“Teenagers,” Anne said with a lopsided grin.
Oakley shook her head. “No. Nope. Nuh-uh. Mine will be perfect forever.”
Anne laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Hey!” She waved her hand at Laurie, pulling her back out of her book. “I’m telling Anne that I refuse to resign myself to terrible teen years. Our girls will be perfect angels forever, right?”
Sure, Laurie signed with a twinkle of mischief in her eye.
“Claire’s still a perfect angel,” said Anne in a voice that lacked conviction. “Just… a willful one.”
“How’s it going with the rooms?” Laurie closed her book and sat up.
“Good!” Anne said and signed. “We have one five-star review already. Our first guests were this really sweet older couple. There’s a whole extended family there right now; they booked all four rooms at once. The nice thing about Hawaii is that the guests are hardly even there. I give them an early breakfast, and then they’re off adventuring. They come back after dinner and crash.”
“Easy money.”
“Here’s hoping. We’ve got a lot of bookings already.”
“How’s Mom?” Oakley asked.
“She’s doing better! She joined everybody for an early breakfast this morning. Just ate some papaya, but there’s something about having new people around. It’s helping her get back into a healthy rhythm, I think.”
“That’s good. I was getting really worried about her.”
“Processing grief takes time,” said Laurie.
Oakley was quiet for a moment, looking at her little sister. She’d driven up to Hawi to pick her up that morning at first light, before Chris even left for work. Laurie and Mia were sitting out on the front steps when she arrived. There was a miasma hanging over that place that she couldn’t quite put words to… but they’d jumped into the car like they couldn’t get away from that house quick enough.
“Is everything okay at home?” she asked.
Laurie’s face went flat, immediately defensive. She looked back at her book, but Oakley flapped her hand until Laurie looked up again.
“Have you and Chris been fighting?”
“We don’t fight.”
“Laurie, I–”
“I’m fine.” Laurie accentuated the words with sharp, pointed signs.
“Chris seemed really angry when he picked you up the other day,” Anne said, signing along with motions that were soft and deferent.
“That was my fault. I left my phone charging and forgot to check it. And I forgot to check in to tell him that we got there okay. He was just worried.”
Oakley frowned and asked, “At what point does worry cross the line into coercive control?”
“Stop picking on me! You think I can’t manage my own life?”
“We’re not picking on you!”
“We’re worried about you,” Anne added.
“Worry about your own lives!” Laurie narrowed her eyes and glared at Oakley. “How’s Trent?”
Oakley pulled her head back in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t even seen him since Christmas.”
