to buy online than from the store.”
“There’s plenty of local food,” Zoe said with a sniff. “It’s healthier than anything in a box. Cheaper, too.”
She wasn’t wrong. But after uprooting Pete and Claire, buying a few of their favorite staples felt like the least that she could do.
They shored up her conviction by falling on the pile like a pair of ravenous wolves, ripping them open in search of their gluten-free cereal and glass noodles.
“Mom!” Pete shrieked, holding a package at arm’s length.
“What?” Her heart raced at the sound of panic in his voice.
“A lizard!”
“What?” She frowned in confusion. Pete wasn’t scared of lizards. He adored animals. Snakes, spiders, rats – it didn’t matter. He loved them all.
“Look!” He turned it towards her, and she saw a flash of green. She stepped closer, steadying his arm with one hand to get a better look. There on the brown paper package was a small, bright green anole lizard.
“Just put him down,” Claire said.
“I can’t!” Pete’s voice was panicked. “He’s stuck!”
“What do you mean, stuck?”
“Look!”
Sure enough, the lizard was glued to the oversized envelope – caught by the adhesive strip that someone had failed to close all the way.
“Can you pull him off?” Claire asked.
“I’ll hurt him! His whole belly is stuck, look!”
Pete was right. The whole underside of the anole lizard – belly, jaw, legs – was stuck tight to the glue.
Anne nudged it experimentally, and her stomach sank. The bright green lizard had basically melded with the package – and it was such a delicate little thing. Trying to pull the fragile creature free from the glue was bound to have gruesome results.
Claire said what they were both thinking: “That thing’s a goner, Pete.”
“No!” His blue eyes shone with tears. “We have to help him!”
“Give it here,” Zoe said.
He handed it over, and she disappeared into the house.
Anne sighed and gathered up the mess of food and trash on the front steps. Just as well for Zoe to dispose of it out of sight. Pete was a bit tougher than he used to be, but he was still the kid who would cry over a goopy-eyed kitten or a dying bee.
When she walked into the house, Zoe had the tap running in the kitchen. She stood waiting for the water to get warm, testing it every few seconds. Then she filled a container and set it on the counter.
Anne set her boxes of food on the table and stood watching as Zoe submerged the little green lizard, being careful to keep its miniscule nostrils above the waterline.
She held it there for a long while, letting the warm water soften the glue.
Then – slowly, millimeter by millimeter – she worked the creature’s legs and belly free.
“You did it!” Pete exclaimed when she freed the head. To Anne’s astonishment, the lizard’s body thrashed back and forth in an effort to escape. It seemed completely unharmed.
Zoe cupped it between two hands and grinned at Pete.
“Let’s take him outside!” He held the kitchen door open for Zoe, and they walked out into the sunshine.
Anne shook her head in wonder and set about putting away the groceries.
Dawn came shuffling into the kitchen, all wrapped up in her robe and slippers. The noonday sun beat down just outside the door, but Dawn was bundled up like it was a cold winter day. It was as if an insufferable chill had settled into her bones despite the summer heat.
“Good morning,” Anne said. “Can I make you something to eat?”
Dawn shook her head. “Coffee,” she croaked.
“Go sit in the sun. I’ll bring you a cup.”
Her mother shuffled quietly outside, which only made her more worried.
Where was the woman who would cook three meals from scratch for a dozen people every day, all with a baby on her hip?
The indomitable protector who stood strong against the dangerous men who sometimes came in search of the families that had fled from them?
Where was the mother who had raised six strong women and cared for hundreds of foster children?
Buried along with her husband, it seemed.