Summer Bird Blue

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

“I wanted to do something that didn’t have anything to do with Lea. I guess I thought it might help.” And when she doesn’t reply, I add, “It didn’t.”

  It feels like a small victory, to answer one of Aunty Ani’s questions without snapping at her. I wonder if finding Lea again has anything to do with it.

  I can practically feel her pinching me behind the arm, telling me to be nice. My mouth twitches. It’s almost a smile.

  Aunty Ani hums like she understands, but I’m not sure she really does. I don’t think she knows the right way to take care of a grieving teenager. She still thinks popcorn and shave ice is going to fix me.

  “I do want to learn how to swim, though,” I say suddenly. It surprises me, since I didn’t know it was something I even wanted. Maybe it’s not about trying to escape my sister’s memory—maybe I just need to feel free again. Alive again.

  I don’t know anything more alive and free than the water.

  She turns her head toward me slightly. “Yeah? You like me find you one teacher?”

  I shake my head. “No. I have someone I can ask.” At least I think I do. Even if Kai won’t talk to me ever again, there’s still Hannah. Or maybe even Jae-Jae—it would be weird for someone to live in Hawaii and not know how to swim, right?

  “I’m not sure Uncle George—Mr. Watanabe—has da kine patience fo’ swimming lessons,” Aunty Ani says, and it takes me a second to realize she’s joking.

  I almost laugh, but the weight lodged between my throat and my chest keeps it from coming out. “No, probably not. I think he’d leave me out there for the sharks if he thought it would get rid of me.”

  “Why do you say that?” She frowns. “I thought you two were friends.”

  I pull my hands into my lap, clasping my fingers together. “I don’t know what we are. I think I upset him.” Kai’s face flashes in my mind, along with all the broken bits of glass still hidden in the yard. “I think I’ve upset all your neighbors, now that I think about it.”

  “The Yamadas? No. I already talked to them about the window. They know it was one accident,” she replies with a shrug. “Sun and I are old friends. We went to school together—she knew your mom, too.”

  My heartbeat quickens. “She was friends with Mom?”

  Aunty Ani nods. “Sun is the same age as me, but your mom and I used to be really close—the three of us were always together.” There’s a memory behind her eyes. I wonder if I look that way when I remember moments with Lea.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She looks surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “You said you used to be close, but you don’t seem close now. I mean, before Lea’s funeral I can’t even remember the last time you were up visiting.” I don’t mean to sound like I’m scolding her, but I think my voice somehow defaults to that setting.

  Aunty Ani presses her lips together, thinking. “We grew apart, I guess. When your mom met your dad, she found out she was pregnant pretty quick. He wasn’t right fo’ her, but she never like listen to me or your babang. She moved to the mainland with him, to try to make it work.

  “I was angry with her. It felt like she was leaving me, too. And I said a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have. And after Lea was born and your dad left—well, she didn’t come back home. Maybe she was waiting fo’ me to ask, maybe I was waiting fo’ her to ask—but we just never really found each other again. We talked on the phone sometimes, but it wasn’t like how it was when we were younger.” She offers me a small smile. “It was my fault, though. I shouldn’t have been so hard on her. Not when she was trying fo’ do the right thing.”

  “You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to be hard on her,” I say without missing a beat.

  She nods. “Maybe. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “She deserves it. Everything I’m feeling.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why do you keep making excuses for her?”

  “Because I’ve watched her try fo’ do the right thing her whole life. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t make mistakes. She loves with her whole heart, and sometimes that muddles things up, but she always tries.”

  “She didn’t leave you the way she left me. It’s not the same.”

  “That’s true. But she loves you more, too.”

  I chew the inside of my mouth. I don’t know about that, I want to say, but I know Aunty Ani wouldn’t understand. She wasn’t around enough to see how Lea was Mom’s favorite.

  I wonder if Lea and I would’ve grown apart the way Mom and Aunty Ani did—and as soon as I think it, I know it would’ve never happened.

  We would’ve always been close. We would’ve always found our way back to each other.

  Which is why I need to find my way back to Lea now.

  I need her—life without her doesn’t make any sense.

  I pause. “It really was an accident, you know—breaking that window.”

  Aunty Ani laughs. “It’s okay. It’s only a window.” Her face stills, and suddenly she looks so much like Mom. They have such different smiles—Mom’s is wild and excitable, and Aunty Ani’s is warm but reserved. But when they’re lost in their own thoughts, their mouths rest in the same uneven line, and their eyelids fall like they’re tired. In these moments, they are unmistakably sisters. “Sometimes you have to break things. Sometimes you need to smash a window or two before you start to feel better.”

  I lean my head back, wondering if I’ll keep any parts of Lea’s face the older I get. We had so few similarities to begin with besides our love of music. She was thoughtful and sweet and would get excited over a new toothbrush. Mom always said I was a tough critic, but Lea would give praise to a dalmatian for having spots. And Lea’s eyes always had that little bit of green in them, like seaweed left on a stretch of golden sand. Mine are plain brown, like chocolate ice cream without any toppings. And our expressions were always different—with Lea, everything went up, up, up to the sky like her face was a balloon that was always trying to float away. Mine droops and sinks like I just can’t be bothered, and maybe that’s how our personalities were too.

