Chapter 13 Anne
Anne
“Eureka!”
Anne shifted sand toys and plastic boxes to one side, freeing her dad’s old power washer. She had come back from the hardware store ready to paint and then realized that the house needed some serious cleaning up before she got started.
Luckily the place already had everything that she needed, from the power washer to ladders and paint rollers. The only thing she’d had to buy was the paint, and those easily fit into the space she had left on her credit cards.
Anne had a whole collection of cards that she had gotten for the bonus points, which had made it possible for her and the kids to fly to Hawaii and back for free multiple times each year.
She’d always paid them off in full, every month, and they had provided a much-needed cushion when divorce ate up all of her assets and legal fees ate up all of her savings.
She would be able to cover the rest of the basics that she needed to get up and running… but after that, she needed money coming in quick. The possibility of those high credit card interest rates compounding the debt that she’d already accrued was nauseating.
“Whatcha doin’?” Pete asked as she pulled the power washer around front.
“I’m going to clean the house so that we can paint it.”
“Cool! Can I help?”
“I don’t see why not. Grab that orange extension cord there. Let’s get this thing plugged in.”
It was a clunky old machine, but it worked just fine. Pete had a blast attacking the dirt and grime with an industrial-strength watergun.
“Hey Claire!” He paused when his sister came around the corner. “Do you want a turn?”
“What are you doing?”
“Painting the house!”
“With that thing?”
“I’m washing it and then I’m painting it.”
“Right.” She cast a dubious look at the wall, where water dripped in streaks of gray grime.
“Did you need something?” Anne asked.
“I need to know what day we’re going back.”
Anne took a breath, gathering her patience.
Meanwhile, Claire’s patience snapped immediately.
“We can’t just stay forever! What about school?”
“We can look into some online programs–” Anne started.
“No. I’m going to La Jolla High.” She crossed her arms. “School starts August eleventh.”
“Claire–”
“If you want to stay here, fine. I’ll just move in with dad.” She turned on her heel, red hair flying, and made her dramatic exit.
“Claire!” Pete dropped the power washer and ran after her. “Claire, you can’t go!”
Anne considered going after them, but she didn’t know what to say. She stood there for a moment, frozen with indecision. Then she sighed and picked up the trigger gun of the power washer.
As far as she knew, her ex-husband hadn’t called the kids once since they’d left. They had squabbled over a number of things throughout the process of their divorce, but custody wasn’t one of them.
She had agreed to forgo any right to child support or alimony, and in exchange he had signed full custody over to her like a man unburdening himself of unwanted baggage. It had been a relief, but it would also be a terrible blow to the kids… when they eventually found out about it.
The man was sponging off of his new girlfriend. Anne was sure that Claire hadn’t run this new plan of hers by her father; it was an empty threat, a flailing attempt to exercise control over her own life.
Anne was frustrated with the situation more than with Claire.
Of course her teenage daughter wanted to know where they would be living in August. So did she.
She put her energy into the house.
The sun dried everything so quickly that by the time she was done with the final wall, the front was bone dry. She sanded a few spots that needed it, went around with the pressure washer one last time, and then hauled the paint over from the car.
After running a few options past her mother and getting no real response, she had gotten a basic white exterior paint. It might not stay pristine for long, but she wanted something that gleamed in the pictures that she would post advertising the rooms for rent.
The place just needed to shine through summer… and then Anne would figure something else out, and Dawn could have the place painted whatever color she liked.
Claire came back outside as Anne was opening up a can of paint. Pete trailed behind her, red-eyed and forlorn.
“I don’t really want to live with Dad,” Claire said. Pete hugged her waist, and she put an arm around his shoulders. “But I don’t want to live here either.”
“How about we take things as they come?” Anne said. “I know the uncertainty isn’t easy. But until we get some money coming in, here is our only option.”
“Okay,” Claire said quietly.
“We’re lucky to have a family home to come to.”
“I know.” She had been to A Place of Refuge – Halia’s shelter for women and children – plenty of times growing up. She and Pete had heard the other kids’ stories of living in cars and tents and moldy old shacks. They’d seen what happened to people who had no one to turn to.
“Did I ever tell you the story of how your grandma and I came to live at the Kalama place?” Anne knew that she hadn’t; she had been waiting for them to be old enough to understand the family’s complicated origin story. Now both of her children looked at her with expectant eyes.
“Weren’t you born here?” Claire asked.
“Sure was. Right there in the back bedroom.” The house was smaller then; it hadn’t yet gotten the add-ons that would allow for more and more children. “But I came here already in her belly.”
“I don’t get it,” Pete said.
