Page 24 of Big Island Sunrise
Best of all, Kai was coming alive again too. She felt immense guilt that caring for her son hadn’t been enough to pull her out of her deep depression, but they had been stuck in the same hole. And then Hawai’i had lowered down a sturdy vine and made it possible for them to climb out.
They were still climbing. But that in itself was something.
Beside her, Kai stirred.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asked sleepily.
“French toast?” she suggested.
“Okay,” he yawned.
“Ready for an egg hunt?”
He sat up all the way. “Yeah!”
“Okay. You go round up some eggs, and I’ll pick oranges for juice.”
“Ready, go!” He jumped up and raced off, already familiar with the hens’ favorite spots.
Emma walked barefoot across the wet lawn to an orange tree that was heavy with fruit. They were still mostly green, but she had learned that the oranges here rarely turned orange, at least on the outside. Something to do with the temperatures never dipping low enough to trigger a change. Inside, though, they were as sweet and juicy as anything.
Kai was already in the kitchen when she got back.
And so was Myrtle.
“Kai, no. I told you, no chickens in the house.”
“But Mom!” He scooped the fluffy gray chicken up off of the floor. “Ihadto let her in. One of the roosters kept jumping on her.”
She passed a hand over her eyes. “Be that as it may, she belongs outside.”
“You’re so mean!” Kai stomped his foot, and Myrtle squirmed in his arms.
Emma opened the kitchen door, and he carried Myrtle outside. She tried to run right back in, but Emma blocked her and steered her back out with a gentle foot.
“Go on. Go find some nice juicy worms.” She closed the door, and Kai glared up at her. “What?”
He stomped back to the kitchen table and started candling the eggs that he’d collected. It wasn’t really necessary, since he collected fresh eggs from the same spots each day, but he loved passing each egg over the flashlight. And ever since the twins had shown him a half-developed egg, he had to make sure that there were no babies in the pastel rainbow of chicken eggs that he gathered each day.
She walked over and rubbed his back. “Ready for French toast?”
“I guess.”
“Do you want to help me?”
“Okay.” He looked up at her, grumpiness receding. “You break them, and I’ll stir.”
“Deal.”
They set about making breakfast together the way that they had so many times before, and a priceless sense of contentment filled her chest.
The grief was still there – and fear too, that this delicate return to normalcy might not last – but those feelings were quieter now. Manageable.
“Myrtle lays blue eyes,” Kai told her as he ate his French toast.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
