ONE
Makena, South Maui
Claudia
Savannah is tuckedagainst my chest, nursing lazily. Her small body completely relaxed and content, her fingers curled around the edge of my tank top. Each slow pull steadies me, making my heart beat in time with hers. Or at least that’s what it’s felt like since the very first time I held her in my arms. As if it were the first time, I was not just mimicking peace but actually living in it. The first time, I was not working toward making a life but living my very own. Right now, in this setting, it’s impossible not to sink deeper into that.
Dr. Lydia Harrow, my doctoral advisor, had invited us here as a graduation gift after I finished my PhD, with no family to toast me and no one waiting with balloons or cake.
“You deserve this, Claudia,” she’d said.
She and her partner, Dr. Maya Ruiz, have been here for a few days, fussing over me and Savannah, raising a glass of wine in my honor. But the rest of the week will just be me and mydaughter, the sound of the Pacific, and silence that wraps around us instead of swallowing us whole.
Lydia —which she insists I call her now—leans against the counter, her glass of pinot turning slow circles between her fingers. She watches us the way she always does — quietly, curiously, like she’s reading something important.
“She’s content,” she says, her voice low and warm. “So are you.”
“I am,” I admit. “For the first time in a long time.”Ever.
Maya stands at the stove, plating food, her curls escaping the bun on top of her head. She smells like turmeric, sea air, and sunshine. “Peace looks good on you,” she says, sliding a bowl of curry onto the counter.
“Peace feels less… temporary,” I say, adjusting Savannah to my other breast. “Like if I let my guard down, it won’t disappear.”
Lydia sets her glass aside and comes closer, “You’ve spent years studying what trauma does to the brain, how it changes people. But what you don’t seem to recognize,” she says, tilting her head, “is that you’re living proof it can be rewired. You broke the cycle,Dr. Holloway.”
I cover my chest with a muslin cloth out of habit, even though I know they don’t care. “I know this. But occasionally I feel like someone waiting for the ground to shake and trying to figure out how never to let her feel even a tremble.”
Maya smiles softly. “Sometimes that shake is a reminder of just how far you’ve come.”
The words settle deep, like warmth spreading under my ribs.
Lydia gives me a rare smile, small, sincere. “You’re a good mother. You don’t have to earn that.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I look down at Savannah, milk-drunk and perfect, her little mouth slack against my skin, lashes fluttering, instead. “Thank you,” Imanage while keeping my emotions in check, because thank you isn’t enough, but that phrase is not nearly enough, it never will be. Not for them and who they have become to me.
When Savannah is asleep and no longer nursing, Maya hands me a plate and holds out her hands. “Give her to me, Mommy, let me hold her while you can do it unattached.”
As soon as I do, Maya leans down, kisses Savannah’s forehead, and whispers, “La paz te encontrará dond eque te encuentre.”
Peace will find you where you let it.
I smile faintly and whisper. “Gracias.”
“De nada, cariño,” she says, her smile soft and warm.
After we’ve all eaten, we head out to the patio and linger a little longer. Savannah is sleeping in Maya’s arms, her tiny lips pursed in that perfect way babies do when they’re dreaming. Lydia tells another story about the house — how the wind changes direction before a storm, how the sea turtles sometimes nest near the rocks — and I listen, memorizing the cadence of her voice.
When they finally turn in, I stay on the porch with Savannah, watching the moonlight shimmer across the waves.
Tomorrow they’ll fly home, and then it’ll be just me and her — no deadlines, no noise, no one expecting anything. Just us.
The ocean breathes in and out, the kind of sound that loosens your chest whether you want it to or not. Savannah stirs against me, and I hum softly, feeling the tiny weight of her hand clutching my shirt.
For the first time in years, the quiet doesn’t feel empty.
I waketo sunlight spilling through gauzy curtains and the rhythmic sound of waves brushing the shore. Lydia and Maya’s car is already gone; the note they left sits on the kitchen counter in Lydia’s crisp handwriting.
Enjoy the stillness, Claudia. You’ve built a life that deserves it.
