11. ‘Ōlena

The families dropped their kids off at the usual nine o’clock start time, which left them with an hour to kill until the Pana?ewa Rainforest Zoo opened at ten. Luckily it wasn’t raining – well, barely – and the kids easily entertained themselves running around the big empty parking lot, chasing chickens and climbing trees.

“Wasn’t Nell going to ride with you today?” Georgia asked.

“Yeah. She texted this morning and said that she couldn’t make it.”

“Ugh. I hate it when people flake like that.”

‘ōlena just nodded, her eyes on a couple of kids who had climbed high up into a banyan tree. She worried that there were darker reasons behind Nell bailing on them at the last minute… new bruises or just coercive control, she didn’t know. If it were something normal, like a kid with a fever, she would have just said so. But her message had been vague.

‘ōlena tried not to get involved in other people’s lives unless they asked her to. She had enough problems of her own… and you couldn’t save people from themselves.

If Nell wanted to make a change, that was a decision that she had to make on her own. ‘ōlena could offer her community, but the fallout and inevitable custody battle that would come when she left her abusive husband… well, ultimately that was on her.

Escaping an abusive relationship when the abuser was the father of your children was no small thing.

‘ōlena had seen it before, too many times.

One dear friend of hers had lost custody of her children for six months when she finally left her abuser; he had filed a temporary restraining order against her on behalf of their children, and the court system had been so backed up that it had taken half a year before she could finally appear before a judge and get the order overturned.

The kids, only four and five at the time, had spent those months in foster care.

Eventually, both parents were granted shared custody. With the help of the courts, the father had removed the children from ‘ōlena’s co-op and enrolled them in public school. The whole ordeal had been excruciating for mother and children both.

So what Nell was navigating… that was her business and no one else’s.

And certainly not small talk for the zoo parking lot.

Five minutes before the gates opened, the whole Pualena Playschool crowd was clustered at the entrance, ready to go.

“I want to see the tigers!” Kiki shouted, jumping up and down.

“No, we have to go see the binturong,” Paige insisted. “She might still be awake now. If we go later she’ll be sleeping in her house.”

“The binturong is always sleeping in her house,” Luana complained.

“Only because you go too late!”

“I wish I was sleeping in my house,” Rory muttered.

“You’d rather be sleeping at your house than seeing tigers?” Kiki challenged.

Rory nodded, and her lower lip poked out. “I miss my mama.”

“Yeah… it’s not really fair that she gets to go to Uncle’s shave ice place all day and you don’t. But you get to see tigers! She doesn’t even get to see tigers.”

“I want to do both things together.” Rory’s lip started to tremble, and Olivia put a sympathetic arm around her shoulders.

“You’ll see her soon.”

“Not soon enough,” said Rory with high drama.

“Okay, let’s take a vote!” ‘ōlena said brightly. “Everybody who wants to see the tigers first, raise your hand.”

About half of the hands shot up, mostly the younger crowd. After a moment’s hesitation, Rory raised her hand in a halfhearted way, level with her shoulder.

“Okay, and who wants to go see the binturong first?” She paused for a show of hands. “It’s an even split, so here’s what we’ll do. Binturongs, you’re with Kacie and her mom. Tigers, you’re with Kiki and me. We’ll meet up for lunch by the playground. Sound like a plan?”

“Yeah!” the kids shouted.

She grinned and waved to the auntie who was unlocking the front gate. “Let’s go!”

The kids ran through the entrance and up the path, taking the first corner so fast that they startled a peahen and her chicks. Rory laughed in delight, holding both hands over her mouth as she watched the big brown chicks scramble after their mother.

“Come on!” Up the path at the next bend, Kiki stomped her foot in frustration. “We have to go see the tigers before the sun comes out and makes them lazy!”

“Okay, okay!” Rory scrambled to catch up with her cousin.

They raced past the tropical plants and paid no heed to the squawking parrots in their too-small cages, charging straight uphill to the tiger exhibit. Kiki was the first one up the hill.

“Aw man,” she said as soon as she got there. She slumped against the railing, panting. “They’re already lazy.”

The kids crowded the railing and peered through the fence at the Big Island’s two resident Bengal tigers, one orange and one white. They were lounging on the grass.

“They’re pretty, though,” Olivia said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kiki sighed.

Eventually the white tiger got up and walked over to the fence, just a few feet away from the kids. It paced the fenceline restlessly along a strip of mud it had churned up from beneath the grass.

The enclosure where the two tigers had lived for most of their lives was big and green, but it still made ‘ōlena’s heart hurt to see them closed in behind a fence.

The other exhibits were even harder to witness, the caged monkeys and captive birds. The kids loved to see these beautiful animals up close, and she didn’t want to deny them that, but she had her limits. Despite the lack of an entrance fee, they only came to the zoo once or twice a year. That was all that she could stomach.

Still, she loved to see the awe on the kids’ faces and hear the delight in their voices.

When they were ready to move on from the tigers – after the white tiger had grown bored of its fenceline pacing and the orange one had taken a swim – they walked up and around past some tropical birds.

