Page 40 of Big Island Sunset
She stood and moved to follow Olivia. When Rory followed her, she shook her head.
“I want to help her feel better too!” Rory insisted.
“Thank you, sweetheart, but let me talk to her alone for a minute.”
Rory crossed her arms and wrinkled her nose.
“Thank you,” Lani said again with finality.
“Can I watch cartoons?”
She sighed. “Sure.”
“Yes!” Rory bounced back to the couch.
Lani walked down the hall and found Olivia sitting on the floor of her room, trying to color her hair with a black marker – washable, thankfully. It was an impossible task even for a kid with two good arms, and Olivia still had a cast on. Lani sat down next to her and gently took the marker from her hand.
Olivia burst into tears.
Lani sat there, rubbing her back like she had done for Rory hundreds of times – but never Olivia, she realized. They hadn’t been a family all that long, and Olivia was a calm, self-contained sort of kid. When shewasupset, she went to her dad.
“I just want to look like my family,” Olivia sobbed. She pulled her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her knees.
“You look like your grandma,” Lani said weakly. Olivia looked like her mother too, but Lani didn’t think that bringing up her dead mother was the right thing to do in that moment.
But maybe that was wrong. Maybe Olivianeededto talk about her, needed to see pictures of her. There were none in the house, and until that moment it had never occurred to Lani to wonder if that was hard on her stepdaughter.
“But I don’t look like you,” Olivia said, still crying. “I don’t even look like my dad!”
“Families don’t always look alike,” Lani said, her voice low and soothing.
“Youall do!”
“Yeah,” she acknowledged. “We have black hair and brown eyes.”
“No one ever thinks I’m yours, but everyone always thinks that Rory is his! It’s not fair!”
Lani’s heart sank. So shehadnoticed. Of course she had.
“Everyone else looks like their families,” Olivia sobbed.
“That’s not true,” Lani said gently. “Look at your friends. The twins have bright red hair, but their mom’s hair is golden like yours. Emma has brown hair and green eyes, but Kai has black hair and brown eyes. Lots of families look different.”
“I don’t want to look different,” Olivia said, leaning into her.
Lani put both arms around her. “I hear you.”
“Will you help me make my hair black like yours?”
“Oh, Livie,” she sighed. “I love your golden hair. And there’s no changing your bright blue eyes. But that’s okay. That’s good. We love you just the way you are.”
Eventually, Olivia stopped crying. She was quiet for a while, just sitting there cuddled into Lani.
“Hey Mom?” she said after a while. While Rory said ‘Dad’ with a comfortable confidence, there was still a sort of hesitation in the way that Olivia said ‘Mom’.
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes families wear matching clothes.”
