Chapter 9 Akemi
Akemi
There were countless magical spots on the Big Island, but Honoli‘i in particular was an enduring family favorite. And now, with Laurie and Oakley living up north, it was a good meeting point between Waimea and Pualena.
Parking could be problematic, with dozens of cars squeezed into a bend of the narrow road that ran along the cliffs, but that meant that the beach was never overcrowded. It was a local spot that was much more peaceful than the popular Kona beaches or Hilo’s bayfront parks.
The view from the street was magnificent; it overlooked a vast expanse of ocean that stretched from the small green park far below out to the distant horizon.
Waves rolled ever inward, breaking in a spot that was popular with local surfers.
They dotted the water that afternoon; Akemi could see thirty or more from where she stood at the edge of the street.
A long set of stairs led from the cliffs down to the black sand beach, which was nestled between the river and the sea. They hiked all the way down the beach, feet sinking into the sand, and set up camp at the far end.
Oakley had claimed the last bit of beach, the spot just before the black sand gave way to the smooth gray stones that lined the river – the Honoli‘i Stream, technically, but Akemi had always thought that name felt too small for the voluminous river mouth.
The river paused there beneath the high concrete bridge, creating a crystal-clear pool that was deep and still. Off to the right, all the way against the cliffs that marked the end of the beach, it continued towards the sea with a sudden burst of speed that kids loved to ride.
They had managed to get all five sisters to the beach at once, which felt like an accomplishment.
Oakley was off with the kids, Halia was working her way through a stack of documents, and Laurie had her nose in a book – but just having all four sisters in her sights gave Akemi a profound sense of security and peace.
She dug out a hollow for her growing belly and lay down in the sunshine – no towel, just straight down on the sand. This late in the day, it wasn’t hot enough to burn her skin. It was more like snuggling onto an enormous heating pad. The sun soaked into the backs of her legs and warmed her toes.
Akemi pressed her hand into the sand, feeling the coarse grains move and shift beneath her palm.
Then she picked her hand up again and examined it.
The black sand – tiny pieces of lava rock – was dotted with bits of sea glass.
She turned her hand slowly one way and then the other, watching the specks of green and amber flash in the sunlight.
Sweat dripped from her skin, and she was seized with a sudden concern for her baby. Saunas and hot baths were contraindicated in pregnancy, weren’t they? How hot was too hot?
She stood, bringing a layer of sand up with her. Her belly, subtly rounded with a growing baby, was covered in a layer of charcoal-colored sand. Specks of sea glass glittered amidst the black sand like stars in the night sky.
Still sweating, she quickly picked her way across the rocky beach and dove into the river.
Cold water overtook her in a sudden rush.
She swam along the bottom for a moment, then surfaced and took a breath.
Treading water, she scrubbed the sand from her skin before clambering back up the steep rocky bank.
A sudden movement made her pause. There had been a flip in her belly, like two tiny organs trading places. She placed a hand over her belly and waited for the baby to move again, but he was still. Maybe he had just turned over in his sleep.
“Hello,” she whispered.
Her first coherent thought was of Lorenzo. She wanted to share this moment with him. But her phone was in the car – and anyway, it was two or three in the morning over in Italy.
Akemi felt a strange wash of guilt and grief, as if he had missed a milestone. But that was silly; it would be a long time before anyone else would be able to put their hand on her belly to feel a kick or an elbow.
Bizarre, to think of a whole little skeleton growing inside of her.
She stood there for a long time, feet balanced on two large stones, all of her attention inward. But there was still no movement, so she crossed the beach to rejoin her sisters.
Laurie lay in cobra pose on an oversized beach towel, soaking up the sun and reading; she was halfway through some massive tome.
Akemi’s earliest memory was of Laurie, only five or six years old herself, reading The Secret Garden out loud to Akemi in the room that they shared.
Laurie hardly spoke at all, that first year in foster care – but when no one else was around, she would talk to Akemi. Most days, she would read to her too.
Claire was huddled beneath the beach umbrella, tapping away at her phone.
“Who are you texting?” Akemi dropped into the shade next to her, letting her legs splay out onto the sun-baked sand.
“I’m trying to text my boyfriend, but the service keeps going out.”
“Ah, the trials and tribulations of the American teenager.”
Claire glared at her, which at least involved looking away from her screen.
Akemi grinned. “What’s he like, this boyfriend?”
He’s seventeen, Anne signed behind Claire’s back. Her gray eyes went comically wide in an expression of horror.
“He’s a tool,” Pete said at the same time.
Akemi quickly turned her laugh into a cough.
“Shut up!” Claire hurled a lychee at her brother’s head.
He caught it and tossed it back at her.
“Those are expensive!” Anne scolded, snatching the bag away from them.
“So basically he’s great,” Akemi deadpanned. “Everyone loves him.”
“He is great,” Claire snapped. She pulled back her hand like she was going to chuck the lychee – its red shell now cracked and leaking fragrant juice – at Pete again. Then she peeled it and popped the white fruit into her mouth instead.
Pete rolled his eyes and splashed back into the river with his cousins.
“He’s in a band,” Claire said quietly. “My boyfriend.”
“What’s he play?” Akemi asked.
“Viola. But it’s cool,” she added quickly. “Like fiddle, but more modern folk.”
“Very cool.”
Claire held her phone up and turned her body this way and that, trying to find a single bar of service. Then she dropped her arm with a sigh.
“I’m going up to the top of the stairs,” she said, making the short walk sound like the height of inconvenience. She crammed a huge sunhat on over her fire-red hair and trudged up the beach.
“What have you got against the viola player?” Akemi asked when Claire was halfway to the stairs.
