“Zoe, please.”
“You weren’t here.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t here when I needed you. Ever.”
“I know that. But I can’t change the past.”
“Grandma was a teenager when she had you, andshestayed.”
“She had a lot of help from Tutu Kalama.”
“You would’ve had plenty of help! You could have gone to collegehere.”
“I could have,” Anne acknowledged quietly. There was no way for her to explain to her daughter how impossible that had felt at the time, how suffocating.
“You’re theoppositeof Grandma and Tutu! You’re the opposite of a foster parent. You’re a mother who just threw her daughter away.”
“I didn’t throw you away,” Anne growled. Despite her best intentions, a defensive anger was simmering in her chest. “I left you with your grandparents for a while so that I could go to school.”
“For a while?” Zoe exclaimed. “Forever!”
“I tried to come back for you!”
“You didn’t try very hard.”
Anne opened her mouth and closed it again. Finally she said, “Maybe I should have tried harder. I didn’t think that forcing you to leave the only home you’d ever known was the right move.”
“It wasn’t. But you could have come here. You could have made a lifehere, just like you’re doing right now. But you couldn’t be bothered. You didn’t care.”
“I did care, Zoe. I did. I still do.”
“Yeah, well. You’re pretty lousy at showing it.”
“I know that!” Anne passed a hand over her eyes and lowered her voice. “I know. But you don’t make it easy.”
“It’s not my job to make your lifeeasy.”
“That’s it,” Dawn snapped from the stairs.
Anne jumped, and they both turned to look at the Kalama family matriarch.
“Ho’oponopono,” she commanded.
“Grandma–” Zoe started, but Dawn held up a hand.
“This has gone on long enough. It’s time to make things right.”
“I’m trying,” Anne said.
“Try harder, because I’m sick of this drama. Your father never would have let it go on this long. He would have intervened by now, and he would have done it with a lot more grace and compassion than I’m capable of. But he’s gone, and the rest of us just have to muddle on without him. So.”
“Ho’oponopono,” Anne murmured.
“That’s right.”
Ho’oponopono was a traditional Hawaiian practice used to restore peace within a family or community, a way of healing relationships through apology and forgiveness.
