Page 9 of Big Island Moonlight
“I don’t know yet.”
She frowned and looked to Tenn. “How many hamburgers do you have to sell?”
“That money’s not for Italy,” Olivia said. “It’s for rent and school and all the people who work at the cafe.”
“Well how manyextrahamburgers do we have to sell?”
Olivia glared at her. “Maybeyoushould earn the money, if you want to leave so bad!”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Rory demanded. I’m just a kid!”
“Make a lemonade stand or something!”
“Maybe I will!” Rory shouted back.
“Hush,” Lani soothed. “We’ll figure it out.”
She wilted in her seat. “I want to see my nonna and my babbo.”
“You see them practically every day!” Olivia said.
“On a phone! It’s not the same! I’ve never evenseenmy nonna.”
“Rory.” Lani’s tone pulled her daughter’s wide brown eyes back towards her. “We’ll figure it out. I promise. I just don’t know the dates yet. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rory sighed. She went back to picking at her rice.
Lani looked at Tenn, searching for the comfort and encouragement that she usually found in his eyes. But like their daughters, her husband’s eyes were on his plate.
He had been a remarkably good sport when Lorenzo appeared in their lives – had even allowed the man a seat at their dinner table – but whenever the subject of a trip to Italy came up, Tenn seemed to shut down.
She was starting to think that when it came time to take Rory to meet her grandparents, the financial side of things would be the least of their worries.
4
Emma
Emma’s heart lifted as she walked out into yet another blue-sky day. The sun was gentle enough in February that she could lift her face to it instead of hiding under a hat. The weather was glorious, and she couldn’t bear staying inside a moment longer than she had to.
In the dappled sunlight of the front lawn, her little jaboticaba tree was pushing out fresh leaves. Keith had saved the sapling from certain death by splicing it back together with an expertise cultivated through grafting countless thousands of fruit trees. The little tree had healed, and now it was growing again: a testament to just how resilient life could be.
She wandered around the side of the house in search of Kai, her bare feet padding along the cool green lawn. A few of the chickens followed her, hoping that she might toss out a papaya or watermelon rind for them to peck at.
She found Kai halfway up a tree, leaning against the trunk and paging through a comic book that Piper had given him. His bare feet swung lazily in the air, the picture of a childhood summer – and in midwinter, no less.
“I’m going to walk over to the community garden,” she told him. “Do you want to come?”
“Nah,” he said without looking up. “I’ll stay here with Jun.”
Emma looked up to the lanai, where Juniper sat with her feet propped up and a glass of iced tea in her hand.
“That’s fine,” Jun said. “I’m a beached whale. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Except the bathroom,” Kai teased.
“Every ten minutes,” Jun confirmed wryly.
“It’s ‘cause you drink so much tea!”
