Page 61 of Big Island Sunrise
“He was a good guy. “ He lifted his hand from hers and put a dozen eggs on top of the chicken that she had purchased. Then he added a container of cream cheese. “I never saw him lose his temper. He never snapped at nobody.”
“He was the best,” she said simply. Talking about her husband in the past tense was horribly painful. But not talking about him was worse. “Thank you so much.”
“See you next week.”
“Yeah.” Emma smiled. It was thin-lipped and stiff, but she gave herself an A for effort. “See you.”
She walked to the next stand and Kai followed, dragging his feet.
There was a table at the very end piled high with shining globes so dark purple that they were nearly black.
Emma‘s hand flew to her mouth and she blinked back a sudden sting of tears. She hadn’t seen these fruits in years. They were fairly common on island but only good fresh, and she never saw them for sale in the stores or even at the farmers markets.
“Kai, look at these.”
“What are they?”
“Jaboticaba.”
“Jaboooty what?”
She laughed. “Jaboticaba. It was your dad‘s favorite fruit. Whenever we were on island, he would ask around and we would end up going to some cousin’s house, or the neighbor of a friend. And he would just feast on these.” She caught the eye of the woman running the stand and asked, “Can he try one?”
“Of course. Help yourself.”
Emma plucked a perfect sphere off the top of the pile and handed it to her son.
“Do I have to peel it?” he asked, turning the fruit over in his hand. It was about the size of a golf ball.
“You can, but you don’t have to. Your dad used to pop the whole thing into his mouth. Just take a bite.”
He took a tentative nibble, barely piercing the thick skin, but it was enough for the juice to rush out into his mouth. He slurped out the insides, and Emma could smell the concord-jam sweetness of it. A moment later, there was nothing left but the seed and skin.
“Can I have another one?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Emma bought pounds and pounds of jaboticaba, figuring that whatever they didn’t eat fresh, they could use to make juice or jam. She was already so loaded down that she made Kai carry the bag. With her market basket and backpack both full to the brim, they carried their bounty back to the car.
She drove home and put away the groceries, and then they ate their fill of jaboticaba and festive, spiky red rambutan. By the time they had tossed all the peels in the compost pile and washed the sticky juice from their hands and faces, Lani and Rory were home from the market.
“What do you have planned for today?” Lani asked.
Emma wrinkled her nose. “The market was my big outing for the week.”
“Grocery shopping does not count as an outing.”
She shrugged. “Agree to disagree.”
“There’s plenty of daylight left. Come down to the hot ponds with me.”
That got her attention. “Oh, wow. I haven’t been there in ages. Haven’t even thought about that in years. Didn’t that eruption a few years back destroy the ponds? I remember Adam saying something about that when it was all over the news.”
“It erased some, but it also made new ones. Remember snorkling at Pohoiki?”
“Yeah.” A bittersweet memory flashed through her mind: Adam in all his snorkel gear, grinning like a kid under the bright Hawaiian sun.
“Well the coral’s gone. The lava flow went through there back in eighteen.”
