Leaving Lana'i

by Edie Claire

  Lisa. Her stepmother.

  Maddie could remember being puzzled by all the attention.

  Good God. Clothes that fit and basic hygiene were attention?

  Maddie handed the picture back to Nana. “Thanks for finding it for me,” she said, attempting to infuse some cheer back into her voice. “I’m so anxious to get to the beach! I think I might take a walk through the park before I go. Is there anything you need me to do around here first? Did we get all the dishes?”

  Nana smiled and waved a hand dismissively. “Everything’s done. Off with you. Have a good day.”

  Maddie intended to. She grabbed her bag, jogged down the steps, waved goodbye to Nana, and took off around the corner.

  Don’t think about it. What does it matter now?

  Her feet carried her down the street in front of her old house. They stopped and left her there. She still didn’t want to think about it. But her body wouldn’t move.

  Her father was a giant of a man, well over six feet tall with flaming orange hair, a full beard, and a deep, rumbling laugh that made everyone around him smile. He was good-natured and fun-loving and kind. Her mother had been a tall, willowy woman with soft brown curls, luminous blue eyes, and delicate features that had always made Maddie liken her to a flower. As it happened, Jill Westover loved flowers, and Maddie brought her loads of them, keeping a plastic cup full of some blossom or other on the kitchen table whenever she could.

  That’s lovely, sweetheart. Thank you.

  Maddie could picture her mother lying on the couch in the main room, smiling her beautiful smile. She had loved her daughter. She just… didn’t have a lot of energy. And as daughters go, Maddie was about as tractable as one of the refuge’s more feral cats. Surely keeping her hair neat as she roamed loose about a tropical island would be difficult for any mother?

  The little house looked empty. Unwelcoming. Neutral. For a moment it seemed almost defiant in its refusal to agree or disagree with that hypothesis.

  It would only make her feel guilty!

  Maddie’s limbs went numb. The voice in her head hadn’t come from the house. Not now and not then. She had heard it at the resort, from her father. On the single worst day of her life.

  She had been waiting in one of the guest rooms. Kai’s aunt had brought her there, one of Malaya’s sisters-in-law who worked in the same division as Bill Westover. Maddie couldn’t remember her name. The woman had come to one of Maddie’s classmates’ houses, where Maddie was working on a project after school, and told Maddie her father wanted to see her. Maddie had waited at the resort a very long time, not understanding what was taking so long, or why Kai’s aunt looked so sad.

  Maddie’s memory of what happened after her father told her that her mother was gone was less clear. She remembered a doctor visiting, and her father coming and going, and Kai’s aunt staying with her. And she remembered asking for Nana, only Nana hadn’t come. She had been told that her own grandparents were coming, and that they would be with her soon. Kai’s aunt had been outside the door talking to her father, and Maddie had put her ear to the door, because it had sounded like they were arguing. The words were too muffled to make out, except for one phrase that her father had shouted, and those words she had definitely heard.

  It would only make her feel guilty!

  Maddie’s feet started moving again. Why did she have to remember that now? It made no difference to anything. She didn’t want to think about it.

  She jogged at a steady pace up to and past the school, but at the corner by the park, she stopped again. The green lawn and shady grove of pines beyond it looked cool and inviting, but the old men had begun to gather already. Any other time Maddie would have headed over for a chat, but at the moment she was out of sorts. She needed to think. Or something.

  She jogged up along the park only a little ways before veering off into an alley and wandering deeper into the neighborhoods surrounding, where she slowed her steps to a walk. A small boy exercising a large — and thankfully friendly — dog on a leash looked up at her with surprise, and Maddie patted the dog’s head and moved on. She knew why the boy was surprised. She looked like a tourist, and tourists didn’t usually wander around solo in the back streets by the trashcans. But she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

  Maddie continued to walk, weaving amongst an assortment of homes that varied widely both in architecture and in upkeep. Most were rented out by the same entity that owned both resorts and most of the rest of the island, but a few houses sprinkled here and there were privately owned. Such had been the case with her own house, although she hadn’t been aware of it at the time. The young Westover family had owned a house in Ohio since shortly before Maddie was born, and her father had been determined to continue as a homeowner on Lana'i, even though the only property available at the time was in dubious condition. Maddie had seen “for-sale” pictures of their house in the family album: the photos showed a collapsed porch and a bright blue tarp on the roof. Her father had had to work on the house extensively before they moved in, and she could still remember a drip bucket that had occupied one corner of her bedroom for months.