“He’s a senior in high school.” Anne’s hand moved in an agitated way as she rubbed fresh sunscreen onto her freckled white legs. “Or he will be in a few months”
“Horror of horrors.”
“He’s nearly four years older than her.”
“High treason.”
“That’s fine, make fun of me. We’ll just see how you take it when your baby starts dating.”
“My baby is the size of a mountain apple, so I’d say I’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”
“It goes quicker than you’d think.”
“What if Mr. Viola’s a genuinely good guy?”
“Noah’s a good guy,” Anne said, her voice barely audible. “Look where that got me.”
“It got you Zoe,” Akemi said without thinking.
Anne shot her a look that was half acid, half plea. “It got me an impossible choice, is what. And a lifetime of regret over how I handled it all. But we’re not allowed to regret choices that result in people.”
“Do you regret becoming a mother?” Akemi asked quietly.
“I love my kids, Kemi.”
“I know you do.”
“I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But the circumstances, the harm done to them…
that’s what I regret.” Anne sighed. “All of my children are the result of poor decisions. The wrong time, or the wrong man. I can’t regret it, because if I had chosen differently, my kids wouldn’t be here.
But it’s been so painful, Kemi. It still is. I don’t want that for Claire.”
Akemi was quiet for a while. Finally she said, “Seems to me like a boyfriend who lives over two thousand miles away is more of a solution than a problem.”
“Sure, until they come crashing back together again.”
“Man. You’re really catastrophising over there, huh?”
Anne laughed, but even that sound carried stress.
“You have to let them make their own mistakes,” Akemi said.
“Second trimester and already a parenting expert, huh?”
Halia glanced up from her paperwork to give Anne a look.
“Sorry.” Anne wrinkled her nose and slumped backwards, bracing herself with two elbows in the sand.
Claire came stomping back across the beach and retreated into the shade. After a moment, she burst out, “There’s not even a signal up on the cliffs!”
Halia patted her shoulder without looking up from her paperwork.
Akemi let her sulk. Later, when the sun retreated to the west and they built a fire by the river, she would try to coax her niece out of her head.
If she succeeded in getting her out from under cover right now, that would only result in a sunburn, and the poor kid was still peeling from her last bout of Hawaiian sunshine.
There was no way that Akemi was taking responsibility for that.
That was the scariest part of motherhood. Taking responsibility for a whole life.
She felt confident in her ability to care for a baby. Feed when hungry, clean when dirty. Simple enough. She had helped her parents to care for plenty of babies over the years, including newborns who’d come to them straight from the hospital.
But being responsible for every decision that would shape their childhood and their life? Now that was scary.
She disagreed (albeit silently, most of the time) with many of the decisions that her sisters made on behalf of their children.
Of course, Oakley had been quick to communicate her disapproval of Akemi’s travel plans.
Maybe all of them thought that she was naive and foolish – as if there weren’t a thousand different worlds out there with women mothering in a million different ways.
It felt as though they would always think of her as the baby of the family. Laughable, when she was old enough to officially make this a geriatric pregnancy. Somehow she felt too young and too old to have a baby, both at the same time.
And in spite of all her fears and reservations, she loved her baby fiercely. Already. Sight unseen.
“Auntie?” Harper crash landed in the sand beside her. “Will you hunt for sea glass with me?”
Akemi stretched and looked around, wondering where Harper’s playmates had gone. Hayden was down the beach with Oakley, swimming in the big waves. Pete and Mia were down near the river, deep in conversation as they stacked careful towers of river stones.
She looked back at eight-year-old Harper. River water dripped from her dark hair, and her brown eyes were wide in a silent plea for attention.
Akemi smiled. “Sure.”
They walked to the river mouth and picked their way slowly along the edge, hunting for bits of color amidst the black and gray. This beach in particular was a treasure trove; any handful of sand taken from the water’s edge was almost certain to contain at least one piece of water-smoothed glass.
Before long, they had amassed a pile of color. Brown and clear and green, mostly, but a good amount of blue as well, and bits of golden amber.
They smoothed out a patch of black sand and created a mandala, working their way out from a polished white scrap of dishware that Harper had placed in the center.
She wandered off after a while, but Akemi kept working. There was something deeply peaceful about the process of creating the mandala. She loved sitting there in the warm sand, placing the bits of glass, letting her mind rest in the present moment instead of spiraling off towards the future.
“Can we start the fire now?” Pete asked.
Akemi blinked herself out of her meditative trance and looked at her nephew, then up at the sky. It was still full daylight, but the shade from the cliffs was gaining ground. Soon the sun would drop behind the mountain, and a sudden chill would overtake the beach.
“Did you gather enough driftwood?” she asked.
“We have a big pile, look!” He pointed to a spot where they had gathered a sizable stack of sun-dried wood.
“Okay, lets do it. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you over there.”
She grabbed her phone and snapped a picture of the mandala before the tide came to wash it away. Then she dove into the river one last time, washed the sand off of her body, and pulled a dress on over her swimsuit.
The kids had already dug out a pit in the sand and placed a circle of stones around it.
With help and supervision from their aunties, they had a crackling fire going by the time the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped.
It was big enough to warm all of them: the five Aloha sisters and the five children too.
Wordlessly, Halia produced a bag of marshmallows. A cheer went up from the kids. Oakley wrinkled her nose, probably at the grocery-store brand and its questionable ingredients, but she managed to keep her mouth shut.
The kids went hunting again, this time for sticks narrow enough to use for roasting marshmallows. Then it was just the five sisters, warm firelight on their face amidst the twilight gloom of the deserted beach.
Akemi felt a wonderful sense of peace… which was then punctured by a sudden realization. She wanted to stay right where she was. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t looking forward to her upcoming travels.
She didn’t want to leave.