Page 17 of Big Island Sunrise
There were tchotchkes everywhere, magnets from various states all over the fridge, so many plastic cups and bowls and commemorative mugs that they spilled out of the cupboards and onto the counters. A lot of junk that John’s girlfriend hadn’t bothered to take with her.
That seemed as good a place to start as any.
She knew from her many summers on the island that each of the transfer stations where people took their trash also had donation bins and areas where everything worth saving was sold off at a bargain. And so, starting with the kitchen, she began collecting all of the clutter and piling it into the back of her car.
That was the easiest place to start, because there was nothing in there of obvious sentimental value. She collected dozens of mugs and bowls and piles of mismatched silverware and put them all into bags and boxes. She cleared most of the magnets off of the old refrigerator and then began going through the food. Most of it needed to be thrown away, but there were also large amounts of canned food and other salvageable things that she could drop off at the nearest food bank.
She followed this decluttering of the kitchen with a deep clean. The whole process ate up half of the day and left her with a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. One room down. One place in the house that she could use every day without feeling crowded out and overwhelmed.
She checked on Kai through the fence and saw him feasting on a platter of homegrown fruits and vegetables that Tara had put out. It was mostly stuff that he would have refused to touch at home, but between the hunger-inducing exercise of a morning on the trampoline and the fact that the twins were happily eating their fruits of their mother’s labor, Kai was content to snack on carrots and starfruit.
Emma went back inside and looked around, wondering what to tackle next. She walked to the back of the living room, to shelves with a sparse smattering of pictures, gap-toothed from all of the photos that John’s girlfriend had taken with her to Arizona.
All that remained were photos of the Kealohas. Adam was in most of them. She lifted one off the shelf for a closer look at Adam when he was about seven or eight.
He looked just like Kai. Of course, the reverse was true, but that was her first thought anytime she saw an old photo of her husband.
It broke her heart all over again that Kai hadn’t gotten the chance to know his grandfather. Losing John while they were still grieving Adam was an insult on top of a near-fatal injury to their little family.
Emma could feel herself sinking back into that pit where she had lived for months, her energy seeping quickly away.
She turned and marched back outside, determined to escape the rip current of grief.
“What needs doing?” she wondered aloud.
She surveyed the lush green acreage. The grass in the orchard was half as high as the trees. At the rate that this invasive grass grew in Hawai’i, she only had to turn around and the grass and vines would overtake the fruit trees entirely. The jungle was like that, always ready to reclaim its territory at the slightest lapse in attention.
She marched over to the toolshed and surveyed her options with a slight sense of trepidation. She disliked power tools and had an aversion to weed whackers and lawn mowers that bordered on fear. Mostly she found the sound of them overwhelming. But she wasn’t certain of her ability to control them either.
She opted for a hand scythe, a large crescent blade attached to a comfortable handle. So armed, she marched back out to face the overgrown grass. This section was nearly six feet tall, broad blades on round stalks broader than her fingers.
When she grabbed a handful of the huge stalks, pain exploded through her palm and fingers.
She released them with a yelp of surprise. The hand scythe dropped to the ground and disappeared in the tall grass. She examined her left hand and saw that it was full of tiny colorless spines, fierce needles that bit into her skin.
“Cactus grass,” came a voice from nearby.
She looked around and saw a woman regarding her over the overgrown fence line. Not Tara on the right, but the neighbor on the left whom she had yet to meet.
“Cactus grass,” the woman said again when Emma didn’t reply. “Some call it cane grass or elephant grass. Grows a foot a week, easy. You can’t touch it without gloves, and even then it works its way through.”
Still holding her hand palm up as if in supplication, Emma approached the fence.
“You’re the new owner?” the neighbor asked. She was middle-aged with gray hair pulled into a severe bun, and she regarded Emma with equal parts annoyance and amusement.
“Not exactly. John left this property to my son, Kai. His grandson. But he’s only six, so–”
“But you’re the one responsible?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been telling John for years about this fence, but he never did a thing about it. Look at how these vines from your side are bringing it down. It’s useless now. The whole thing has to be replaced.”
Emma stared at her, not quite comprehending. “You want me to fix the fence?”
“I just told you, there’s no fixing it. You’ll have to clear these vines and the crumpled chain-link and start fresh.”
“Right.” Emma’s hand prickled with pain at the slightest movement. The tiny spines seemed to be working their way deeper into her skin. “I’m just gonna go take care of this, if you don’t mind. It was good to meet you.”