  But we had the same nose and maybe the same hands, because if we ever took a photograph of our fingers playing an instrument, we could hardly ever tell whose hands were whose.

  I look at my hands. Lea’s hands. The hands that want to tear down the world.

  And I know Aunty Ani’s wrong. There aren’t enough windows in the world I could break to make me feel better.

  But I’ll try not to break them if it means protecting my hands.

  Because from now on, every single day I age is another day Lea won’t have—another day her hands won’t change. When I look at my hands, I’ll be able to see what hers would’ve looked like too.

  I need that to mean something, just like I need the ocean to mean something, because I’m running out of things that mean anything at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I bring Kai a peace offering: an incredibly awkward smile and all the money I’ve earned so far from working at the salon.

  He’s wearing a black T-shirt with the outline of a gecko on it and a pair of pink and gray flowered board shorts. When he realizes what I’m holding, he snorts. “Is that a bribe?”

  “No. A debt.” I pause. “Didn’t your dad tell you?”

  He sighs, pulling his lean, muscular arms across his chest. “Of course he did.” He narrows his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. Talk to him. He would’ve ended up letting me surf anyway. He talks big, but the truth is he hasn’t been around long enough to have a real say in what I do.” He shrugs. “Sometimes my mom lets him think he does, that’s all.”

  I wave the money in front of him. “Just take it. My arm is getting tired.”

  He does, folding the cash between his palm. “So, you coming back to the beach, or what?”

  “Am I allowed?”

  “My dad doesn’t own the beach.”

  “I didn’t mean your dad.”
/>
  “What did you mean?”

  I shuffle my feet. God, why does he have to make everything so painful? “Well, I didn’t know if you wanted us to hang out anymore.”

  “As long as you stop throwing rocks at me.” A grin appears on the left side of his face.

  I feel my body stiffen, and it’s the first moment I realize how nervous I’ve been about coming here to see him.

  Kai releases his arms and shakes his head. “You look like one puffer fish holding all the air in—whatever you want to say, just say it.”

  “Can you teach me how to swim?” The words rush out of me like a wave.

  He blinks.

  “I thought maybe, you know, the basics would be good. For safety purposes. And also because your dad said I can only hang out with you if I learn how to swim.”

  He blinks again, chewing his thoughts, and eventually shrugs. “Okay. Tomorrow morning?”

  I nod, and a twisted knot forms in my throat. I wish it wasn’t so hard to be grateful for a change, but my God it’s so hard with Kai. He smiles too much, like he’s constantly ready to laugh himself out of an argument. Besides, I’m not good at thanking anybody right now. It makes me feel like I have things worth being thankful over, when really I feel like I’ve been dealt the crappiest hand in the world.

  So I press my mouth together and give him a thumbs-up. He laughs for all the seconds it takes me to get back inside the house.

  * * *

  The next day, when we are in the water, Kai makes me lean against a boogie board. I feel like a child.

  “There’s nobody even here,” he growls. “Stop worrying about whatchu look like.”

  “I mean, I might as well wear those inflatable tubes around my arms if I’m just going to be announcing to the world I can’t swim,” I say dryly, spitting the seawater back out of my mouth.

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I think there’s a shark in the water.”

  “There’s no shark.”

  “I saw something move.”

  “Where?”

  “There. To your left.”

  “That’s my leg.”

  “Why is it moving that way?”

  “Because that’s how you swim.” Kai lets out an exasperated sigh. “You goin’ try fo’ take this seriously or what?”

  “I am taking this seriously,” I growl back. “I’m holding on to this giant piece of Styrofoam, aren’t I?”

  Kai tells me about moving my arms and legs and the rhythm to use to keep my head above the water. At first I find him really annoying, maybe because I don’t like being told what to do, but after a while I get used to the way he’s trying to teach me.

  By lunchtime I can doggy-paddle around the boogie board without sinking, which is kind of what I could already do before, but I don’t tell Kai that because he seems to think I’m learning quickly. And who am I to turn down a compliment?

  We take a walk to a nearby McDonald’s. I order saimin—yes, they have saimin—and French fries. We eat, talk about why I never learned to swim—wasn’t interested—and why Kai took up surfing—because Gareth was doing it—and why I keep hanging out with Mr. Watanabe even though he’s really old.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “We have a weird understanding. We can be in the same room and not speak, and that feels good sometimes.”

  It’s also the only place where music doesn’t hurt me. If it weren’t for Mr. Watanabe and his records, I’d probably still be hiding from Lea’s ghost—hiding from the promise I made her.

  I know I haven’t been able to find the strength to finish our song, but going to Mr. Watanabe’s house is helping me heal. Being around his music—it puts a little bit of life back into my soul.

  I don’t think Kai would understand. I don’t think anyone would understand.

  “He always has the most annoying dogs,” Kai says, taking a drink. “Before Poi he had one Shiba Inu called Marnie. She would jump the fence and chase me and Gareth out of the neighborhood. It was terrifying.”

  “Has it always been just him and a dog? He was never married?” I ask.