  She had never considered how her mother might have felt about that. Moving to a tropical paradise certainly had its upside, but was Jill Westover upset about having to downsize into such a small, dilapidated house? Was she unhappy to be moving to a place as isolated as Lana'i, away from all her family and friends?

  Maddie frowned. As a child, the condition of the house had never mattered to her. Of course, she was never there anyway, was she?

  It would only make her feel guilty!

  Another pang hit Maddie square in her middle. Had her mother been horribly lonely all those years? Had Maddie neglected her?

  A horn honked.

  Maddie looked up, hoping to see a vehicle driven by a Lana'ian she knew. She was disappointed to see one of the brightly colored rental jeeps, driven by a handsome man in his thirties.

  “Hallo! Need a ride somewhere, then?” he asked in a cheerful Australian accent.

  “No, thank you. I’m good,” Maddie answered. She ran down her mental checklist of contributing factors, but couldn’t identify any. Her hair was in a ponytail, and although she wasn’t wearing a jacket, her shirt covered her shoulders and it wasn’t tight. Of course, she wasn’t wearing either a hat or sunglasses.

  The man shifted the jeep into park. In the middle of the street. He leaned out his window. “Aw, now. You must be going somewhere. We’re all going somewhere, aren’t we? Or at least we’d like to.” He grinned broadly.

  Maddie looked around. One house up, a man was emerging from his back door carrying what looked like a bag of trash. He was dark-skinned, probably in his late 60s, and heavyset. “I’m going right here,” Maddie answered. She walked up to the house, smiled a greeting at its resident, and joined him on his steps. Then she called back to the man in the jeep with a wave. “Hope you have a nice visit on the island. Goodbye!”

  The Aussie threw her a puzzled smirk. Then he shifted the jeep into gear and drove on.

  Maddie smiled sheepishly at the man beside her. He was, predictably, looking at her like she was insane. But he hadn’t said a word. “Sorry about that,” she apologized, stepping off his porch. “I owe you one. Maddie Westover. I’m staying with Nana over on Caldwell. Thanks!”

  The man did not answer her. But he did look mildly amused.

  Maddie jogged off, determined to keep her mind on happier thoughts. She passed by one of the smaller churches in town, one which occupied a house like any other house and was distinguishable as a church only by the sign in its yard. Ordinarily such a sign would be of little interest, but this morning it stopped her. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

  She pondered a moment. Had Malaya ever attended here? Did Kai find it at all interesting that there was a congregation right here on the island, or had he left all that behind when he graduated? And what else was in that BYU honor code, anyway? She had meant to look that
up. Curious, she pulled out her phone. But before she could start a search, the time caught her eye. She jumped with glee, tossed the phone back in her pack, and made a sharp turn toward the Nakamas’ house.

  To the beach!

  She was jogging toward the house on a side street when she caught sight of Gloria alone in the yard. The teen was slouched against the clapboard siding with her arms crossed over her chest, looking miserable. Maddie could only assume that the family’s latest efforts to circle round and protect its youngest had not gone over well.

  “Hey!” Maddie greeted, slowing to a walk and approaching her. “You going to the beach with us?”

  Gloria’s eyes flickered up only briefly. She uttered something between a sniff and a snort.

  “Oh, come on,” Maddie cajoled, undeterred. “When was the last time you went to Hulopo'e just to splash around in the water and goof off like a keiki again? I’m twenty-five — if I can do it, so can you.” Maddie really did want Gloria to come with them. She wanted to help the family out somehow, and although she had no plan, she knew that getting closer to the teen was a good first step. “It’ll only be for a couple hours,” she added.

  Throughout Maddie’s speech, muffled voices could be heard inside the house. Now the volume of the other conversation doubled, and Gloria rolled her eyes skyward. “Mom doesn’t think she’s loud,” she explained, almost apologetically.

