1. Lani

The drive to Kona was long, but Lani never tired of it. She loved the wide open spaces and shifting landscapes of the Big Island, so many colors and biomes in just two hours.

They started their morning under Pualena‘s gray skies, loading Emma’s bags into the back of the truck under a protective cab. Then they drove through the misty drizzle, along the green highway with its towering trees and familiar plants with their huge tropical leaves. A wild pig rooted through the brush, trailed by a group of piglets.

Then she turned inland and drove up the mauna. The greenery gradually fell away until there was nothing left but fields of black lava rock and a few hearty plants in alien colors, bursts of pink and red against the black.

By the time they neared the playground that marked the midway point, they had left the clouds behind. The sky was summer blue, and the bright sun belied the cold air outside.

“Can we stop?” Rory asked from the backseat. “Please? Can we?”

“Stop where?” Kai asked.

“We’re almost at the park!”

Kai gasped and pressed his face to the window. “I wanna play at the playground!”

“Mama, please?!”

Lani flinched at the volume and tapped her foot lightly on the break. She glanced over at Emma.

“What do you think?”

Emma glanced at her watch. “We have time.”

The kids cheered as Lani turned into the parking lot.

The little campground with its cabins and picnic tables was the only thing around for miles, that and the public playground set against the rolling green hills of the island. Visitors were often surprised at how much open space the Big Island still had, vast stretches of pasture and wilderness in between population centers.

Lani loved her island fiercely.

It felt strange to remember how eager she had been to leave Hawai‘i as a young adult, how small the island had felt to her then. She had lost both of her parents in the span of a few years, and she’d been running from her grief more than the confines of the island itself.

She’d been back for a few months now, but her gratitude at being home again hadn’t faded. It had only deepened as she reconnected with family and found her footing again.

Here in the middle of the island, they were at least six thousand feet above sea level. When she opened the driver side door, the cold air whipped in with an immediate bite.

She wrestled Rory into a jacket before releasing her. The kids sprinted to the playground to climb the tall, twisting structure made of metal and rope.

She and Emma stood shoulder to shoulder, hoods up and arms crossed against the cold wind.

“We’re going to miss you,” Lani said.

“We’ll miss you too, but we won’t be gone long. I’ll be back by the time that permaculture course starts, at the latest. Kai doesn’t want to leave at all, but he’ll be happy to see his grandpa and cousins and everybody over there.”

“I know, he’ll have a good time. He’s just sad to be leaving his dog.”

“That’s a solid sixty percent of it, yeah.” She bumped her hip playfully into Lani‘s. “You’re just sad that I won’t be there to take care of the goats.”

“Their eyes freak me out. I’m not the only one. Have you noticed it’s all the animals with weird pupils that get grouped in with demons? Goats, cats, snakes…”

Emma laughed. “Well, I appreciate it.”

“Anything for you, boo.”

Lani and Emma went way back. They had grown apart during the years that Lani spent working on cruise ships and then stuck in a terrible marriage. Really, she had withdrawn from everyone she knew during those dark years. But she and Emma had been friends ever since they were in their teens.

When her cousin Adam brought his highschool girlfriend home to meet the family, she and Lani had clicked right away. Instead of brushing off the young teenage cousin who had missed Adam terribly after he moved to the mainland, they had let her tag along on their Island adventures. Every time they came to visit, they would all go hiking and snorkeling and surfing together.

Emma had given Lani a place to stay when they both found themselves back on the Big Island during huge transitions in their lives, and now they were closer than ever.

Lani loved living on the same piece of land as another single mother, and she would miss her terribly. The property was going to feel huge and overwhelming without Emma there doing most of the work.

Luckily, Lani still had Tara next door and Tenn a few blocks away. And of course her whole extended family would be there in a minute if she ever needed them.

Lord, but she was happy to be home.

“Mama! Look at me!” Rory flipped herself upside down, hanging from a stretch of rope by her knees. She swung there for a moment before grabbing the rope in her hands, doing a backflip, and dropping lightly to her feet.

Kai, who was older than Rory but not such a natural-born climber, watched her antics with a frown before climbing carefully down from the rope and running across the playground. He climbed onto a spinning disk set into the rubber matting that covered the rocky ground.

“Mom!” he shouted. “Watch this!”

He put one foot on the disk and kicked off with the other, sending himself flying around in circles.

Emma had tried to explain to him that they were going to the airport to fly home and see family in California, but Lani had a feeling it hadn’t really sunk in. There had been a few tears, and he’d hugged his dog goodbye, but he did that anytime they left the house for a beach day.

She was fairly certain that her little cousin would be crying himself to sleep that night once he realized that he wasn’t going to see his dog for weeks. But Emma had to go home to pack up the house that she had shared with Adam in California. And as sad as Kai would be to be separated from his beloved dog, staying on the island without his mother wasn’t even an option. They would have taken the dog if they were moving home, but luckily they had decided to stay.

A familiar warmth radiated through Lani‘s chest as she reflected on the community that she had here. In her cruise ship years, she had been surrounded by people all of the time, but it wasn’t the same as being immersed in the aloha spirit of the island. And then she had fallen pregnant with Rory and ended up in Alaska.

Her years in Alaska had been a living nightmare. Her ex-husband had systematically cut her off from any support system that she might have cobbled together there. He had even managed to alienate her from her family.

It had been just the three of them, year after year, in the confines of their little cabin in the woods. The winters had been the worst.

She took a deep breath and refocused. She was here now. The rolling green hills all around them were gorgeous, and there was a white cap of snow at the top of Mauna Kea. If Rory ever missed playing in the snow, they could make the trek up there.

