Page 46 of Big Island Weddings
“Later this week, I think. There’s a lot of red tape making it nearly impossible for her to get a learner’s permit, so she’s teaming up with Cody.”
“Weren’t you going to drive her?”
“I’m willing, but I guess that feels a bit too much like being driven around by mommy. Partnering with someone her own age lets her feel independent.”
“What other teas did you say you have over there?”
“You’re stalling.”
Lani’s spine straightened at Emma’s tone, and she met her fierce green gaze across the table.
“Go put that poor man out of his misery. Tell him you’re not moving to Italy.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped with a splutter. “He doesn’t think–”
“Are you sure about that?” Emma interrupted.
Lani opened her mouth and closed it again. She wasn’t really. She didn’t knowwhatwas going on in his head. They’d had oneangry conversation – not even a fight, at least not the way she understood them – and then he had frozen her out.
No, that was unfair.
They had just… retreated. She hadn’t made any more effort than he had.
Maybe they were both afraid to break the fragile peace, scared of what lay on the other side of their next serious conversation.
“Rory can stay with me,” Emma told her.
“Okay.” Lani stood before her thoughts could tie themselves in knots again. “Thank you.”
“What you and Tenn have is precious.” In those words she could hear the depth of Emma’s grief, the soul-shredding loss that she still carried with her every day, even as she mothered and weeded and acted as though all was well. “Don’t let it go without a fight.”
Lani swallowed, nodded, and walked through to the living room. She kissed the top of her daughter’s head and told her that she was running out on an errand; Rory waved her off without looking away from the screen.
The warm afternoon air caressed Lani’s face as she stepped outside.
She didn’t know where Tenn was. After the week they’d had, she didn’t expect to find him at home. But that was closest, and so she set off at a brisk walk.
Dio and Zuko both followed her until she slipped through the front gate, and then Dio raced back to the kids while Zuko sauntered off, pretending that he hadn’t been following her at all.
A hurricane of fear and memory swirled through her mind as she walked, but she let the thoughts pass through her without grabbing hold of them. The day was bright and beautiful, witha clear blue sky stretching above the corridor of greenery that lined the road.
She stayed firmly in the present moment, in that liminal space of uncertainty, and thought of all the things that she was grateful for.
Rory was thriving. Lani too was healthy, and well rooted in her extended family and the community of Pualena. They didn’t need Tenn, not really.
But she wanted him. She wanted a life with him more than she had admitted to herself.
When she’d nearly lost him, when he had been injured just recently, she had been confronted by the enormity of her love for him. But all it had taken was a few cross words and a brief silence for her to retreat into herself.
If Tenn was unsure of her devotion, she could hardly blame him. What, after all, had she done to prove it to him? Sure, she had been with him through his surgeries. But that could be construed as guilt as easily as love.
The moment Lorenzo appeared, she had withdrawn. She had kept it a secret for reasons that she didn’t fully understand, so how could she possibly expecthimto understand?
They were practically a family already. Their kids called them Mom and Dad. Maybe they had jumped the gun on that one – or the kids had – but it was done. And Laniwantedthem to be a family. But did he? Was Tenn still all in? She didn’t know anymore.
Lani was so deep in thought that she was almost surprised to find herself at Tenn’s front door; her feet had taken her there with no conscious direction. She turned and registered his truck in the driveway. He was home.
With no plan in mind, no idea of the right words to start with, she opened the door.