  Maddie knew she shouldn’t try to listen, but it was difficult to resist. Malaya’s voice became more shrill, and the deeper tones that alternated with it were clearly Kai’s. His voice wasn’t heated like his mother’s, but there was a passion behind his rumbles.

  “They think I’m an idiot,” Gloria said in a matter-of-fact tone. “The whole family thinks I’m an idiot. Did you not pick up on that last night?”

  Maddie caught a few of Malaya’s words. “Nana says… no business… bad for you!”

  “They’re fighting over whether I’m more likely to get dumped, get pregnant, get stuck in Costa Rica with a fake passport, or I don’t know… maybe stand in the rain with my mouth open until I drown,” Gloria speculated. “You know, like a lobotomized chicken. Which are you betting on?”

  Malaya screeched louder. “You are not going to say anything!”

  Gloria and Maddie looked at each other. Then they looked at the wall of the house. Gloria banged on it with a fist. “Yo!” she shouted. “We can hear you, geniuses!”

  The sounds in the house went quiet, and Gloria rolled her eyes again. “And they think I’m an idiot.”

  Everything went silent for a moment. Even the breeze stopped. A few birds chirped. In the distance Maddie heard some slow-moving traffic and a child playing. But she suspected that all their nearest neighbors had gone quiet in order to hear the rest of the exchange.

  The noise that struck her loudest was her own pulse pounding in her ears. Gloria seemed certain that her own adolescent drama was the cause of all the fireworks, and Maddie had no reason to think otherwise.

  And yet.

  The front door banged open and closed. A second later Kai appeared around the corner of the house. “There you are,” he said to Maddie pleasantly, though the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead betrayed his recent angst. “You ready to go?”

  “I am,” Maddie said with equally fake cheer. “But we have to wait for Gloria to change. She’s decided to go with us.”

  Kai’s face brightened instantly. “Really?” he replied, smiling at his sister. “Awesome!”

  Maddie held her breath. From the guttural sound Gloria had made when Maddie began her announcement, she was certain the girl was about to refuse. But Kai’s enthusiastic response seemed to affect her.

  Gloria pushed past Maddie and around Kai. “Just give me a minute,” she grumbled, heading for the house.

  Maddie beamed.

  “How did you do that?” Kai whispered, his brown eyes twinkling. “She’s barely even talking to me right now.”

  Maddie studied him and felt a tug at her heartstrings. Poor guy. She had come to Lana'i this weekend for nothing more than reminiscing and fun in the sun. What had he come for? She wasn’t sure, but all he had gotten so far was hit up for free legal advice, shoved around by his erstwhile best friend, mocked and abused by his baby sister, and now yelled at by his mother. Sheesh.

  “Don’t take it personally, Nakama,” Maddie chided with a smile. “Teenagers always strike out at the ones they love best. I ought to know. I did it myself.” She shrugged her pack off her shoulders and pulled out her hat and sunglasses. “Now, what’s on our agenda for this morning? Are you going to spear me a fish?”

  Kai grinned, and Maddie noted again what a looker he’d grown into. He was wearing a tank shirt that showed his shoulders, and he definitely wasn’t “shrimpy” anymore. “There’s no spearfishing allowed at Hulopo'e. It’s a conservation zone.” He looked at her sharply. “Which you should know full well, Dr. Ecologist person.”

  Maddie laughed out loud. “Didn’t stop you when you were eight.”

  “I got away with a lot of things when I was eight,” he replied smugly. “You want to spearfish, I’ll take you to Red Tank sometime.”

  Maddie felt a jolt of elation. Sometime. This weekend was only one weekend. She would be back another time, and so would he. The possibilities were endless.

  All her questions and doubts and paranoia of the morning disappeared in an instant, and she was suddenly so excited she couldn’t stand it. She and Kai were going to the beach!

  It took ages for Gloria to reappear. It took forever before the truck left the city behind, and it took an eternity to cross the old pineapple fields. Maddie’s feet fidgeted on the floorboards the whole way, and when at last they began their descent to the beach on the southern edge of the island, her hand fixed itself to the door handle.