In the months since Lani had fled her old life, her daughter had never once said that she missed anything about it.

There had been positive aspects to life in Alaska, and the last frontier was undeniably beautiful. But this new life of cousins and beach days and warm rain had so completely eclipsed their old existence that Rory hardly ever mentioned their life there.

Life in Hawai’i was a step up in every way imaginable.

When the kids started to shiver in the cold mountain wind, Emma lured them back to the car with promises of fruit snacks. That inducement kept them quiet for the time it took to get them buckled and steer the car back onto the road, and then they were at it again, whining and squabbling in the back seat like a pair of siblings.

To keep them happy on the long drive down the hill to Kona, Lani played the Moana soundtrack for the umpteenth time. She winced as the kids belted “You’re Welcome” at full volume.

Even the Kona side was green this time of year, its grassy hills verdant after the winter rains. The expansive views soothed Lani’s nerves even as the noise from the kids grated on them. Things balanced themselves out.

She rolled down the windows, pushing the needle a fraction of the way more towards zen as they coasted down the mountain towards the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway.

Grassy hills gave way to long stretches of black lava rock when they reached the coastline, and finally she turned off the highway towards the airport.

Even down here near town, wild goats grazed along the side of the road. One was perched on the lava-rock wall that held the words Kona International Airport. She adored the wild spirit of this island, how the ocean and jungle and wildlife pressed up against civilization on all sides.

It was so different from the plastic boxes of cruise ships that sometimes she wondered how she had tolerated working on them for so long. She supposed that seeing the ocean every day had kept her sane, even when she was stuck indoors most of the day and slept in a shared bedroom the size of a closet.

Her time away had inspired a gratitude for this life in Hawai’i that she might never have found if she had stayed. She had been so restless in her early twenties, lost without her parents and ready to travel the world.

All she really wanted now was roots. Family. Home.

And she was fully aware of how lucky she was to have them.

She pulled up in front of the broad sidewalk of the Kona Airport and parked the car. It was a loading zone, but she hopped out to give Emma one last hug.

“I’ll be back soon,” Emma promised.

“You’d better,” Lani joked, “or else I’m selling the goats.”

Emma laughed and opened the back door. “Okay, kiddo. Time to go.”

“I don’t want to go.” Kai clutched the seatbelt to his chest and shrunk back in the seat.

“We have to go into the airport now.”

“I want to go home. I want to stay with Dio.”

Emma and Lani exchanged a look.

Lani said, “We’ll take good care of Dio. I promise.”

In her brightest voice, Emma added, “Harper and Kylie are so excited to see you!”

“Who’s that?” Rory demanded.

“His cousins.”

Her little face scrunched up in indignation. “I’m his cousin!”

“He has cousins in California too.”

“And Juniper,” Kai added with a sniff. “Juniper’s my biggest cousin.”

“That’s right, Juniper’s waiting for us. And her new baby brother!”

“Okay.” His voice was tragic as he unbuckled his seatbelt and slowly opened the door. “Goodbye, Rory. Bye, Auntie Lani.”

“Aloha,” Lani said. She circled back around to the driver’s seat

“A hui hou,” Rory added through the open window, her voice forlorn.

“Okay,” Emma said through the window once she’d gathered her luggage. “I love you both. See you soon!”

“Now what?” Rory asked in a miserable little voice as Lani drove away.

“Beach?” she suggested.

Rory let out a little sigh. “I guess.”

There was a lovely beach near the airport. Like most of the best beaches on the island, it was hidden away. She drove past the harbor and parked in a nondescript little dirt lot, then led Rory down a short path to the beach.

“Mama, look!” Rory gasped, back to her usual self. “Honu!”

She sprinted towards the sea turtles that rested on the rocks, stopped a respectful distance away, and crouched down to look at them. By the time Lani caught up, Rory was done with that and ready to jump into the water.

They swam and played until sunset, and then Lani wrapped her shivering baby girl up in an oversized beach towel and settled her onto her lap. They sat there for a long time, just them and the turtles, watching the sky go through every shade of pink and orange and gold.

They grabbed a quick dinner in town, and Rory passed out before they were even halfway up the mountain.

Lani took advantage of the drive to play an audiobook that she had been listening to piecemeal for weeks, instead of the usual Disney songs and Pete the Cat CD from the library that were their staples on long drives.

Tara was looking after the goats tonight, so there was no rush. She drove slowly through the thick fog that had gathered on the high plateau of the saddle road. And when she did finally arrive in Pualena, she didn’t drive home.

She drove through the drizzling rain and unlit streets, passing hers by, and turning onto the street that held Alfred Lord Tennyson Nakamura.

Tenn had left the porch light on. When she parked, he came out with an umbrella and held it over her as she carried her sleeping daughter into the house. Olivia was already asleep in the top bunk, and Lani tucked Rory in below.

“Are you hungry?” Tenn asked when she came back out of his daughter’s room. “I kept some dinner warm.”

“Thank you,” she said as she stepped into his arms, “but we ate in Kona.”

“That was a while ago.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Your hands are cold,” he said, kissing her knuckles. “How about some tea?”

“Tea would be lovely. Mamaki?”

“Why don’t you get cozy on the couch and queue up that show we were watching? I’ll make the tea.”

Lani kissed the line of his jaw, which was as high as she could reach when he stood straight, and traded the warmth of his arms for a fuzzy blanket on the couch. She settled into the coziness of her home away from home, feeling deeply grateful for all of it.