Page 8 of Big Island Moonlight
Lani looked up, blinking herself out of a daze. She was shocked to see that the sun had gone; outside, the sky was dark. It was doubly easy to lose track of time when she worked on a tablet rather than relying on sunlight coming in through the living room windows.
“I’m starving!” Rory declared, hopping to her feet.
“Did you make chicken?” Olivia asked hopefully.
“Yes ma’am, as requested,” Tenn confirmed.
“Huzzah!” Rory threw her arms up in celebration, but she didn’t hurry to the dinner table. “Mommy, wait! Would you take a picture of this and send it to Babbo?”
“Sure,” Lani said. Olivia sighed and walked into the kitchen.
Rory held up her drawing – this one showed some sort of four-legged animal in a field of flowers – and gave a big cheesy smile that showed off her missing teeth. Lani held up her phone and snapped a picture.
“Can I see?” she asked, dropping the photo smile.
“Here.” Lani showed her the screen, and Rory grinned for real.
“Thanks!” She skipped off into the kitchen, still holding her drawing. Lani followed, sending the photo as she went and then setting her phone aside in favor of a dish. She loaded up on fried chicken, white rice, and cabbage slaw with a dressing that smelled of orange and ginger.
When she took her seat at the kitchen table with her little family, Lani felt settled and uplifted, both at once. Even after a year together – had it only been a year? – the sight of Tenn’s face across the table never failed to make her heart do a somersault. Her husband was gorgeous, inside and out, and she still couldn’t believe her luck.
“This is delicious,” she said after her first bite of the sweet and spicy coleslaw. “Thank you.”
“Just something I threw together with what we had in the fridge,” he said modestly.
“I don’t know anyone else who thinks that a whole balanced meal centering on fried chicken is just throwing something together,” she teased. He just smiled.
“Hey Mommy?” Rory asked. She was poking at the pile of rice on her plate without eating it.
“Yeah, baby?”
“When are we going to Italy?”
All action at the table stilled. Olivia looked up with worried blue eyes. Tenn was looking down at his plate, but his smile dimmed.
“I’m not sure yet,” Lani said. “We have to keep saving up.”
Rory scowled. “You said we would go this summer.”
“Did I?” she thought that maybe she had mentioned it as a possibility; she was sure she hadn’t promised any particular timeline.
“This summer, when school is closed,” Rory said firmly.
“We’ll do our best. Plane tickets cost a lot of money, and so do hotels.”
“But we don’t need a hotel! We can stay with Nonna!”
“I don’t know about that.”
“We can! She said!”
“I said we’ll try, Rory. I’m doing my best to save up.”
“How many coloring books do you have to sell to buy tickets to Italy?”
“Thousands,” Lani answered truthfully.
Rory’s eyes went wide. “Can you do that?”