She paused to dip her roller in the paint and asked herself how much of the story she wanted to share with her children – particularly Pete, who was a young and innocent nine.
There were broad, dark swaths of her mother’s upbringing that even she didn’t know about – chapters that Dawn had buried entirely.
“Grandma was living down in Puna with my biological father,” she began.
“Wait,” Pete interrupted, wide-eyed. “Grandpa wasn’t your dad?”
“He was my dad,” Anne said calmly, eyes on her work, “but Grandma was already pregnant with me when she met him.”
“So who’s your real dad?”
“Kimo.” She took a moment to look her son in the eye. “Your grandpa’s the only dad I ever had.”
“Okay,” he said, still looking confused.
“It’s like how Auntie Oakley isn’t Hayden and Harper’s birth mom,” Claire said, “but she’s still their real mom, you know?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I never met my biological father,” Anne said.
“He wasn’t a good guy – or at least, he wasn’t ready to be a dad, or even a partner.
He and Grandma were just a couple of kids, really.
Teenagers.” She paused to sponge up more paint.
“They were living in a shack in the jungle, somewhere down off the red road.”
“So wait.” Claire tilted her head to one side. “How did Grandma and Grandpa meet?”
“Grandma’s boyfriend kicked her out, I think, or things got bad enough that she left.
I’m fuzzy on the details; she doesn’t talk about it much.
Anyway, she went walking up the red road with just the clothes on her back.
Just one of those really hopeless situations that young women can get into down there. ” She trailed off, focused on her work.
“And then what?” Claire pressed.
“Along came Kimo.” Anne shot her a smile as she moved down the wall. “Pick up a brush, would you? Give me a hand with those tricky spots around the windows.”
“Just like… driving down the road?” Claire dabbed a sponge brush in the white paint.
“Exactly. He’s headed to the beach, and he sees this girl walking down the road.”
“Barefoot and pregnant,” Dawn chimed in.
Anne jumped in surprise and turned to see her mother watching them from the lanai. There was a sparkle in Dawn’s eyes that had been absent for a long time.
“Belly out to here,” she added, gesturing in front of her. “I was walking to a friend’s house a few miles down the road. I didn’t have any plans past that – it wasn’t even a good friend I was looking for, just someone I knew who lived close. Anyway, this guy stopped to ask me if I was okay.
“Not like that,” she said, interrupting herself. She walked down the steps and took the brush from Pete’s hand to demonstrate. “Like this, so it doesn’t drip.”
“And the guy was Grandpa?” Pete prompted.
“He was so handsome,” Dawn said dreamily.
“Golden skin, thick black hair, and the most mesmerizing clear brown eyes. He was headed to meet some friends at the hot ponds, but he saw me walking alone and stopped to ask if I was okay. I said I was fine, but he offered to give me a lift wherever I was going.”
“And you went with him?” Claire asked.
“Heck no!” Dawn laughed. “I’d lived enough by then to be cautious of strange men.”
“So what happened?”
“He drove alongside me for two miles, just crawling along. Told me he wouldn’t leave until I got safe where I was going. And we chatted through the window. He told me about his family, about Pualena, about working in construction.”
“And then what?” Claire pressed when Dawn trailed off.
“He won out in the end,” Dawn said with a grin. “The day just kept getting hotter, and my feet were killing me. And my gut said that this guy was okay, that he was safe. So I gave up and got in the car.”
“Did he drive you to your friend’s house?”
“He did. And after all that, there was no one home. It wasn’t a solid plan, really. I didn’t have a plan. I just headed to the closest place I could.
“Anyway, when there was no one home, he asked if I had a place to sleep that night. When I didn’t answer, he asked if he could take me here.
To his mother’s house. It was much smaller then, but she had a spare room for foster kids, and there was nobody in it that week.
He said his mother would be happy to let me stay with her until I got back on my feet. ”
“And then what?” Pete asked.
“Then I came home,” she said, looking up at the house. “I met Tutu Kalama, and she gave me a place to stay. Kimo and I were married three months later.”
“He knew the moment he saw her,” Anne remembered. “He always said that the instant he laid eyes on her, way down the road, he felt this sudden certainty that he was going to marry her.”
Tears fell from Dawn’s eyes, but she was smiling.
It was a huge relief to Anne, seeing her mother come back to herself. She set down her paint roller and put both arms around her.
“I’m glad that you’re doing this,” Dawn said, returning the hug. “Your dad would have hated to see the place looking so grungy.”
“Do you want to help us?” Pete offered her a brush.
“Sure.” She smiled at her grandson. “Let’s fix this place up.”