“Oh! Very cool. So after this, you’re done for the day?”
“I have a couple checking in tonight – but yeah, pretty much. I might take my kids down to the hot ponds for sunrise.”
One of the guys gave her a weird look. “Hotponds?”
“Like hot springs?” a girl asked.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Ooh, we should do that!”
“We’re all booked up,” her boyfriend said.
“Come on, we can make time for hot springs! I didn’t even know they had those here!”
“Of course they have hot springs.” He reached across the table and grabbed the last two pieces of toast from the platter in the center of the table. “The whole island is an active volcano.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to Anne. “Where are they?”
“Pohoiki, a ways south of here. I can show you if you have time.”
“I thought all the hot springs got swallowed up in that big eruption a few years back,” another girl said. “The one that burned up a bunch of houses?”
“Some did, yeah. The twenty-eighteen eruption took out that whole neighborhood, and some of my favorite beach spots from when I was a kid are covered in new lava rock. There’s still one good spot left, though.”
“We could go tonight after our hike,” the girl said happily. “Soak our tired bones.”
“Where are you headed today?”
“Volcano National Park! We’re going before dawn to get a good look at the eruption before we start our hike.”
“Pele’s sure been putting on a show lately.”
“Is it safe?” asked the quiet girl at the end of the table.
“Sure. I just took my kids the other day.” Anne had taken them the week before, a last-minute trip to see the massivefountain of lava that was erupting down in the crater. “Even my teenager was impressed.”
Claire was finally warming to Hawaii. Running what was essentially a small bed and breakfast gave Anne plenty of time to explore the island with her kids, helping them to experience the magic of the place in a way that they’d never had time for on their short trips to visit family.
With each extraordinary place that they visited, Claire’s ire at being uprooted just before high school faded a bit more.
“We should get going if we want to get there before sunrise,” said one of the boys. They wolfed down the rest of their breakfast, and then they were out the door.
Anne cleared the table at a leisurely pace and then washed the breakfast dishes as the sky outside shifted from black to indigo. The horizon cut through the darkness as stars faded into the brightening sky.
“With a view like this,” she murmured, “who needs a dishwasher?”
Anne was halfway through the breakfast dishes when Zoe walked out of the ‘ohana unit out back.
She paused halfway across the backyard when she saw her mother through the window, and for a moment Anne thought that she would veer around the house and avoid her altogether. But after a brief pause, Zoe continued across the yard and up the back steps.
She walked in without looking directly at Anne, but she did give her a quiet “Good morning.”
“Hey Zoe!” Anne’s voice came out so loud and bright that she was instantly worried she might scare her away. She tried to tone it down as she continued, “Are you hungry? I made steak and eggs.”
When Zoe didn’t reply right away she added, “Island grown.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” She grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and served herself a large portion of steak and eggs. “Hey Auntie.”
