Page 11 of Big Island Horizons
“Look at you go! We’ll make a farmer of you yet.”
“I am an arteest,” Lani said with faux haughtiness. Then she dropped back to her normal voice and said, “But I’ll milk goats and serve up shave ice if it means putting food on the table. I do know how lucky I am.”
“The Kealoha place has been a blessing for all of us, even with all of the work that it takes to maintain it. Especially with the work, actually. It keeps me moving. Is it weird that I miss the goats?”
“A little, yeah.” One of the overgrown babies nibbled at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and she pushed him away with an elbow. She accidently looked him in the eye, which she tried not to do. Their weird horizontal irises still gave her chicken skin. “How’s California?”
“Oh, you know.” Emma’s voice dropped a register, and she sighed.
“I don’t know,” she replied, gently coaxing.
“It’s been hard, being in this house again. Packing up all of Adam’s things. For Kai too, I think. He’s been super volatile, just blowing up over the smallest things. After our time in Hawai’i I thought it would be easier… and I guess it is, a little bit. But a little bit easier is still really, really hard.”
“I’m sorry, Em.”
“I’ll get through it. My siblings have been helping me go through stuff, deciding what to donate and what to store. But every single thing, every shirt of his, every book… it’s like a punch to the gut.
“My brother offered to pack it all up for me the other day after I cried for an hour over a ratty old t-shirt, but I said no. I have to do this myself, decide what to save for Kai and what to let go of.”
“I get it. Going through my mom’s stuff after she died was hell, but sending it all to the transfer station without going through it would have been worse. That’s what I did with my dad’s stuff, and I still regret not hanging onto more. I was still in shock, I think. My mom went slow but my dad was just there one day and gone the next, you know?”
“I know.” Emma’s voice was heavy. Adam’s death had been that sudden.
“I was a mess. Desperate to get away, to throw myself into work and partying and try to escape it all, the grief and the loss. It was smart of you to leave it for a while, until you were stronger.”
“I don’t feel stronger. I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress at all.”
“But you have. And you will. It just takes time.”
“Thanks, Lani. I’ll let you get back to morning chores. I’m almost done here. Tomorrow I start to interview long-term renters.”
“Good luck.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Lani slotted the metal lid onto the milk bucket and walked carefully through the muddy yard. She would have to muck out the goat pen later on and put down some fresh straw. Not her favorite job in the world – she didn’t have quite the same affinity for manure that Emma and Tara did – but when she looked at the gorgeous flowers and monstrous papaya that were fed by the black gold, she did have some appreciation for the stuff.
Back inside, she strained the milk into clean glass jars and set it in the fridge. All but a tall cup for Rory, which she drank warm alongside a piece of sourdough toast. Plain, as was her preference lately, which Lani had a hard time wrapping her head around.
She joined her daughter at the table with a similar breakfast, another cup of chai and a piece of toast, though she put a generous helping of Tara’sliliko’ibutter on hers.
“Is today a school day, Mama?”
“Yeah, baby. We need to leave in about thirty minutes to meet your cousins at the beach.”
“Yay!” Just like that, Rory was fully awake. She bounded out of her chair, leaving behind an empty milk glass and half a piece of toast. “I’m gonna wear my new bathing suit!”
Lani made a mental note to pack extra snacks along with Rory’s lunch for the day. She always worked up a powerful appetite in the water with her cousins.
Lani wished that she could stay at the beach park with her family, but it was another day of selling shave ice for her. Which she should be grateful for, she reminded herself. A job was a job, and making homemade fruit syrups for her cousin’s business was a better job than most.
Still, standing in that tiny building day after day was starting to wear on her. She would love to find a job that she could feel passionate about, but she supposed most people weren’t that lucky.
Everyone around her seemed to have found that, though. Tenn, ‘Olena, Tara, Kekoa… every one of them was running their own business. ‘Olena had encouraged her to sell the coloring books that she made for the kids, but the prospect of trying to sell her art felt overwhelming. She had no idea where to start.
“Mama!” Rory ran in wearing her new swimsuit, shorts and a top both patterned with pineapples. “Aren’t you ready yet?”
Lani laughed and shook her head. “I need a minute.”
