Page 34 of Big Island Horizons
The main reason that her mom had decided to move to Hawai’i had been to give her precious macaws a more natural life outdoors. They had moved there in hope of a fresh start when Tara was a teenager.
Then her mom had gotten sick, and all of her plans for an aviary were put on hold. The macaws had free run of the house when they were home, but more and more they were shut up in their cage while Tara and her mom were at the hospital.
Then she was gone, and all that Tara had left of her mother were the two macaws. For years, Lucy greeted her every day with, “Good morning, sunshine!” just like her mom had.
When she and Mitch had purchased this property nearly twenty years ago, the first thing that Tara did was build a massive aviary for the two birds. The enclosure encompassed multiple trees, including a huge guava. It had taken nearly a year to complete on a shoestring budget, but she did it.
Years after her mom died, Tara had finally made her dream a reality.
She had started to put out feelers, searching for good homes for some of her most expensive farm animals, but she would never part with Lucy and Ricky. They were family.
As the wind picked up, the albizia trees in the adjacent lot swayed dramatically against the gray sky. It was incredible how much they had grown in the time she had lived there.
The tall trees were beautiful, but they were dangerous. Heavy branches dropped off of albizia trees with such alarming regularity that the trees were sometimes called “widow makers”.
When she first arrived, there was nothing in the empty lot next door but weeds. The ten-foot variety of weeds that plagued any tropical lot, but still. Weeds.
Nearly two decades later, the trees were well over one hundred feet tall.
Over the years, she had tried without success to contact the owners of the adjoining lot and speak to them about cutting down the invasive trees. They didn’t pose a danger to the house, thank goodness, but falling branches had taken out her fence more than once, letting in the wild pigs that roamed the neighborhood.
As the rain picked up again, she ducked into the mudroom.
Inside, the house was incredibly cozy. The kitchen smelled like chocolate chip cookies, which Piper had whipped up with a bit of help from Cody. The living room glowed with the fairy lights that Paige had begged for after seeing them at Lani’s house. She had hung them up herself.
The three kids were watching a movie all piled onto the couch under one big quilt that their grandmother had made long before any of them were born. Her mother had never gotten to meet her grandbabies, but it warmed Tara’s heart to see them draped in her love all the same.
Plates on the table held cookie crumbs and smears of chocolate alongside empty milk cups.
“Hi Mom!” Piper called. Her siblings shushed her, and she ignored them. “We saved you some cookies.”
“Thank you.” Tara found them in the kitchen, still warm, and poured herself a warm glass of milk before putting the rest of it into the fridge. The cookies were perfect, crispy at the edges and gooey in the center.
She loved the unusual desserts that she was concocting out of island carbs like breadfruit and purple sweet potato, but there was something deeply comforting in the old staple of a simple chocolate chip cookie – particularly one made with love by her daughter.
She settled into her favorite chair to enjoy the treat, then reluctantly returned to the kitchen to get a head start on prep work for the next batch of meals.
The kids had finished their movie and were halfway through a game of Settlers of Catan when their dad arrived, his hair and shoulders soaked from the ongoing rainstorm.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“We’re all packed!” Paige assured him.
“Can’t we finish our game?” Piper asked.
“What if you pack it up and bring it to my place? We can play together.”
“But I’m gonna win this one,” she whined.
Cody laughed. “No way. You don’t even have any brick.”
“I don’t need brick! I’m on a sheep port. I’m building a kingdom of sheep!”
“Come on,” Paige said, already putting her cards away. “We can play at Dad’s house.”
“Dude!” she protested as her sister cleared the pieces from the board.
Paige rolled her eyes. “I’ll play the one with the boats.”
