Page 29 of Big Island Horizons
“Where is she now?” Lani asked. ‘Olena gave her a warning glance.
“I’m not sure.” Nell picked at a loose thread on her shirt. “We haven’t talked for a while. She’s… not really stable. Never was, but it got a lot worse after we lost my dad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I lost my parents young too.”
Nell met her eyes and nodded. She gave her the tight smile that people put on when they would rather do that than cry.
“And no other family?” Lani asked. Behind Nell, ‘Olena gave her the if-looks-could-kill equivalent of a slap upside the head.
“Just these two,” she said, holding her baby close and looking across the lawn at Cassie.
Lani nodded somberly and laid off the questions before her cousin chucked something at her.
The thought of a young mother with no village around her made her queasy. She had been there herself, and it had nearly killed her.
Even with family back in Hawai’i willing to take her in, it had still taken years for her to work up the courage to extradite herself from her failed marriage and run home to lick her wounds and start again.
What would she have done if there had been no one to take her in? How much more would she have endured in order to keep a roof over her daughter’s head? She wasn’t sure.
Georgia was filling the empty space, talking about projects that she wanted to start now that the co-op would have a steady space to meet day after day.
“Meeting here and doing one-day projects is fun, but I’m really excited about what sort of things the kids can create given more time. You know that big empty room across the hall from our main classroom?”
“Yeah,” ‘Olena said.
“What if we collected a whole mountain of cardboard and let the kids have at it? They could create forts, shops, whatever. A whole cardboard city.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Kacie loves making little box forts. I know she would have a ball with friends and paint and more space. There’s a million different things we could do.”
Lani let the conversation wash over her as she watched Rory play with the other kids. She always slept so well after a day in the water. Nothing like those impossible Alaskan bedtime fights after days spent inside hiding from the dark and the freezing cold.
It had been a constant source of contention between her and Zeke. He wanted his wife in his bed, but she refused to leave her baby alone to cry herself to sleep. Often, it took so long for Rory to fall asleep that Lani would fall asleep with her.
After a while, she slept in Rory’s room all the time… and on purpose. She felt safer there. As bad as Zeke was, he’d never hurt her in front of her baby.
Maybe if he had been just a little bit worse, she would have left sooner. But the abuse had escalated so slowly, and with such fervent apologies and promises in between…
She shook her head and refocused on the vibrant blue-green Hawaiian day, irritated with herself for letting him intrude upon her thoughts again.
Between the frequent text messages and uncomfortable sensation of seeing her past reflected in Nell’s present, it was hard not to.
Families started to arrive for pickup, and Lani embraced the commotion with relief. Parents and grandparents converged to try and coax their children out of the water and into cars.
Lani watched with a smile, glad that her daughter’s “school” was one that kids were downright reluctant to leave. Her life could have looked so different, stuck inside at a desk while Lani worked all day. She was so deeply grateful to ‘Olena for creating this alternative.
“Hey Lani,” said one of the mothers whose name she could never remember, “that mural that you painted at New Horizons was brilliant.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“I was wondering if you would consider painting one for us.”
“Really?”
“You know our art gallery in Hilo?”
Lani had no idea what the woman was talking about, but she nodded. She was sure that ‘Olena would know.
