Page 47 of Big Island Summer
Holding Theo with both arms, she wandered up the side yard. The thick border of tropical plants shone a vibrant shade of green, still wet with morning dew.
As the sun slowly warmed the air through a thin layer of clouds, the hibiscus flowers began to open for the day. Her eyesskimmed the pinks and yellows in a leisurely way as she walked, still swaying Theo from side to side.
She paused to admire one of her favorites varieties, a hibiscus flower that started out deep crimson at the center, progressed to sunset orange, and brightened to gold at the edges of each petal.
She never stopped and admired the flowers that grew all around her, not really. They might get an admiring glance in passing, but she never just stood and looked at them. She had always felt more comfortable living her life in a state of perpetual motion, always doing something. always on to the next task.
Theodore’s weight in her arms gave her a sense of complete presence that she rarely found, even through yoga and meditation. His little chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and she could feel his warm breath on her collarbone. He was either asleep or deeply relaxed, and Fern’s heart beat steadily beneath him.
Her daily yoga and meditation practices had brought her some semblance of calm into her life, but this contentment that was settling into her bones was something else entirely.
She had never felt such a deep sense of peace. There was nowhere she wanted to go, nothing else that she would rather be doing.
With Theo in her arms, she could just… be.
14
Emma
By the time the late-morning sun burned off the last of the clouds, Emma had already been working in the garden for hours. Dirt caked her hands and streaked her face where she had wiped away the sweat that ran into her eyes, and her heart was lighter than it had been in weeks.
Working in the garden soothed her soul like nothing else could. Long hours of pulling weeds and harvesting food had pulled her up out of the dark pit that she’d fallen into following Adam’s death. Poring through seed catalogues, tucking starts into the soil, watching them grow into flowers and herbs and plants drooping with fruit… all of the life that she nurtured in her backyard poured itself back into her heart tenfold.
“Mom!” Kai’s voice rang out so loud and sudden that it scattered doves and even scared the chickens. She looked up to find him standing on the railing of the lanai, clinging to the corner post. “I’m hungry!”
“There’s yogurt in the fridge!” she called.
“I don’t want yogurt!”
Even Dio ran from the noise, his head low and his ears held flat against his head.
“There are bananas on the table.”
“I don’t want bananas!” he screeched.
Emma let out a breath and stood, brushing the dirt from his hands.
Bratty behavior was a sure sign that she hadn’t been paying her son enough attention lately. He could go for long stretches of time foraging for food and entertaining himself in the yard, but if she ignored him for too long… well, he got like this.
“What do you want to eat?” she asked as she walked up to the house.
“Pizza!”
“We don’t have pizza.”
“I want to gogetpizza.”
“Not an option.” She went to the corner of the lanai and put her hands under his arms – his t-shirt was filthy anyway – to help him hop down from the corner that he’d climbed up to. “How about some scrambled eggs?”
“Fine,” he huffed.
“Fine.” She kept her voice pleasant, because nothing fed into his moods worse than getting moody herself. “Do you want to help me crack the eggs?”
His eyes brightened, and she could almost see the dark clouds over his head start to clear.
“Come on, let’s wash our hands.”
Juniper was in the kitchen, where the air was fragrant with the scents of various herbal teas. She had all four burners going on the stove with a different blend simmering over each one.
