30. Tara

“Let’s go!” Piper sprinted down the trail, which was all steep incline and chunks of lava rock.

“Don’t run!” Tara shouted after her. “It’s a four-mile hike, not a race!”

Piper stumbled to a stop and looked up at her. “I’m just so excited!”

“And I love that you’re excited, but snorkeling won’t be any fun with a sprained ankle. Not to mention the hike back up.”

“Cody could carry me!”

“Absolutely not,” he said as he passed.

“Why not?” she demanded.

“I’m already carrying all your food and your snorkeling gear!”

“Well yeah. You’re twice as old as me and twice as big.”

“That doesn’t mean it would be easy to carry you up a mountain.”

“You would though!” Piper ran to keep up with his absurdly long legs, windmilling her arms to keep her balance. “You would carry me if I broke my ankle.”

“How about you don’t break your ankle?”

“Because then you’d have to carry me.”

Cody sighed. “Because then I’d have to carry you.”

“I knew it!” She pushed past him and ran down the trail.

“Piper!” he shouted, loping after her. “Seriously, it’s not funny! Slow down!”

Tara let out an exhausted sort of laugh and glanced at Liam, who just smiled. His perfectly poised angel of a daughter walked just behind them, talking horses with the calmer of the twins.

The sun was blazing when they finally reached the end of the trail, and they dove straight into the cool blue water without bothering with masks or snorkels.

Once they had cooled off, they climbed back up onto the warm black rocks to sort out their gear.

It was a gorgeous morning at Kealakekua Bay. They had started out in the dark to get across the island and down the trail before the sun was too high or the crowds were too thick. There were just a smattering of other people, including one older woman who Liam and Maddie greeted by name.

“She comes every week and clears the trail,” Maddie told the girls. “Watch this.”

The woman slipped into the water and then held her hands out to her little dog, who jumped off the rocks to join her. When she kicked off with her long fins, the dog balanced on her back with the easy confidence of a sailor. Back on the rocks, Paige and Piper laughed with delight.

“Imagine if I did that with Butterscotch,” Paige said.

“You can’t bring a rabbit down here,” Cody told her. “She’d be terrified.”

“Well our dogs are too big.”

Piper started to say something, then cracked up laughing before she could get the words out. After a few more false starts, she finally said, “Imagine if I brought one of the chickens,” and then burst out laughing again.

Cody shook his head and walked over to Maddie, fins in hand.

“I haven’t been down here forever,” he said to her, trying so hard to sound casual. “Where’s the best place for fish and stuff?”

“They’re everywhere,” she said with a smile. She pointed to a distant rocky outcropping, where the ocean had carved natural arches into the stone. “There’s no one swimming over there right now. Want to check it out?”

“Sure.”

The two teenagers disappeared while the twins were still spitting into their masks, rubbing the loogies around inside to keep them from fogging up.

“Ready?” Tara asked when they finally had their gear on.

Piper gave her a thumbs up and splashed into the water. Paige hesitated a minute, then followed her sister. They kicked off, exploring the rocky area along the coastline. Tara and Liam shadowed them, swimming just behind.

Fully immersed in this blue world, a high tide of emotion filled Tara’s chest.

She loved the verdant world of her farm and the rich aromas of her kitchen, but how had she let so many years pass without putting on a mask and snorkel and exploring this parallel universe that existed just on the edge of their own?

Tropical fish flitted by in a parade of stripes and colors, and she soaked it all in with gratitude.

She saw schools of yellow tangs and beautiful Moorish idols with their dramatic black on white stripes and long, graceful fins. Convict tangs swam by in a dizzying mass of stripes. She spotted Achilles tang with their dramatic red markings.

The names she had learned decades ago filled her head as she kicked slowly over the reef, keeping an eye on her girls. It was like seeing old friends again after years away.

Then came the spinner dolphins.

Piper was so excited that she lost her snorkel and came up sputtering. Once she had recovered enough to breathe, she refitted her mask and snorkel and took off after her sister, who was already swimming above the pod of dolphins.

