Page 48 of Big Island Sunrise
“I have no idea. I’m still in survival mode. I mean, I have everything that I need. I’m so lucky in that way. I can’t imagine struggling to pay the bills at the same time as I’m navigating this kind of grief.” She paused, thinking. “Or, I don’t know, maybe that would have helped. Having work to do here, just the daily tasks that have to get done like milking the goats and all of that, it does seem to help. It gets me past that crippling inertia that pinned me down at home.
“I still wake up feeling that same crippling grief and anxiety, and I lay in bed thinking that I don’t want to be here. Honestly, the only thing that kept me here once Adam was gone was knowing that I had to keep going for Kai. But now, it only takes me a minute to pull myself up out of that and step out into the sunlight and go milk those damn goats. I don’t think that I could have gotten so far so quickly without that immediate driver of another being needing me. Which sounds terrible, because obviously Kai needed me. And of course I kept him fed and everything. But what he needed was more than I could give. And what this place asks of me is just right. It keeps me moving.”
“So are you going to stay?”
The question surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. Part of the medicine in this place was the opportunity to exist in the present, a string of moments, without worrying too much about the future. The idea had always been to come for a short stay and set things to rights. But now that she was here, she had zero desire to book that flight home.
“My family is still asking me every day when I’ll be back. I can’t stay forever. We have our house there, and I have a nephew arriving any day. But I think we’ll stay for a while. I’m not in a hurry to find someone to rent or run the place, which was the original plan. Of course, it’s yours if you want it.”
Lani rocked backwards in surprise.
“Legally it’s Kai’s when he turns eighteen, but that’s a long way off. We’ll need a caretaker. You don’t have to decide now, but if you do want to stay in the area, you’re welcome to it.”
“This place means a lot to me,” Lani said, her voice hoarse. “I would love to stay here.”
“We can fix up both of the houses,” Emma told her, thinking out loud, “and maybe rent out one or the other. Vacation rental, maybe… or maybe not. Even renting to a local family should be more than enough to pay for property taxes and maintenance. But that’s all a ways away.”
“I’m not sure that I could manage it all on my own. Working and taking care of Rory, plus the goats and all? Keeping the jungle from taking over? It’s a lot.”
“It is.” Emma smiled broadly, though she couldn’t have said what it was about this mess that so delighted her.
She leaned back and sipped the delicious tea that Lani had made. It made her think of her big sister, both the homegrown tea and the comfortable silence. Themamakitasted similar to the nettle that Toni used as a base in so many of her mixes. She loved her sister’s blends, but this simple pairing fresh from their own backyard was something else entirely.
“Anyway,” Lani said after a while, “I like having you here.”
“Ditto.” Emma took a deep breath of the warm, bright lemongrass steam. “Kai and I will be here for a while yet. For right now, this is where we need to be.”
15
Lani
Hurricane it was not, but the storm did some damage.
The ground was littered with broken branches, and there were huge damp spots on the ceiling. The roof was off of the hen house, but the chickens had gotten through just fine. They’d sheltered in the huge banyan tree near the back of the property, a monster of a thing so thick and wide that the ground around its twisting trunk was barely damp.
Puddles the size of ponds were quickly shrinking as the rainwater filtered through the thin soil and sank into the volcanic rock below.
In the meantime, the ducks were having the time of their life in one particularly deep bit of flooded yard, and the kids were shrieking with laughter as they ran through the puddles.
The day had barely started, and already the sun was breaking through the clouds. A vibrant rainbow arced over the farm and disappeared into the ohia forest beyond.
“Have you seen Dio?” Emma had gone full farmer in rain boots and coveralls. “I think he got out again. I thought that I had found all of the holes in the fence line, but I must have missed at least one.”
“He jumped!” Rory landed in a nearby puddle with a great splash, spraying them both.
“Who jumped?” Lani asked.
“Dio did!” She pointed to a section of fencing that had been brought low by a thick mat of weedy vines. “He jumped right there!”
Emma made a frustrated sound. “That’s where the goats got over. I should have realized that he could jump it too.”
“Rory,” Lani said, “you have to tell me or Auntie if you see any of the animals get out like that.”
She stomped her foot with a splash. “I did tell you!”
“You have to tell us right away.”
She shrugged, unrepentant. “I forgot.”
