Page 28 of Big Island Neighbors
Then each huge collard leaf was carefully rinsed to make sure that no tiny slugs had hitched a ride into her kitchen. Or baby lizards, for that matter - that one had been a surprise.
“Here’s your stupid eggs,” Kai muttered as he walked into the kitchen.
“I don’t like that word.” She kept her voice mild. “Anyway, I thought you liked collecting eggs. You said it was like an Easter egg hunt every day.”
“I don’t like it when youtellme to get the eggs.”
She took a slow breath, determined not to be reactive. “Noted. Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving.”
“There’s still some of that yogurt in the fridge.” They had made it themselves, straining goat milk yogurt until it was as thick as Kai liked and then swirling it together with pureed star fruit from a tree in the backyard.
She made her favorite quick and easy meal - glass noodles and collard greens cooked in bone broth - and sat down to eat with him.
Kai was considerably more friendly with a full stomach, and he agreed to a bit of homeschooling in the form of homemadestorybooks. He drew pictures in blank books while she finished her soup, and then they worked together to write the stories page by page.
One step at a time, she thought with warm satisfaction as she cleared the table. One step, one meal, one moment of connection. That was how they would find their way.
“Mom!” Kai shouted from outside. “The pond man is here!”
“That’s Mr. Summers,” she told him as she stepped out onto the front porch.
“Liam is fine,” the man said. “Though, for the record, I also like ‘the pond man’.”
“Thank you so much for coming. I didn’t know where to start on the pond, or even where to put it.”
“Happy to help. Why don’t we take a walk around and see what you’ve got to work with?”
“Sure.”
“I seem to remember you had a couple spots near the back of the lot that could work. Let’s go poke around in the weeds a bit and see what we can find.”
They walked back to the overgrown pasture behind the orchard, and Liam completely disappeared into a vast patch of ten-foot weeds. He was down there for a while; the occasional glimpses that Emma got of his head down through the rustling grass made it clear that there was a serious dip in the land there, disguised by the thick vegetation.
He clambered back up out of the weeds and said, “This is the spot. If you’re willing to clear out all this brush, you’ve got the perfect depression here already.”
“We can do that. Tara’s son just offered to cut cane grass for us. I bet he’ll clear this out if I ask. For pay, of course.”
“Cody’s a good kid.”
“Have you known him long?”
“All his life. Or near enough.”
She looked back at the overgrown space between the orchard and the fenceline. “Is this area big enough for a pond?”
“Plenty. It’s bigger than it looks, just overgrown. This whole neighborhood is mostly rock, so it’s not like you can just dig a pond out by hand. Some people use jackhammers, but you’ve got this nice low area here already. It’s got a good shallow slope at the edges, and then most of it will be about three or four feet deep.” He moved his hand in a flat line, showing where the surface of the pond would be. “Can you see it?”
“Yeah.”
“Your best bet would be to clear the ground as much as you can, put a liner down, and voila. Duck pond.”
“Just like that?”
“You’ll want to stock it. I can give you some mosquito eaters and water plants to get started.”
“Thank you.”
