Red Sky Over Hawaii

by Sara Ackerman

  Without any ham or turkey to be found, and not enough bread to make stuffing, they settled on homemade macaroni and cheddar cheese, and baked green beans with cream of mushroom soup. There was something to be said for food as comfort when most of your other comforts had been taken away.

  The table was a picture straight out of Sunset magazine, with wreaths and candles and polished silver. It was their first formal dinner at Hale Manu, and for the first time in what felt like days, everyone looked clean and fresh and brushed. The house might be bare-bones, but it wrapped them in its comforting walls and held them close. After a quiet dinner, they settled by the fire. The pile of presents had grown since yesterday but was still meager.

  “Our parents let us open a present on Christmas Eve,” Coco said.

  “Let’s wait until tomorrow, since we have so few.”

  “Won’t there be a lot more by morning? After Santa comes?”

  Marie gave Lana a concerned look. “Coco, let’s wait. Just in case Santa gets hung up someplace.”

  Benji chimed in. “I say we open one. So what if we have one less present tomorrow? It won’t kill us.”

  “Is that what you all want?”

  Two yeses and a shrug. Lana selected three featherweight gifts and handed them out. The way they tore into them with gusto reminded her of the magic of Christmas. Benji held up his first. An ink sketch of Mochi. Lana had done it in a hurry earlier that day. Not perfect, but it captured his toothy smile and the spark behind it. Coco kissed hers before holding it up. Ingrid. Marie had Fred.

  “Since we don’t have any photographs here, I figured these might be nice to have. And we can try to round up frames. Or maybe Benji can help us make some,” Lana said.

  “Can you do one of Sailor, too?” Coco asked.

  “I’d love to.”

  Never had her sketches felt more important than in this moment.

  * * *

  Christmas morning broke with a cold snap. Lana checked the lichen on the tree branches for signs of frost. When she got to the living room, Coco was already up and had lit a fledgling fire. She was dressed from head to toe in red.

  “He came!” she cried.

  “I knew he would,” Lana said.

  While they waited on Marie and Benji, Coco helped Lana tie red ribbons around jars of honey for Uncle Theo and the Kanos and Auntie. It was strange not to have a whole universe of friends to deliver gifts to. She had half a mind to take a boxful to the camp for guards and prisoners alike. Everyone could use a little honey on a day like today.

  Marie and Benji filed into the great room, one after another, bleary-eyed and decked out in all their warm clothes. Benji wore a Santa hat they’d found in the sock box. Both plunked down next to Coco, who was snuggling Sailor by the tree. Lana served hot cocoa and brought out fresh biscuits dripping in honey. She counted her blessings to have these three amazing humans in her care. So why did she feel like crying?

  They opened the box of Japanese playing cards, a group gift, and Benji promised to teach them all how to play hanafuda. Lana admired his patience as he pointed out the cherry blossoms, wisteria, pine, peony and plum cards, and what the moons and ribbons meant.

  “Interestingly, there’s a lot of those same plants up here,” Lana said. “Hilo is too warm, but Volcano is just the right temperature.”

  For Coco and Marie, she had wrapped up watercolors and paintbrushes, and for Benji, her father’s golf clubs. Lord knew she wouldn’t be needing them. For stockings, she had filled some wool socks with tangerines, plums, Japanese rice candy, and a few other odds and ends. The last four presents under the tree were from Mochi. He had used old newspaper and twine for wrapping.

  “I miss Mochi,” Coco told Benji.

  “Me too.”

  Everyone was doing a fine job of pretending, but the room was so full of missing people that it was impossible to ignore. For each of them, Mochi had filled a palm-sized wooden box with five silver-dollar coins. In Lana’s there was also a gold chain coiled around a black-pearl necklace.

  “It was Mochi’s wife’s. He got it for their wedding day,” Benji told her.

  Lana felt her resolve slipping away even as she reminded herself that adults are supposed to be the ones to hold it together during tough times. Within seconds, tears streaked down her face, and she had to gulp for air. Sailor immediately came and lay on her feet.

  “I’m sorry, you guys. Here I go ruining Christmas morning,” Lana said, nose dripping.

  Coco ran to the kitchen and came back with a box of tissues. In all seriousness, she handed her a tissue and said, “No you didn’t, Aunt Lana. It was already ruined and you tried to fix it.”

  Lana pulled her in for a tight hug, resting her cheek on the top of Coco’s head.

  * * *

  Lana was in the kitchen stacking up the honey jars when she heard a motor in the distance. She checked her watch. No one would be out on official business at 9:33 on Christmas morning. Stripping off her apron, she hurried out to the window where Coco was already standing, her nose smooshed into the glass. Lana pulled up next to her and they waited and watched.

