It wasn’tfair.
“What are you doing here?” Anne blurted the question out without thinking.
Instead of being offended, Noah smiled.
And wasn’t that just like him?
Anne narrowed her eyes and gave him her best glare, but his smile didn’t move an inch.
“I’m here for Zoe,” he said, and her stomach plummeted. “She’s helping me with a job today.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Dawn said without looking up from her recipe book. “She must be out back.”
“I’m right here.” Zoe came banging through the screen door that led from the kitchen to the carport. She wore heavy work boots, thick pants, and an oversized t-shirt. A stripe of her dark auburn hair was visible at the roots, streaking down the middle of the fading green dye. She and Dawn made a strange pair – striped heads, strikingly similar faces, and two utterly different color palettes.
Zoe’s skin was a gorgeous golden brown, just like her father’s; Dawn was as white as paper. She tanned better than Anne did, but months of hiding indoors had turned her into a ghost of her former self.
“Do you want some breakfast?” Anne asked. “I’m making waffles.”
“No. Thanks.” Zoe cast a disparaging look at the flour container on the counter. “I don’t eat wheat.”
Since when?Anne wanted to ask, but she pressed her teeth together. Her ignorance would only reap more disdain from her daughter… even though it was Zoe who refused to share any details of her life in the first place.
“I’ll be back in time for the party,” she told her grandmother.
And then they headed for the front door – Zoe without a backward glance, and Noah with a wink that made Anne want to fling the waffle iron at his head.
“Just marching right in like he owns the place,” she muttered under her breath.
“He’s around more than most of my kids,” Dawn said mildly.
“He’s not one of your kids!”
Dawn glared at her. “They’re all my kids.”
The last thread of Anne’s patience snapped. She stormed outside, letting the screen door slam behind her. The bacon could burn for all she cared.
She made it about a mile down the cliffs before she finally cooled down – and by then, the morning sun was starting to scorch her nose and shoulders. She walked back towards the house, feeling utterly foolish.
What was it about being home that turned her into an angry teenager?
12
Laurie
It felt as though the entire town of Pualena showed up for Halia’s fiftieth birthday party, and there were dozens of people from other parts of the island too. They filled the bottom floor of the house and spilled out into the yard on all sides.
Auntie Mahina was there, and Uncle Mano – Laurie felt an unexpected stab of grief when she saw him. He was one of her dad’s best friends, and the haunted look on his face when he stepped inside was a sharp reminder of Kimo’s death.
Grief was like that – a low-grade ache that you could just about ignore… until something triggered a sudden stab of pain that felt just as sharp as the initial loss.
Laurie turned away from them, letting the crowd move her. If Uncle Mano pulled her into a hug, strong and steady as her dad, she would break down crying on the spot. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if there weren’t a hundred people milling around. Old crushes and school bullies and friends that had drifted apart. Itwas the blessing and the curse of small towns, seeing so many of the people she’d known growing up.
Even Zoe was there, showing up for Halia along with the rest of the introverts in the family (which most of them were).
Halia wasn’t exactly a social butterfly herself. But these wereherpeople, relationships she had cultivated throughout five decades of living in the same place, and she seemed perfectly at home in this particular crowd.
Zoe’s green hair was caught up in a clip, and she wore her version of fancy clothes: clean slacks and an oversized Hawaiian shirt. This one had a pleasant leaf pattern, which was a welcome departure from the skull motifs she usually went for.
