21. Nell

21

Nell

N ell swept Everett up to her hip and walked out the door, not bothering to lock it behind her.

Growing up, her family had never locked the door of their little farmhouse. After her dad died, her mother had started locking all the doors and windows. She used to check them obsessively, getting up out of bed or turning the car around halfway to town to drive back and check that the house was all locked up.

Her fear had seeped into Nell, and it was all locked doors after that.

Until now. Living in the little ‘ohana unit at the Kealoha place, with a dog in the yard and friends all around, she had fallen out of the habit of locking the door every time she left the house. It was an immense blessing to feel so safe, especially after all they had been through.

The sound of laughter led her to the big lychee tree out back, easily twice the size of any tree in Nate and ‘ōlena's orchard. Cassie was up in the highest branches with Kai and Juniper, shrieking with giggles as they tossed empty husks back and forth. The air was heavy with the sweet, floral smell of lychee.

"Time to go," Nell called up.

"Aw, Mom!" Cassie whined in protest. Wisps of dark blond hair had escaped her braid, radiating out around her head and backlit by the sunshine like a halo.

"We need to pick up the meals from Auntie Tara and take them over to A Place of Refuge."

"Is Bella there?" she asked. She and another four-year-old girl had become friends during their stay at the women and family shelter.

"No, Bella and her mom moved away."

"Can we go see her?"

"I don't think so, sweetheart. They went far away in a plane." As soon as the judge had granted Mary the right to move out of state with her own daughter – over the objections of an abusive ex-husband – they had flown to the mainland to stay with extended family.

Nell had gotten lucky – beyond lucky, really – with Emma's generous offer of the ‘ohana unit at the Kealoha place. Finding an affordable place to live in Hawai'i was next to impossible anymore; she knew single mothers who slept in their cars and others who lived in tents. The waiting list for subsidized housing was a mile long, and even then the rents were astronomical.

After such a dizzying stroke of luck, Nell felt the need to give back to the community that had given her so much. Delivering food to A Place of Refuge was a start, but it wasn't enough.

"Cassie, climb down please."

"I want to stay here!"

Nell stared up at her, surprised. "Without me?"

"I want to stay with Kai and Jun!"

"Okay," she agreed, half expecting Cassie to change her mind. She had stayed home with Juniper and Emma before, but this was the first time she had ever asked to stay behind. Usually there was a lot of clinging involved, and often a few tears before she finally agreed to let Nell go. Nell was grateful that Cassie felt safe with their neighbors… and at the same time, it felt bittersweet.

"Bye!" Cassie sang out, cheerful. She turned and pulled another ripe lychee from a branch.

"Bye," Nell called up.

Everett reached towards his sister, eager to be up in the tree with the big kids. She chuckled and pulled him closer before he could topple out of her arms.

"Not just yet, little man."

Cassie had always been a clinger, what the locals called opihi for the limpets that fastened themselves to tidal rocks. Everett was the opposite, anxious to do everything that his sister could do, eager to run before he had even taken his first steps. He was constantly trying to launch himself out into the world, confident of a soft landing.

Nell hitched him up higher on her hip, wondering if she should try to wrestle him into a carrier before walking over to Tara's house. Cody usually loaded the van for her, and she would only have to take Everett out of the carrier and wrestle him into his car seat a few minutes later, so she wasn't eager to try it… which reminded her, she still needed to transfer his car seat from Emma's car to Tara's van. That was a whole lot of hullabaloo for a five-minute drive.

"Headed out?" Emma asked. She popped up out of her herb garden, where she had been hidden by enormous basil plants. Dozens of bees hovered around the white flowers, creating a soothing white noise that sounded like summer. The smell of basil and tomato plants rounded out the scene, taking Nell back to the kitchen garden that her parents had tended when she was little.

"I'm just taking Tara's weekly meal donation over to A Place of Refuge. Cassie's going to hang here, if that's okay. She's up a tree with Kai and Jun."

"Of course. I'm here all day. Do you want to leave Everett here too?"

"Really?" Cassie was one thing; she was about as easy as a kid could be. Everett, on the other hand, was a tiny tornado in need of constant attention.

"Sure." Emma held out her arms. "We love Everett."

"If you don't mind." Even as she got ready to hand him over, her arms tightened reflexively around her baby. After having her kids with her day and night for years, occasionally handing them over was something she was still getting used to.