  “Not that I know of. You guys never talk about whether he was married or not?”

  “I told you, we don’t really talk,” I say tersely. I think of Mr. Watanabe’s face after he heard me play the piano. I think of how much pain was in his eyes. “I think he lost someone. Someone that might’ve been a bigger deal than a dog.”

  “You might be underestimating how much people love their pets,” Kai says.

  “I’m not saying people don’t love their pets, but they usually don’t feel haunted by them once they’re gone. Mr. Watanabe has a ghost in his eyes.”

  “You have that too.” His eyes soften, like he’s lowered the electricity to a hum. Like he thinks a hum can’t do any damage.

  He has a freckle near the corner of his eye, right above his left cheekbone. A softness in his lips. Ears that stick out too far, which he hides beneath all his messy black hair.

  Hums are dangerous.

  I pull my eyes away from him and focus on the remaining French fries.

  We finish our food, walk back to the beach, and spend another hour and a half swimming in the ocean. Kai tries to get me to put my head under the water without pinching my nose, but salt and sea keeps rushing through my nostrils and down my throat, and at some point I tell him I’ve had enough for the day.

  Still, we spend more time laughing than being frustrated, and by the time he drives me home, I actually feel like I might have had a little bit of fun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When Mr. Watanabe opens the screen door, he considers me the way someone considers a piece of fruit at the grocery store, unsure whether I’m worthy of being let into his home. He shifts his jaw around like he’s eating food, but I’m pretty sure the only thing he’s chewing on are his thoughts.

  “Wea’ you been? You no like fo’ visit me no moa?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I thought you were mad about the piano.”

  He grunts like I’ve never been more wrong. “I make too much shoyu chicken an’ nobody stay here fo’ eat it. Now have too much leftover.” He pushes his chin out so his entire face becomes a frown.

  I look down at Poi. She’s standing near his feet, wagging her tail from behind the screen, a soft whimper rising from her throat. I think she actually missed me. Maybe Mr. Watanabe did too.

  “I didn’t know about the chicken,” I mumble awkwardly.

  He pushes the door open and I follow him inside, leaving my flip-flops on the mat behind me. For a while we don’t talk, and I find a place on the floor and let Poi snuggle into my lap. She snuffles a little while she tries to get comfy, and after a few minutes she nestles her head over my thigh and lets out a tired sigh.

  Mr. Watanabe disappears into another room, and when he comes back he’s holding a square-shaped wicker basket filled with stacks of folders and paper.

  “What’s that for?” I ask when he sets it in front of me and parks himself on the edge of the couch.

  He grunts and points.

  I peer into the basket and see notes and bars and treble clefs and bass clefs and words written in Italian. Pages and pages of sheet music, most of them covered in light pencil markings, and all of them worn around the edges and yellowed with time.

  I turn them back and forth in my hands, looking through the basket like it’s pirate treasure and every single page is of value. I hear the music in my head, read the way the melody rises and falls, and my mind is racing with so many notes and sounds that I don’t even realize how deathly quiet the room is until I put all the sheet music back in their tomb.

  Mr. Watanabe is watching me, and even though his eyes are perfectly still, there’s something wild and racing inside them that makes me feel like I’m in a hurry.

  “Why are you showing me this?” I ask him.

  “So you can practice,” he says stiffly. “Even dat Mozart guy wen’ practice.”

  “How long have you been pl
aying?”

  He waves his hand, dismissing my question. “I no can play piano.”

  “Why do you have a piano, then?”

  His eyes find mine, and it doesn’t matter that they’re small—they’re so full of the world and life that I think they might swallow me up. “Dis my wife’s one.”

  And because death feels more like family than a stranger, I forget what it means to be sensitive about something so dark. “What happened to her?”

  Mr. Watanabe doesn’t stop looking at me. He twists his mouth and moves his cheeks around like a rabbit waking up from a long nap. “She died long time ago. Cancer.”

  “That sucks,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  And then I pick up the basket of music, take a place at the piano stool, and practice until the sun goes down. I don’t write any of “Summer Bird Blue,” but I’m still playing an instrument. I’m still making music.

  It feels like a step in the right direction.

  Eventually Mr. Watanabe calls me to come eat some of the leftover shoyu chicken.

  I don’t tell him that my eyes wandered around the room. I don’t tell him that I saw the picture frames on the wall. I don’t tell him that I saw him and his wife and a little boy.

  And I certainly don’t ask him what happened to the boy and why he has a son who never comes to visit.

  Because there are no photographs of a teenager or a young man. Just pictures of a little boy, frozen in time much too young. A child who will never grow up.

  Just like Lea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jae-Jae pushes the cash register closed and taps her glittery black nail along the table. She’s wearing high-waisted white shorts and a pink T-shirt with the face of a cat on it. Her hair is slicked back against her head, and her makeup is just as perfect and glittery as every other time I’ve seen her.

  “You should let me cut your hair,” she says suddenly, her eyes dazzling like genuine topaz.

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?” I ask defensively.

  I haven’t cut my hair in years, and I blame Lea for that. I’ve threatened to chop it off so many times. I wasn’t blessed with her and Mom’s carefree curls—my hair is bland and boring.