  “I hope you’re planning to wait to open that until we actually stop,” Kai teased.

  “We’ll see,” Maddie mumbled. “Why does everybody drive so damn slow around here?”

  Gloria hooted.

  “Maybe we should go golfing instead,” Kai teased.

  Maddie narrowed her eyes at him. She hated golfing. Although Lana'i was famous for its two excellent upscale courses, it also had a very nice public course, which was free. Like most kids, she had given the sport a shot, but found its required brute-strength-to-finesse ratio not to be in her favor. The first time she swung a club she had hit the ground and dug up a giant clod of dirt. The second time she had swung high and accidentally let go, whereupon her club had winged its way into a tree and knocked off a coconut. Kai had laughed so hard he’d had stomach pains.

  “I’ll need a hardhat, though,” he continued wryly.

  “Yuck it up,” Maddie retorted as they pulled into the beach lot. “Just for that, Nakama, I’m not waiting on you.”

  Kai chuckled as he shifted the truck into park.

  Maddie jumped out and headed for the water.

  Chapter 15

  There it was. Her ocean. Her beautiful, beautiful bay!

  The weather could not be more perfect. The temperature was somewhere in the seventies, with a mild, equally warm breeze. The sky was cerulean blue; the only clouds remaining now were puffy white and widely scattered. The sandy beach stretched out in a u-shape around the bay, one arm of which led to the sprawling luxury of the Resort at Manele Bay, the other arm of which was alive with coral reefs and bordered by sheer cliffs of volcanic rock. The water within the bay sparkled as blue as the sky, and rolling waves broke gently on its shore, the fury of the churning ocean beyond having been blunted by the bay’s loose confines. Cradled in the center of the beach were the sunbathing, picnicking, and camping areas, which were playing host this Saturday morning to a few dozen assorted locals and tourists. And in the center of them all stood Madalyn Westover.

  She kicked off her shoes by a tree, dropped her pack, and started running.

  The warm sand squished between her toes, and she giggled in delight as the dry grou
nd first turned wet, then the cool sensation of frothy ocean water splashed around her ankles.

  Yes!

  Maddie kept going. The crashing waves overwhelmed her calves, her knees, her thighs. Just as it covered her waistline, she threw her hands out in front of her and plunged underwater.

  Bliss.

  The world transformed into a cool, heavy paradise. She moved instinctively past the chaos of the tumbling shorebreak, and her watery world went silent. Her hair floated around her; her limbs felt light. If only she had a decent mask or goggles, she could probably see a zillion fish.

  She pulled her head up out of the water, opened her eyes, and tasted the salt on her lips. The water she had reached was around chest deep. She lifted her feet and treaded water with her arms. The feel of the bay was just as she remembered it. Coolish, but pleasantly so. The waves lifted and dropped her in a gentle rhythm.

  Her annoying shirt billowed around her like a balloon. She flattened it. Someday she would find a swim shirt that could breathe, but wasn’t see-through. Right now this was the best she had. Wearing it over an industrial-strength running bra with a pair of women’s boardshorts, she could almost swim in comfort without attracting attention. She cast a glance back at the beach to see Kai and Gloria stripping off their own shirts.

  Lucky dogs.

  A bright yellow fish caught her eye, and she watched it from above the water, following it among the rolling waves. She had always liked watching the yellow ones. She’d gotten angry if Kai had tried to spear one.

  Maddie’s spirits were so high she practically giggled as she half walked, half swam around in pursuit of the bright yellow tang. It led her on a merry chase — or perhaps, it and a few of its identical friends did — until she found herself near the east side of the bay, within earshot of a young couple who were wading in the shallows with a baby.

  They were speaking quietly to each other in Pidgin, and they took no notice of Maddie as she continued to stroll about, staring at various fish. Maddie had been working on her Pidgin all week, trying to eavesdrop whenever she could, getting used to the rhythm of it again. It wasn’t coming along as quickly as she would like, but her comprehension was improving. The woman spoke too fast for her to follow much, but the man seemed to be a natural slow-talker, which helped. They had mainly been talking about the baby, and about how early some people were teaching their babies to swim.