“I’m glad you’re here.”
“Now talk, though I got a feeling I already know what you goin’ to say.”
Her teeth started chattering and she took a sip of the coffee to try to warm herself up. It burned her tongue. She took another sip, and another, letting the hot liquid spread to her limbs. Still, the cold permeated through her skin, muscle and bone, and she realized her chill wasn’t something that could be warmed by coffee.
“I woke up feeling like shit, bummed about the mayor’s announcement last night and wanting to clear my head. When I left the house, there was no thunder or lightning, just a dark sky. So I went for it.”
“And?”
“And it was beautiful and I could have kept going forever, but the lightning moved in, so I turned around. I was about halfway back when I noticed the freshwater and the cave opening on the bottom. And then the tiger shark was there. I felt it behind me, but it was just checking me out—”
“How big?”
“About fourteen feet.”
“Male or female?”
“Female.”
Minnow told them about the encounter and how she never felt threatened, until the turtle. But that had been misplaced.
Cliff spoke for the first time. “Mahina.”
“You’re lucky, she doesn’t show herself to many people,” Woody said.
“Is Mahina your?aumakua?”
“Hina is what we call her. She’s an old shark. We grew up together. She never bothered us, we never bothered her. She keeps these waters clean and watches out for us.”
Cliff kept watching her with an animal intensity that made her uncomfortable. Like he was trying to see inside her. “Hina is the shark your mother had a run-in with,” he said.
Minnow felt a sheet of ice forming on her skin. “Excuse me?”
The two men swapped looks. “I left the photo album on the counter. Did you not see it?” Woody asked.
“I was going to look when I got back. What are you talking about? My mother?”
“Your mother came here with your uncle Jimmy just before you were born.”
It was such an odd thing to say, she almost laughed. “I think I would have heard about that.” But what did she really know about her parents’ life before her? Only fragments of stories, and ones they had chosen to tell. Minnow had been so young.
“She came here to figure things out. She was six months pregnant and thinking about leaving your dad.”
A lead weight fell through her. “That’s not possible.”
“Obviously she went back and made it work, but she was soul-searching and trying to do right by you.”
“But why? Why has no one ever mentioned this?” she asked.
Absurd as this notion was, though, there was something familiar about it. Something real.
“I have no idea, but probably because things straightened out once she went back. Cliff spent more time with her than I did, so he can tell you more.”
Minnow looked at Cliff. “Why was my mom here?”
He didn’t say anything, just stood unmoving. A stunned fish.
“Please, tell me what you know,” she begged.