  “Who could it be?” Coco asked.

  Please, let it be him.

  “I don’t know.”

  Marie and Benji crowded around them and all their breath fogged up the glass. Sailor barked once, then sat tall with her ears perked up, sniffing the air. A few moments later, an olive-colored military vehicle pulled right up to the bottom step. It wasn’t the kind that Grant usually drove. Lana’s heart missed a few beats, and she rested her hand on Coco’s shoulder to steady herself. Later she would remember the whole scene unfolding like a Technicolor dream.

  The first one out, on the passenger side, was a man holding a rifle. He looked seven feet tall. Coco gasped. A half second later, Grant stepped out of the driver’s side, slipping off his hat and setting it on the dashboard. His gaze went directly to the window. Instinctively, Lana stepped behind the wall.

  Here she’d been, pining away for him, and he was coming to haul her off. Guilt by association. Mochi had been wrong. Grant was not teachable. And then she noticed Coco’s eyes go bigger than plums. Lana snuck another glance outside. Standing at the bottom of the steps were none other than Fred and Ingrid Wagner.

  Coco screamed, “It’s Mama and Papa!”

  In a jumble of limbs, both girls were out the door and down the steps before their parents were halfway up. Coco wrapped her whole body around her mother, Marie slammed into them, and Fred pulled them all in with his extra-long arms. Ingrid’s whole body was shaking. Just watching them, Lana thought her heart might break with happiness.

  Once inside, Lana offered them a seat at the table, and Grant nodded politely. Sailor was beside herself, howling and skidding as she ran circles around the room. Ingrid was crying and laughing at the same time. Lana rushed off to the kitchen, where she found Benji about to open the hidden door.

  “Stay up here with us. You haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m done with secrets,” Lana told him.

  Benji looked surprised but didn’t argue. She put on a pot of water for coffee and ran back out. Coco had arranged all of the presents on the table, and Marie was handing her parents their Christmas cards. The room sounded louder than a town hall meeting, with everyone speaking over one another. Grant sat alone on the hearth, and the soldier with the gun stood next to the front door. The man was trying to look relaxed, but his gun ruined all chances of that.

  She sat down and joined them. The air between her and Grant was thick as butter. Every time she caught him watching her, he quickly looked away. If only she could pull him aside while the Wagners reunited. But now was not the time. Coco rattled off every detail of their recent lives. “We rounded up horses, there are beehives out back, Lana taught us how to make ‘o¯helo berry pie, we saw the crater.” She made it sound like summer camp.


  “You girls are lucky to have Mrs. Hitchcock to care for you until we’re released,” Fred said, nodding at Lana.

  “What do you mean until?” Coco said.

  Ingrid hugged her closer. “He means we have to go back.”

  Coco looked as though she’d been slapped. “Why can’t they move in with us, here?” she said to Grant.

  “My job is to help run the camp. The FBI chooses who to keep and who to release. I’m working on getting you visits but can’t promise anything.” The way he spoke to her, it was clear he cared. “Sorry, kiddo. I wish it were different.”

  Just then, Benji walked out carrying a tray of steaming mugs. He still wore the Santa hat. “Coffee, anyone?” he said.

  Lana was quick to respond. “I would love one. Everyone, this is Benji. He’s staying with us for a while.”

  If Grant was surprised, he didn’t let on. Fred and Ingrid surely recognized him from the neighborhood but didn’t say anything other than an emphatic yes and hello. After serving them, he disappeared back into the kitchen and turned on the radio. Lana took a chance and went and sat next to Grant, the fire warming her spine.

  “So how did you manage coming here today? I’m sure they didn’t let you waltz off for no good reason,” Lana asked.

  Grant sipped his coffee. “I pulled a few strings.”

  They must have been fat strings.

  “Just so you know, Major Bailey, you saved Christmas. Nothing in the world would have made these girls happier,” Lana said.

  “The way I see it, kids and parents are meant to be together, especially when the parents are being held on hearsay.”

  Lana could hardly believe what she’d just heard. “So you’ve checked into their case?”

  “I poked around a bit.”

  “And?”

  He paused. “I can’t talk about it.”

  Sitting with their knees almost touching, Lana longed to close that last inch. Grant being here was a double-edged knife. He had saved Christmas for the Wagners, but she wanted more. Selfish and horrible and true.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, please keep this visit between us, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Coco moved from her mother’s lap to her father’s, though Ingrid still held tight to her hand. Fred stroked her hair as though it were made of spun gold. Seeing them together was like coming up for air after a near drowning. There was still good in the world, if you knew where to look.