‘ōlena paused to look at the binturong who, sure enough, was sound asleep on a tree branch. The strange mammal had a mess of white whiskers protruding from its gray face. Its tail was as long and thick as her arm. Kiki stared at it for a while, willing it to move, before running to catch up with the other kids.

The kinkajous were also sound asleep in their little wooden house, but the marmosets were wide awake and active. The tiny monkeys leapt around their enclosure, branch to branch to branch. They were playful creatures, constantly tackling and wrestling each other.

Of all the creatures in the zoo (save the free-roaming peacocks, which didn’t really count) the marmosets seemed least affected by their captivity – maybe because they had enough friends and enough space.

To the kids’ delight, one landed a few inches away from their faces and tilted its head from side to side, ninety degrees each way, examining them with curious brown eyes.

They stayed there for a long time, until a bathroom emergency made it necessary for her to usher the whole gaggle of kids through to the other side of the zoo. Once that was sorted and everyone had peed, they worked their way back around to see the rest of the animals.

Finally, they ended at the playground, where the other half of the playschool was already racing up slides or lounging in the shade, according to age and temperament.

“Time for lunch?” Georgia asked when ‘ōlena joined her on a bench.

“Let them run off some more energy first.” She glanced up at the moody sky. “It looks like rain. We can pull them under cover for lunch when that starts.”

Sure enough, the early drops crested to a downpour about twenty minutes later. The kids ran screaming for shelter – more out of the joy of running and screaming than any real aversion to the rain – and gathered at the picnic tables to break open their packed lunches.

Once the kids were settled and eating, ‘ōlena took advantage of the relative calm to check her phone. There was a voicemail waiting for her from Hana, her contact at the Office of the County Clerk.

She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, just a call to check in on her ongoing project and renovations of New Horizons, but a niggling sense of dread worked its way up her spine. She walked away from the kids, to the edge of the big pavilion that sheltered the picnic tables from the rain, and returned the call.

“Office of the County Clerk, this is Hana.”

“Aloha, Auntie. It’s ‘ōlena.”

“‘ōlena.” Hana’s voice dropped an octave, taking on a compassionate tone before she had even broken the news. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I’ve been with the kids all morning. What’s up?”

“The Council has asked me to tell you to press pause on the New Horizons project.”

“What does that mean?”

“Apparently there’s an issue with the use of the building. Are you there now?”

“No, I’m at the zoo.”

“Shoot. Do you have anything there that you need to get out?”

“Why?”

“They’re sending someone down to put a chain on the doors. It’s a liability issue. They can’t have people going in and out without oversight.

“But I have the keys.”

“Yes… They’ve also requested that you drop those off here at the office.” Hana’s tone was apologetic, which only made ‘ōlena’s blood boil more. The complacency of it, to let an important building sit locked when there were people ready and willing to keep the community center running.

“We’ve put work into that building,” she said in a level voice, only loud enough to be heard over the rain that poured down a few inches from her face. “My dad fixed the roof, we cleaned it top to bottom and repainted…”

“Yes, they’re not happy about the mural that appeared in the local paper. Technically speaking, it’s an act of vandalism.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Officially, you didn’t have permission to do anything permanent to the building.”

“You told me that it would be my responsibility to maintain the place!”

“Murals are hardly maintenance.”

‘ōlena took a deep breath and reigned in her temper. “What do I need to do to keep the doors open?”

“Well, apparently the Council was under the impression that a nonprofit organization would be taking over the responsibility of running the center. When they got word that there was no such organization, they revoked their permission for use of county property.”

“So we need to partner with a nonprofit?” The wheels in her mind began to turn as she brought to mind all of the local nonprofits she could think of. Was the soup line a nonprofit, she wondered. No, just a community organization. Why did there have to be so much red tape?

“An accredited nonprofit, yes. It would have to assume responsibility for the building. Of course, the building and land would still be county property.”

‘ōlena ground her teeth together, wishing that she had never started this project in the first place, wishing that she had found a different space to use for her co-op.

But this building was right in the center of Pualena, a two-minute walk from her new home.

And more importantly, it was a true community center. Elders depended on it. With no library in Pualena, the community center acted as a place of refuge for kids after school and for people without internet access who needed to search for jobs or find housing.

It mattered. And she wasn’t going to let it sit empty.

“So I’ll start a nonprofit,” she said.

“What was that?” Hana asked. “I can hardly hear you.”

“Tell the council that I’m in the process of creating my own nonprofit.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes. I’ll check back in once I have a solid timeline.”

“It can’t be just you, you know. You’ll need a board of directors.”

“Of course,” ‘ōlena said. “I’m just finalizing that now.”

“Oh. Well, that is good news. I’ll let the council know.”

“Thank you.”

She disconnected the call and stood looking out at the pouring rain.

So. A nonprofit. She could do that.

What was one more thing on her to-do list?

“Mom!” Kiki shrieked. “Derek stuck his tongue out at me!”

‘ōlena sighed and went to diffuse the situation. Compared to managing this lot, running a nonprofit would be a walk in the park.