Page 2 of Big Island Sunrise
“Two minutes, Rory,” Mahina said from up front. “Can you hold it?”
“Okay.” Her perfect little face pulled together with determination.
“What sort of name is Rory anyway?” an old auntie asked from the front seat. Lani was too embarrassed to admit that she didn’t remember her name. She wasn’t even a hundred percent sure of who she was, though she was thinking it must be Mahina’s mother-in-law. “It sounds like a mouthful of peanut butter.”
“Mom!” Mahina admonished. “It does not.”
“Her full name is Aurora,” Lani explained, holding her daughter’s hand. “For the northern lights.”
Aurora Borealis – it had felt like the perfect name at that moment, caught up in the lovestruck haze of holding her baby girl for the first time. All through her labor, lime green and amethyst lights had danced just outside the window.
In retrospect, the name was overkill. But Rory suited her well enough.
“Well I guess that’s pretty. At least it means something. A name should mean something.”
After a quick bathroom stop and a few trips down a hot plastic side, they were on the road again. Lani and Rory would be staying with Mahina until they found a place of their own – no small task in Hawai’i, where more and more of the houses were being turned into vacation rentals for tourists. But their extended family was big, and the family’s network of friends and acquaintances was larger still. They would find something eventually.
There were rainbows everywhere – on every license plate, appearing and disappearing in massive double arcs between the shifting clouds. Rory exclaimed over each one, voicing Lani’s newfound awe.
In all her years away, Lani hadn’t let herself think about how much she missed this place. Now that homesickness caught up with her in a mad rush. Her lungs ached with it, desperately missing the place that she was right in the middle of. She breathed steadily and let it wash over her.
She had expected it, this assault of emotion that came with coming home again. It was one reason she had stayed away for so long.
When her parents died, they left behind a gaping hole of grief that made the island uninhabitable. To be there without them was unthinkable.
And yet, here she was. And here was her island, green and gorgeous as ever. And her family, what was left of it, willing and eager to take them in.
The green stretch of highway took them south from Hilo and past the small town of Kea‘au before they finally pulled off the main road and turned towards Pualena.
The town was just as she remembered it, a single commercial road with a handful of restaurants and galleries that catered to locals and tourists who liked to explore off the beaten trail. She caught sight of the Pualena Cafe and her cousin Kekoa’s new shave ice place before the car turned off the main road.
There were cars everywhere when they drove up to the family compound, and Lani braced herself for a mad rush of cousins and neighbors.
Auntie Mahina and her husband Mano had raised their kids there, and two of them still lived on the property. ‘Olena and her daughters lived in the main house with her parents. Kekoa lived towards the back of the lot in the house that he had built himself.
“Hey sis.” Kekoa pulled her into a bear hug as soon as he saw her. “Long time no see.”
“Leilani!” Mano shouldered past his son and lifted her into a hug.
Mahina’s husband was even bigger than his sons, a bear of a man. Never once had Lani heard him raise his voice in anger at his kids or anyone else. He didn’t have to. When Mano spoke, everyone listened.
“Hey Uncle,” she said, hugging him.
“How you doing?” His heavy local accent washed over her, warm and welcome as the ocean breeze. “You still work them cruise ships?”
“She hasn’t been on a ship in years,” ‘Olena told her dad. “Not since her baby was born.”
“Not such a baby anymore! Look at that face, she growing up. You hungry, Rory?”
Rory pressed her face against Lani’s leg, and she gave her uncle an apologetic smile. “She’s shy.”
“Shy’s okay.” He grinned and slapped her on the back. “We glad to have you home.E komo mai.”
Beyond the nucleus of her family, dozens of others were waiting to greet her.
Lani understood her daughter’s overwhelm. She was a grown-up, and even she was wishing that she could just hide her face and wait for the crowd to clear.
She kept up as best as she could, unsure of who half of them were, whether they were second and third cousins or just the kind of ‘cousins’ that had grown up in the neighborhood.