"The kid is twenty pounds of pure sunshine." Emma stepped closer, and Everett launched himself out of Nell's arms. Emma caught him with a laugh. "Of course I don't mind."

"Closer to thirty these days." Nell stretched her aching shoulders, feeling immediate relief in her spine even as her heart ached to have the weight of him back in her arms.

Being a part of the community – true community, friends and neighbors who looked out for each other and worked together to raise the next generation – took some getting used to, but she was so endlessly grateful that Pualena had taken them in.

"Can you wave bye-bye to Mama?" Emma asked.

"Buh buh buh!" Everett grinned and waved his chubby hands with so much energy that they blurred.

"See you soon." Nell blew him a kiss and gave Emma a grateful smile, then walked out through the front gate and over to Tara's place.

The usual menagerie greeted her at the front gate. Tara had downsized in recent months, but you wouldn't know that by looking at the place.

Honking geese and curious goats swarmed around her as she closed the gate behind her and crossed the front yard. Dogs barked, more in greeting than anything else, and Tara had the front door open before Nell could knock.

"Nell! Hi! Come on in. Not you," she told a goat sternly.

Nell managed to slip through without admitting any barnyard animals, and she breathed in the rich aromas that were coming from Tara's kitchen. Caramelized onions and roasted tomatoes seasoned the air along with a warm undertone of something carby and sweet - probably boiled breadfruit.

"It smells amazing in here."

"Does it?" Tara grinned and adjusted the bandana she wore over her hair. "That's good. I can't really smell it unless I go outside for a while, and I've been cooking all day."

"Is there anything I need to carry out to the van?"

"No, Cody loaded it up already. But you've got some time, haven't you? Come on in and sit a minute. You can try my breadfruit marinara."

Nell followed her through the living room and took a seat at the kitchen counter.

"How have you been? You're just on the other side of the fence, but it feels like we haven't seen each other in weeks. How are things going with Hugh?"

"I'm good. He's good. We're just taking things slow."

"That's the best thing you can do, I think, with kids in the mix."

"It's so hard when he has split custody. I keep waiting for him to tell me that he's moving to Honolulu to be closer to his daughter… there's even a part of me that wishes he would, because she needs him more than I do. She deserves to have her dad there with her. It makes me wonder if our relationship can ever go anywhere, or if I'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"I can understand that." Tara put a bowl of gooey carbs down in front of Nell, and she inhaled the fragrant steam. "Careful. It just came out of the oven."

Nell poked and prodded the food with a fork, releasing more steam. "How about you and Liam?"

"We're great," Tara said halfheartedly.

"You sound great," Nell replied, teasing.

"I just wish we had more time together."

"It must be hard, with businesses to run and kids at home. I'm guessing teens are almost demanding as babies, in their own way."

"Not our teens," she said with a laugh. "Cody's been such a huge help to me. I'm not sure how I would manage without him. Then again, I wouldn't need to earn as much without him eating me out of house and home." She laughed again and shook her head. "No, our teens are pretty incredible. And we only have a couple more years before they're gone, so that takes priority. We have the rest of our lives to be together, God willing. But these years with my kids… I wouldn't give that up for anything."

Nell nodded along, understanding perfectly. She ate a bite from the bowl in front of her, and concentrated flavors of tomato and basil exploded across her tongue. The thinly-sliced breadfruit between slices of eggplant tasted like fried dough. She forked up another bite that was rich with farm-fresh ricotta.

"Tara, this is phenomenal. Your food is always good, but this is just insane."

"Oh good! This will be dinner for me and the kids tonight, and then I'll make it for next week's meal delivery."

"For A Place of Refuge too?"

"Yep! I usually make a big pot of something for the food kitchen at New Horizons, but A Place of Refuge gets the same stuff that my meal deliveries does."

"That's amazing, Tara. It's so good of you to include them like that."

"It's just another customer for me! I'd donate the meals if I could, but I can't afford it."

"Then who–"

"Emma! You didn't know?"

Nell dropped her fork. "Emma pays for the meals?"

"Ever since she found out about the place! Some of my customers buy meals for friends and family, usually meal trains for new mothers or elders recovering from surgery, but Emma's the only person who buys that many meals every week."

"Wow. I had no idea."

"You know that her husband died last year?"

"Yeah, Kai's dad."

