“No wonder she hates me,” Anne whispered.
Unlike Halia, Dawn didn’t refute the word. She just said, “Be patient with her.”
“Patience won’t change anything.”
“Neither will pushing. But showing up, day after day… that might.”
20
Halia
Hawaii county’s annual island-wide spelling bee was held in Kona, and the entire family showed up to support Mia. Being near Laurie’s husband made Halia’s skin crawl, but she kept her expression neutral and her tone civil.
Chris was the same as always: coldly handsome, charming when he chose to be. Halia had been suspicious of him from the beginning… but at that point in her life, she still had such a generalized dislike and mistrust of men that the family hadn’t taken her seriously. She’d even doubted herself, wondering if she was seeing red flags where there weren’t any.
Laurie was happy, and that was all that mattered.
But the man’s charisma had faded quickly once he’d achieved his goal. Once they were married, he stopped trying to charm the family – stopped giving them any time at all, in fact.
Laurie seemed content enough, focused on her studies and her work, and then on motherhood. It was only recently that their brilliant sister had started to shrink into herself.
Or maybe it had started years prior to that, and they had been too caught up in their own lives to notice until the change in their sister was glaringly obvious.
Dawn was cordial to Laurie’s husband, buffering her daughters and engaging in small talk so they didn’t have to. Meanwhile, Oakley and Akemi and Anne all surrounded Laurie, smothering her with words of love and good cheer.
It looked as if that was all a bit much for their introverted sister. She pulled her dark purple shawl tight around her shoulders and turned away, letting the wide halo of her curls shield her face from her sisters’ scrutiny.
As usual, she dealt with her overstimulating family by focusing her attention on her daughter, who was both excited and anxious about the competition.
Mia took her place on the auditorium stage and spelled one word after another, standing strong as the competition fell away. Her fingers moved through the ASL letters of each word as she spoke them aloud, grinning down at her mom.
The age limit on the competition went all the way up to seventeen, and the whole family clapped and cheered as Mia outspelled highschoolers twice her age.
She made it into the final five contestants before finally stumbling over ‘imbroglio’. Laurie watched with her hands clasped beneath her chin, like she was holding herself back from throwing the answer out across the stage.
“I knew that word!” Mia said afterwards. She looked up at her mother and signed with quick, agitated movements. “I just forgot to say theg. But I knew it! We practiced that one, remember?”
“It’s okay,” Laurie told her. “You did great.”
Pete said, “You were way younger than anybody else in the top five! I couldn’t have spelled any of those words! You did so good!”
Mia sniffed and swiped at her tears.
Laurie stepped forward and wiped the little girl’s face more thoroughly with the corner of her shawl.
“It was so brave of you to go up there with all those big kids,” Anne told their niece.
“You’ll get them next year,” Oakley said.
“You did greatthisyear,” Dawn added, rubbing her granddaughter’s back, “and that deserves celebration.”
“Yeah, great.” Chris rolled his eyes. “Participation trophies all around.”
Anne fixed him with a look that could freeze lava.
Dawn ignored him entirely and continued speaking straight to Mia.
“I think we have just enough time to get some loco mocos to go and take them down to the beach for sunset. Sound good?”
