Chapter 16 Oakley
Oakley
“Under!” Hayden shouted as a wall of white water sped towards them.
She and her sister ducked under the wave hand in hand. Oakley watched breathlessly as the wave rolled over them and into her.
Hayden and Harper surfaced, laughing and wiping salt water from their eyes, and Oakley took a breath in. She watched as Hayden towed her little sister out farther, past the breaking waves, to a spot where they could swim over them instead.
“Over!” they shouted together.
Oakley held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun, watching them carefully as they treaded water.
“Let them be,” scolded a familiar voice.
“What?” She turned to look at Anne, who had come to stand next to her. Waves rolled past their legs, and their feet sank deeper into the damp sand.
“You’re hovering.” Anne took her hand and pulled her back towards the umbrella. “They’re not babies anymore. You’re allowed to step away.”
She stood rooted, feet buried beneath the sand, and watched another wall of churning white water crash into her girls. They went tumbling backward, then popped up laughing and charged forward again. Pete passed Hayden his bodyboard, and Mia grabbed Harper’s hand.
“They won’t drown,” Anne said wryly. “I promise.”
Oakley looked at the lifeguard for a moment, glanced back at her girls, and finally allowed Anne to drag her up the beach.
They had grabbed a good spot that morning, a clean bay of white sand sheltered by black lava rock. There was no one sitting right on top of them and – most importantly – they had a clear view of the kids.
“Have you even eaten today?” Anne asked as they settled onto an oversized beach towel in the shade of the umbrella.
“Not yet.” Oakley shifted slightly so that she was looking straight at her girls.
“You shouldn’t skip meals like that.”
“It’s called intermittent fasting.”
“Just because it’s trendy to starve yourself doesn’t mean that you should.”
“Word,” Laurie agreed, peering at them over her book. She pushed a lunchbox towards Oakley. “I made egg musubis.”
“She put this spicy mayo between the egg and the rice,” Anne said. “You’ve gotta try it. It’s so ono.”
“Okay, okay.”
Oakley picked up a seaweed-wrapped musubi and took a bite. The creamy sauce complimented the sweet-tart sushi rice perfectly, and her stomach rumbled with appreciation.
“Ono.” She signed delicious with her free hand. “Thanks.”
Laurie nodded and went back to her book.
“Claire!” Anne waved her daughter over. “Come eat!”
The fourteen year old was decked out in a long-sleeve swimsuit and thick white sunscreen. A mask and snorkel hung around her neck, and a pair of fins dangled from one hand. She dropped into the shade, dripping saltwater and grinning.
“Thanks!” She grabbed a musubi. “I’m starved.”
“How was it?” asked Anne.
“Fun! Not a whole lot to see, but it’s good just to be in the water.”
“Did you see any fish?”
“I saw a parrotfish, I think. It was chewing on the coral. I could hear it munching.”
“Very cool.”
Claire took a huge bite of the musubi and watched her cousins playing in the not-so-pacific ocean. Her gray eyes went wide when Pete went tumbling heels over head in a massive wave. Then she laughed when he stood and shook his sandy blonde hair out like a dog.
She shoved the rest of the mutsubi into her mouth, washed it down with a swig of water, and stood.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Oakley asked.
“To swim with the kids.”
“You have to wait ten minutes after eating.”
“That’s not a real thing.” Claire turned and sprinted into the waves.
“Teenagers,” Anne said with a lopsided grin.
Oakley shook her head. “No. Nope. Nuh-uh. Mine will be perfect forever.”
Anne laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Hey!” She waved her hand at Laurie, pulling her back out of her book. “I’m telling Anne that I refuse to resign myself to terrible teen years. Our girls will be perfect angels forever, right?”
Sure, Laurie signed with a twinkle of mischief in her eye.
“Claire’s still a perfect angel,” said Anne in a voice that lacked conviction. “Just… a willful one.”
“How’s it going with the rooms?” Laurie closed her book and sat up.
“Good!” Anne said and signed. “We have one five-star review already. Our first guests were this really sweet older couple. There’s a whole extended family there right now; they booked all four rooms at once.
The nice thing about Hawaii is that the guests are hardly even there.
I give them an early breakfast, and then they’re off adventuring. They come back after dinner and crash.”
“Easy money.”
“Here’s hoping. We’ve got a lot of bookings already.”
“How’s Mom?” Oakley asked.
“She’s doing better! She joined everybody for an early breakfast this morning. Just ate some papaya, but there’s something about having new people around. It’s helping her get back into a healthy rhythm, I think.”
“That’s good. I was getting really worried about her.”
“Processing grief takes time,” said Laurie.
Oakley was quiet for a moment, looking at her little sister.
She’d driven up to Hawi to pick her up that morning at first light, before Chris even left for work.