"Right. He grew up here in Pualena, and he left her well set up… I think she was just looking for a way to give back. She's been talking about starting her own non-profit, but for now she's just funding the meals herself. It's a win-win for me. I'm so happy to send meals to A Place of Refuge every week – and I'm grateful to you for driving!"

"I'm happy to do it. I'm looking for ways to give back too, but I don't have anywhere close to the resources that Emma does." She bit her tongue, hoping it didn't sound like she was begrudging the woman anything, especially given that she was so generous to everyone around her while still grieving her husband.

"We all do what we can. These years are so hard, because we're already pouring everything we have into our kids."

"Maybe the trick is finding things we can do with our kids," Nell said thoughtfully between bites. "Isn't that how we instill the same values in them?"

"My kids have been a huge help with this new business. I should do a better job of actually showing my face at the food kitchen and bringing them along. It would do them good to see the people they're cooking for."

"I bet they'd like that. Maybe we could bring the kids to A Place of Refuge sometime. There are always kids living there, and your twins are amazing artists… we could offer a painting class or something?"

"They would love that."

"Awesome! I'll ask Halia about it today." She finished the phenomenal food and gulped down a glass of iced tea that Tara had set down in front of her.

"Keys are in the van," Tara said when she stood.

"Thank you!" Nell ran around the counter to give the taller woman a big hug before leaving. "Back soon!"

She drove the short distance to A Place of Refuge, inching along in Tara's van. She hardly drove anymore, and getting behind the wheel of someone else's vehicle always made her anxious, but she was doing her best to step over that anxiety without pausing to let it get to her. If she could drive a van full of kids, she could certainly drive some food across town to the shelter.

A chaotic mixture of feelings overwhelmed Nell as she parked in front of the wall of greenery that shielded A Place of Refuge from the road. She was deeply grateful to this place for giving her and her babies shelter when they needed it most… and at the same time, she had been so miserably frightened during her time there that it brought up all sorts of terrible feelings.

A part of her wanted to drive away and never so much as look at the place again.

"Time to make some new memories," she told herself.

When she got out of the car, she heard a muffled giggling. She stared at the overgrown fence for a minute before she finally spotted a small eye about three feet above the ground, spying on her through the leaves. The rest of the child was hidden behind the greenery.

"Found you!" Nell said.

The kid giggled again.

"Can you help me with something?"

"What?" Even their voice was muffled through the leaves.

"Can you find Auntie Halia?"

"She's in her office."

"Go tell her that Nell is here with the food that Tara sent."

"Auntie Halia!" The kid's voice faded as he went crashing through the bushes. "The food is here!"

Halia met her at the gate and took the box that she carried.

"There's one more," Nell said, starting back towards the van. "Just a sec."

By the time she reached the communal kitchen with the rest of the food, the whole community had gathered around the picnic tables. She recognized about half of them from her stay at A Place of Refuge; the rest of the faces were new.

"I have an idea," she said to Halia as the other women distributed the food amongst themselves.

"What's that?" The older woman was warm and welcoming. At the same time, there was a steel and a steadiness to her that helped everyone who stayed there feel safe.

"I'd like to give back, but it feels like I have so little to offer."

Halia didn't try to contradict her; she just listened patiently.

"I'm good with kids, and that's something I can do with my own babies. I work at a daycare – you know Pualena Playschool, right? I work there Monday through Friday. But I thought that maybe I could offer a childcare program on Saturdays. Or weekday afternoons, maybe? I know how hard it can be to navigate the legal system and even run errands as a single mom, and so I thought that maybe I could help with that. And just give the kids something fun to do."

"That sounds lovely."

"I could run it here, or I could talk to ‘ōlena about using New Horizons."

"I know the mothers here would appreciate something like that, especially with summer break right around the corner."

"Okay, good. I'll pull something together as soon as I can."

"I look forward to hearing from you." Halia gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder before moving off to mediate a dispute between two teenagers who were staying there with their mothers.

Nell stayed for a few minutes to chat with women she knew. One had secured a local place through Section Eight and was set to move in the next week. Another had run into one roadblock after another searching for a job, never mind a place to live, and Nell's heart went out to her.

She left feeling buoyed by her plans to offer something back to the place that had helped her. It wasn't much, but it was what she could do with what she had to give. And somehow, that was everything.