9. Tara

Tara drove to meet Liam in a parking lot just south of Hilo; they would drive the rest of the way together.

Liam was already there when she arrived. She gave him a silly little wave through her window as she parked the van.

He got out of his truck and opened the passenger side door for her. Her heart skipped and sped as she climbed up into the cab of his truck.

It was her first first date in over twenty years. Add in the surreal feeling of going on an actual date with someone she had known nearly that long, and Tara was a bundle of nerves.

She was grateful that Liam had suggested a hike instead of dinner at a restaurant; being out and active would help. She could channel her restless nervous energy into movement.

First, though, she had to get through the drive. As Liam looped back around to the driver’s side, she half wished that they had just met at the trailhead. It felt difficult to sit still, her pulse hammering through her veins.

Once they were on the road again, she began to breathe easier. They were side by side and moving forward, which was a lot easier than staring at each other across a table, even if she was stuck strapped into a seat.

Tara wasn’t used to sitting still.

“Are you hungry?” Liam asked as he turned onto the coastal road that curved along the bay, driving between Hilo town and the ocean. “We could stop for lunch.”

“I packed lunch.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Tara shrugged. “Sixteen years of bringing food with me everywhere I go is a tough habit to shake. Tossing food and water into a backpack is second nature.”

“I was never good at that. Maddie and I were always stopping somewhere when she was hungry, even if it was just a roadside stand for bananas.”

“I always had more food than money.”

“Food, land, three healthy kids. You’re rich in what matters.”

She smiled. “True.”

“It’s hard to believe that our kids are nearly grown. You’ve got some time left with your girls, but Maddie and Cody… they’re basically adults.”

“Don’t say that!”

He chuckled. “They are, though. They’re both happy working for the family businesses now, but that won’t last forever. Blink and they’ll fly the nest.”

“Cody’s been taller than me for years, but we’ve got a couple of years left before they’re gone. More if they live with us through their first couple years of college.”

“Maddie’s going to have her first couple years of college done by the time she’s eighteen,” he said mournfully. “She’s taking classes in Hilo already. A couple years from now she’ll be transferring to some school on the mainland.”

“Homeschool kid problems,” she commiserated, only half joking.

“At least we got more time with our kids than most people do.”

“A lot more,” she agreed.

“Well, you got a lot more. I was still working overtime those early years. I didn’t quite have my priorities straight.”

“You stepped up when Laura got sick, though.”

“I tried. I could never fill the hole that her mother left, but I’ve done my best.”

“You’ve done a wonderful job,” she assured him. “Maddie’s an amazing kid, and she adores you.”

“She is amazing. Sometimes I wish she were a little bit less extraordinary so that she would stay closer to home. Is that terrible?”

“It’s normal. I’m secretly hoping that Cody does all four years of college in Hilo so that I can still have all my kids close to home. But I try not to let on how desperately I want him to stay on island.”

“You’re a better parent than me, then. I’ve practically begged Maddie to stick around.”

“She already knows that you’ll support her in whatever she decides to do.”

“Yeah, I suppose she does. More fool me. That house is going to be so quiet without her. It’s too big for one person.”

“I’ll bring the girls up,” she said lightly. “They make plenty of noise.”

“I’d like that.”

“Careful what you wish for. Paige asked me for a horse recently, and you know I don’t have room for that. We’d have to board it with you.”

“Tara, I’d give you a horse in a heartbeat.”

She gaped at him. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” he insisted, eyes on the road. “The only reason I haven’t had you stop paying for lessons is all the money goes to Maddie. You and your girls are welcome on the land anytime.”

Tara looked out the window, her cheeks warm. The coastline slid by in a mixture of bright sunshine and dappled shade. Massive monkeypod trees stretched their leafy branches out over the highway, creating umbrellas of green and gold overhead.

Liam turned off of the highway and onto a narrow residential road, taking her up through a piece of the island that she had never seen before. He parked near the end of a driveway with a metal gate, thick chain, and heavy padlock. Three separate signs read Private Property No Trespassing.

He ignored the signs and walked straight up to the gate.

“Promise we’re not going to get shot?” Tara asked as he ducked between the metal bars.

He laughed, a pleasant rumbling sound. “The land belongs to a friend of mine. He’s off island right now, but he doesn’t mind me hiking through. I used to bring Maddie here. We’d hike in with backpacks and camp near the waterfall.”

Tara handed him her backpack and threaded her leg through the gate, then ducked between the thick bars. When she straightened, Liam was wearing her backpack and a soft smile.

“Ready for a hike?”

She returned his smile. “Yeah.”

They tromped uphill, squelching through mud and splashing through puddles as they moved along a thin break in the greenery that could hardly be called a trail.

Tara was grateful that Liam was carrying her backpack, because before long the steep uphill slope had her panting. She was strong and used to working all day, but always on her land. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone for a good long walk, much less a steep hike up the mountain.

It felt good.

Her legs burned and her lungs ached, but she relished the cool air and the smell of eucalyptus as they hiked through a stand of the tall trees. An ocean breeze made the tops of them move and rustle, creating a sound like rushing water.

She was glad to be out moving her body in a new way, enjoying the quiet company of a good man. It was a strange but welcome change from the endless chatter of her girls and their friends, and from the endless work and monotony of her days at home.

She had built her life deliberately, but over the years she had fallen into a sort of waking sleep. She’d grown complacent in her marriage, complacent in her everyday life.

She loved her children and her animals and the work that it took to maintain it all, but she had settled into a strange sort of stasis disguised by the constant physical motion of her days.

There were always seeds sprouting and animals being born, food that needed to be harvested, endless meals to cook. The constant transformation all around her had blinded her to the fact that she hadn’t changed or transformed as a person in years – not until her husband’s sudden departure had shaken her out of her stupor and forced her to adapt.