As they watched, one dolphin grabbed something off of its friend’s tail. It swam up towards the surface and then dropped it. A leaf, Tara realized as a third dolphin caught the object on its tailfin. They were playing catch with a big leaf that had fallen into the bay.

The dolphins could have easily outpaced them if they’d wanted to, but they didn’t seem to mind the audience. They swam slowly, playing in the calm waters of Kealakekua Bay.

At one point, she looked up and saw that Cody and Maddie had joined them. They drifted away from the shallow waters where the tropical fish congregated and out into the deep blue water of the lagoon.

Eventually, the dolphins lost interest in their game (or lost their leaf, she wasn’t sure) and started to jump. They gathered speed beneath the water and burst out over the surface, spinning in acrobatic corkscrew curves before splashing down again. The afternoon sun shone off the varicolored gray of their bodies as they jumped out of the bay again and again.

Up above the surface watching the dolphins, she realized how far from shore they had come. When the pod moved away, she turned her crew back towards shore while the twins still had the energy to make it here. Their energy might seem boundless, but they were only eight years old and unused to snorkeling.

When they finally made it back to shore, the girls were panting. Tara was tired too, the muscles in her legs burning from the unfamiliar exertion of swimming with fins. They all climbed up onto the rocks to catch their breath.

“I can’t… go… any… farther.” Piper sprawled dramatically across the rocks, half of her body in a sun-warmed tidepool. “I can’t make it up the mountain. Someone will have to carry me.”

“I’m not carrying you,” Cody groused.

“What if I break my leg?”

“Not this again.”

“Are you going to break your leg on purpose so that he has to carry you?” Paige asked.

Piper considered this for a moment. “Maybe a toe?”

“Okay,” Tara laughed. “Get up, take your fins off. Come over to the shade and eat some lunch.”

“Can’t… move. Need… sustenance.”

She screamed with laughter when Cody hauled her up off of the rocks and threw her over one shoulder with her fins still on. Maddie laughed, which only encouraged them. Cody tromped through the growing crowd of tourists and claimed a spot in the shade, setting his sister down on a tree branch.

After lunch, they were ready for another quick dip before they made their way back up the mountain. It was a serious hike, four miles uphill, and the twins probably couldn’t have handled it until that year. As it was, they still struggled.

“I’m gonna puke,” Piper said two miles in.

“You are not,” Cody told her.

“She might,” Paige said. “She drank a lot of seawater.”

“Well what did you do that for?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Piper shouted. Then she groaned and leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees.

“She got excited when she saw the dolphins,” Paige explained.

“You’ll be okay,” Maddie said, patting Piper’s back. “Just take slow, deep breaths. Do you want some water?”

Piper squeezed her eyes shut and took her head.

Eventually they made it to the top. The climb had taken so long that it was nearly nightfall, so they took their time on the last leg and stopped to watch the spectacle of a fiery sunset over the ocean. It was a spectacular view, all gold and orange offset by deep purple clouds.

Finally, they loaded back into Tara’s van.

There was a sweet little town nearby, and they treated themselves to poke and ice cream at two local shops before beginning the long drive home.

“Can we do this every week?” Piper asked as they drove south along the coastal highway. Her voice was sleepy and content.

Tara glanced at Liam, who grinned.

“I’m game if you are,” he said quietly.

“You know what?” she said to her daughter.

“We don’t have time,” Piper droned, disappointed.

“Actually, I was going to say that I’d really like that.”

“But we don’t have time?” Her voice was uncertain now, hopeful.

“We’ll just have to make time.”

Piper beamed. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. I’ll talk to Emma about a work trade, see if she can handle the farm chores for us once a week. We can get out and adventure more.”

The twins whooped, and in the rearview mirror she saw the teenagers exchange a smile. Liam reached out and took her hand.

“Maybe a less strenuous adventure next week?” she asked quietly.

He chuckled. “I’m thinking hammocks. We can set up somewhere and kick back while the kids adventure. Maybe get a fire going at sunset.”

“Hammocks sound good.”

Every cell in her body glowed with contentment as she drove on down the curving coastal road.