Page 11 of Big Island Sunrise
Emma
“We’re stayinghere?” Kai’s face pinched together with distress as he peered through the chain-link fence. They couldn’t see much; an overgrown jungle of tropical plants hid the Kealoha house from the street.
“Yep, this is it,” Emma told him. “Grandpa John’s place.”
“He’s dead,” Kai said in a flat voice.
She took a deep breath and confirmed, “Yeah.”
“Like Daddy.” He pulled at the vines that wound through the fence.
Her voice failed her. She put a hand on his shoulder and looked around for the neighbor who was supposed to meet them with the keys.
The air was thick and humid, noisy with roosters and music. The dogs next door ran at the fence and barked. They seemed more excited than territorial, but she didn’t love that there was nothing but a flimsy fence between them and her little boy.
Ever since Adam’s death, a suffocating fear had grown in her chest. Losing her husband was more than she could reasonably bear, but losing her son would literally kill her.
There were nights that she could only sleep with one arm over him. In her dreams, the hand that rested above his chest clutched an outward-facing dagger. Shadowy specters loomed in her nightmares, waiting to take him from her the moment she dropped her guard.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
Emma flinched in surprise, her mind lurching back to the present moment.
She hardly remembered how to inhabit her own body anymore. And she hated that.
“Here I come.” The next-door neighbor squeezed through her front gate, leaving an entourage of disappointed dogs and goats and geese behind. “I’ve been using the gate key every day, but the house key took me a while to find. Sorry. I’m Tara.”
“Emma.” She shook the hand that the neighbor offered. They were the same height, taller than most women.
Tara’s dark blond hair was pulled back into a messy bun. She wore an oversized t-shirt and dirty jeans, and she shone in the way a person does when their life is overflowing with love.
She paused at the gate, sorting through a key ring in search of the one she needed.
Two little redheads came creeping along the fence behind her, hand in hand like horror movie twins. Their round, freckled faces regarded Kai with identical curiosity.
“This is Kai,” Emma told them. Her son hadn’t noticed the other kids yet; he was still peering through the gate.
“Is there a house?” he asked.
Tara laughed. “Yes, there’s a house. Let’s go take a look.” She turned and gave her girls a wry smile when she saw that they had followed her over. “Did you close the gate?”
“Yes,” one said with emphasis. The other just rolled her eyes. They were older than Kai, maybe nine.
“This is Piper and Paige. I have one more, but he’s in class right now. Online.”
“Cody’ssixteen,” said one of the twins.
“Piper, would you grab Myrtle?”
A pale gray hen was trying to escape through the narrow opening as Tara opened the front gate. Tara’s daughter swooped in and scooped her up, cradling the ball of feathers to her chest like a baby while Kai looked on in awe.
“Always that same one, I swear,” Tara muttered. She had been taking care of John’s animals for weeks, despite having her own menagerie to maintain next door. “Is this all of your bags?”
“This is it.” Emma lifted a carry-on bag in each hand, and Tara hefted the one bigger bag that she had packed.
“John had a good setup,” Tara said as she led them through.
Her other daughter came through last and latched the gate securely behind them.