It felt good to be able to provide for her family financially, to connect more with the people around her and embrace the challenges of running her own business. But it was just the beginning. This new challenge had awoken something in her, and now that her meal delivery business was chugging along in a steady way, she was beginning to long for something more.

As she followed Liam up the steep and narrow trail, appreciating the breadth of his shoulders and lines of his back just as much as the nature around them, she had an inkling of what more might look like.

“You alright back there?” Liam asked as he paused to pull out the water bottle he had stashed in Tara’s backpack. Before he took a drink, he offered it to her. She accepted gladly. It was relatively cool here in the shade of the trees, but she had worked up a sweat on their uphill climb.

“I’m good,” she replied once she had caught her breath.

Their fingers touched when she handed back the water bottle, and an electric zing went up her arm. Liam smiled in acknowledgement of the energy that buzzed between them, and his eyes held hers for a long moment.

“I was thinking,” she said as they started to walk again, and then paused as she tried to figure out how to put her meandering thoughts into words.

“Yes?” Liam prompted. The trail widened, and he dropped back to walk beside her.

“About complacency, I guess? I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s as close as I can get.”

She paused and caught her breath, thinking.

“We have these dreams when we’re young, you know? I wanted land and family. I wanted to learn how to grow my own food and have this whole old fashioned homestead. I wanted to give my kids a good childhood outside, learning real skills. And I accomplished all that.

“But I think that at some point, I stopped growing as a person. At least in big, meaningful ways. I settled into this repetitive existence. It wasn’t until recently that I tried this big new thing, providing for my family, and honestly it’s been easier than I thought it would be.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot. But I’m used to hard work. And now I’m getting paid for it, which is strange. But being out today got me thinking.

“I stopped adventuring. I used to drive all over the island, but once I got milking goats and all that I just… stopped. I can’t even remember the last time I spent the day at the beach, or drove over to Kona side just to go snorkeling and explore.

“I love living in Hawai’i. I love the sunny days and the warm rain, but in so many ways I’ve stopped taking advantage of it. And what’s worse, I don’t take my girls adventuring, not like I did with Cody when he was their age.”

“There’s still time,” Liam said.

“Yeah.” She smiled up at him. “There is.”

“Let’s take the kids to Kona. We can all hike down to Captain Cook. Maddie loves it there.”

“I think my kids would love that.”

“And you?”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“We’re nearly there,” he said as the trail narrowed again. They followed it down a steep slope and then walked up a stream until, finally, she could hear the waterfall.

The trees parted in front of them and there it was, a rush of white pouring down from a cliff. Gorgeous blue water rippled out from the bottom, filling a deep pool.

Liam set down the backpack, stripped off his shirt, and jumped into the pool. After a moment’s hesitation, Tara shed her own shirt and dove in after him.

The water was shockingly cold after the heat of their hike, but she was used to it by the time she surfaced. They swam and splashed until she started to shiver, and then they climbed out of the pool and sunned themselves on a rock like a pair of lizards.

After a while, Tara laid out the picnic she had thrown together.

There was a container of greek yogurt topped with liliko’i curd, another of homemade hummus, and a big bag full of sliced veggies from the garden.

“This is the best hummus I’ve ever tasted,” Liam said after his first bite.

“You say that about everything that I make.”

“It’s always true. Your new business was a lifesaver for Maddie and me. She was getting so sick of eating the same three things on repeat that she decided to take things into her own hands and learn to cook.”

“Well that’s good.”

“You’ve never had Maddie’s cooking,” Liam laughed. “God bless her for trying, but she’s a disaster in the kitchen. Raw chicken and steaks so badly burned that I nearly broke a tooth. I might cook the same handful of meals all the time, but at least they’re edible.”

Tara’s heart ached for Maddie, fumbling her way through her first attempts without anyone to guide her. She had lost her own mother too young, but not nearly as young as Maddie had. Not before she had at least learned the basics of how to take care of herself.

“Maybe we could all cook together sometime,” she suggested.

“I love my daughter, but I can’t let you invite her into making meals that you sell to people.”

“I could come up to your place and show her how to make something.”

“You really want to cook in your free time?”

“If it’s with you and the kids? Sure I do.”

“I think Maddie would like that.”

“Cody’s a pretty good cook, but I can hardly get my girls into the kitchen. If they were cooking with Maddie, though, I think they’d have a good time. They adore her.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Liam’s voice dropped an octave, and from the way that he was looking at her, she could tell that his thoughts had moved on from the kids.

She felt a blush come to her cheeks, and she looked out across the pool at the waterfall as she ate her passionfruit yogurt.

They finished their lunch and swam again before starting on the long walk back out.

“Do you need to get home?” Liam asked as they drove south. “Or do you have more time?”

“What were you thinking?”

“We could stop in Hilo for poke and eat it by the water.”

“You’re thinking about food already?” she teased. “We just ate lunch.”

“That was delicious, but it was a snack. And it was ages ago. Didn’t you work up an appetite on the hike back?”

Tara grinned. “I guess I could go for some poke.”

Liam parked near a small takeaway restaurant by the bay, easily the best place in town for poke. They ordered two big bowls of white rice topped with fresh local ‘ahi, then walked across the grass to sit near the water.

The sun had retreated to the other side of the island, leaving the Hilo side dim and cool. The sunsets on the eastern side of the island weren’t as dramatic as the ones over in Kona, but they were beautiful too. As Tara watched the sky turn umber and dusky violet, the colors shining across the moving surface of the water, Liam’s arm warm against her own, she felt deeply grateful for her life. Every unexpected bit of it.

“This is beautiful,” she sighed as she set down her empty bowl. “I should get out more often.”

“With me?” he asked, lips brushing against her temple.

She took his hand in hers and agreed, “With you.”