Laurie and Mia were sitting out on the front steps when she arrived.
There was a miasma hanging over that place that she couldn’t quite put words to…
but they’d jumped into the car like they couldn’t get away from that house quick enough.
“Is everything okay at home?” she asked.
Laurie’s face went flat, immediately defensive. She looked back at her book, but Oakley flapped her hand until Laurie looked up again.
“Have you and Chris been fighting?”
“We don’t fight.”
“Laurie, I–”
“I’m fine.” Laurie accentuated the words with sharp, pointed signs.
“Chris seemed really angry when he picked you up the other day,” Anne said, signing along with motions that were soft and deferent.
“That was my fault. I left my phone charging and forgot to check it. And I forgot to check in to tell him that we got there okay. He was just worried.”
Oakley frowned and asked, “At what point does worry cross the line into coercive control?”
“Stop picking on me! You think I can’t manage my own life?”
“We’re not picking on you!”
“We’re worried about you,” Anne added.
“Worry about your own lives!” Laurie narrowed her eyes and glared at Oakley. “How’s Trent?”
Oakley pulled her head back in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t even seen him since Christmas.”
“He’s been busy with work.”
“Yeah, okay.” She rolled her eyes, and Oakley’s temper flared.
“What is your problem?”
“You started it! Why would you go throwing stones at my marriage when–”
“Laurie, I’m not throwing stones! Are you kidding me? I asked if you were okay, that’s it! And this? This whole reaction? It’s giving me a resounding no.”
“Sorry we can’t all be perfect like you.” She turned away before Oakley could say anything else. Oakley tried waving and tapping her shoulder, but she pointedly ignored her. She took out her hearing aids, shoved them into her bag, and walked down to the water.
Every man in the vicinity turned to watch her as she strode down the beach. Laurie gave them no notice. She held her head high, eyes focused on the horizon until she dove beneath an oncoming wave.
“What is going on with her?” Oakley burst out.
“That was very… un-Laurie-like,” Anne agreed. She stared after their sister, eyes wide behind her sunglasses.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
Anne gave her a look.
“What?”
“You know what Halia would say.”
Oakley slumped back on the beach towel. “Undoubtedly something wise and measured.”
“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help.”
“What if she needs help?”
“You just… keep the door open. So that she can come to us when she’s ready.”
“Twiddle our thumbs and do nothing, you mean?”
“Show up for her where you can, like picking her up for a beach day.”
“Fat lot of good that did.”
“And stop pushing. It just puts her defenses up.”
“Sometimes people need a little push.”
Anne slid her sunglasses down her nose and gave Oakley a long look. “How are you and Trent doing?”
A harsh sound escaped Oakley’s chest, something between a laugh and a bark of surprise.
“Really, though. Are you okay? Do you need help? Should I sit down with Trent and give him a talking to?”
“Okay.” She held up her hands. “Okay, I take your point.”
“She doesn’t need a rescuer. Just a sister.”
“This sister has a hard time sitting back and doing nothing when someone is hurting.”
“Like it comes so easy to the rest of us?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No, I know. You have a hard time sitting still in general.”
Oakley snorted a laugh. “Thanks.”
The kids devoured a bag of chips, polished off a jug of hibiscus tea, and were back in the water by the time Laurie finally came back from her swim. She squeezed onto the towel in between Oakley and Anne, her arms still cool and beaded with seawater. Rivulets ran down from her thick hair.
“You look like a selkie,” Anne said, finger-spelling the word.
“Nope.” Laurie looked wistfully out at the bright cerulean water. “Just a human.”
Oakley took her sister’s hand and waited for Laurie to look at her before saying, “I’m sorry if I crossed a line before.”
Laurie gave her a crooked smile. “I’m sorry for overreacting.”
They watched as a pair of teenaged girls ran into the surf, each carrying a shortboard. Oakley glanced at her daughters, now building a massive village of sandcastles with their cousins, and then looked back at the girls who were paddling out past the break.
“Can you even remember being that young?” she murmured.
“As young as your daughters or those surfer girls?” Anne asked.
“Either one.”
“Not really.” Anne sighed. “I can remember remembering, if that makes sense.”
Oakley tapped Laurie’s knee and asked, “When’s the last time you went surfing?”
Her laugh was low and warm. “About a million years ago?”
“Same,” she said and signed. “Anne?”
“A million and a half.”
“We should go.”
“Sure,” Laurie said, but her eyes were sad.
“Really. Let’s make it happen.”
Slowly, hope replaced Laurie’s look of resignation.
OK, she signed.
“Anne?” Oakley asked. “You in?”
“Surf trip?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Anne grinned, suddenly looking more like a surfer girl than a middle-aged mother of three. “Let’s make it happen.”