  The guard at the door pointedly held up his arm and tapped his watch. Grant stood. “Sorry, folks, but our time is up.”

  Coco wrapped her arms more tightly around Fred’s neck. He stood, carrying her, and they all filed out the door. Ingrid and Marie walked arm in arm, hovering on each step. If you could have slowed time to a standstill, no one would have complained. Lana suddenly remembered her own note and ran back in and grabbed it.

  “For you,” she said, handing it to Grant.

  When her fingers touched his skin, a jolt of static electricity raised the hair on her arm and ran all the way up the back of her neck. He looked surprised. She felt foolish. But for the first time that day, he smiled. A genuine, heart-melting smile.

  The Wagners huddled together. Murmurs of love and anguish lifted up around them. Grant gave them another minute. Once again, Ingrid had to pry Coco’s arms from her waist. The mood was subdued. Less outright panic and more deep ache. For a moment Lana felt sorry for herself. No one alive loved her that potently.

  “I miss you so much the inside of my heart hurts,” Coco said.

  “Me too, Mausi. Me too,” Ingrid said.

  Tears streaked down Fred’s face. “At least we’re nearby.”

  “And alive,” Coco said, blinking hard and fast.

  That got a chuckle. “Yes, I’m quite happy about that, too,” Fred said.

  When Ingrid finally broke away and bent over to step inside the car, she exclaimed. “Oh, my!”

  Lana looked in. Sailor took up the whole back seat and had her eyes intently focused on Ingrid.

  “You have to stay here, my big girl.”

  It took Fred pushing on one side and Lana and Coco convincing on the other to get the dog out. Grant stood to the side, hands in his pockets, watching. The way his eyebrows pinched together, you could tell he was affected. He turned his sad brown eyes toward Lana and seemed to be debating whether to say something.

  She saved him the trouble by putting her arms around both girls. “Thank you for doing this, Major Bailey. We won’t soon forget it.”

  That was when the buzzing started up. The bees moved in, hovering everywhere, over the muddy garden bed, in the Norfolk needles and hydrangea blossoms, all around Lana and the girls. They were glorious and threatening and golden all at once. Everyone froze, even Sailor. Lana swore she could feel a cool wind from their tiny beating wings. A honey smell filled the air.

  “What are they doing?” Marie said.

  “Swarming. It’s perfectly harmless,” Lana whispered.

  Even so, Grant inched toward the car. “Merry Christmas, y’all.”

  He drove away slowly, Fred and Ingrid waving out the back window. Lana and Coco and Marie stood planted long after the car disappeared from sight, bolstered by their closeness and the hum of thirty thousand bees.

  THE GLOW

  The best remedy for any ailment is usually an animal. After the bittersweet visit from their parents, the girls wanted to see the horses again. No one bothered to smile the whole way there, and Lana had her doubts that the rest of the day could be salvaged. But ‘Ohelo trotted right over to Coco, bringing with her a tall white male with gentle eyes. Coco produced a handful of carrots, and within minutes, the whole herd had circled around them. You could feel their calm presence in the same way you felt a hug. So many people loved horses for riding, but Lana was coming to see a whole other side to them—big, comforting beings. And Lord knew they could all use some comfort right now.

  In the late afternoon, they delivered jars of honey to Iris and Mrs. Kano, Uncle Theo, and Auntie at her tiny cabin on the crater rim. They found her sitting on a lauhala mat on her porch, weaving leaves into a haku lei that was ten feet long.

  “This honey is special. I can smell it,” Auntie said.

  “We collected it ourselves and saved some of the special red kind for you,” Coco said proudly.

  “The red honey is influential.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” Lana asked.

  “You haven’t figured it out by now?”

  “I...well...” Lana didn’t quite know what to say.

  “The volcano has a powerful force all its own. More potent than most people can imagine. Those scientists know all about it. Some kind of magnetic mumbo jumbo.”

  Lana recalled hearing a theory of a vast sea of iron deep beneath Kīlauea, and how molten lava was conductive. But conductive of what?

  Auntie continued. “The bees pick up on it and so do the plants. Everything up here is bursting with it,” Auntie said. “And it’s stronger when the volcano is erupting.”

  “But there’s no eruption right now,” Lana said.

  Auntie raised an eyebrow, then said to Coco, “I bet you love those bees, don’t you?”

  “How did you know?” Coco said.

  Auntie got a mischievous smile. “I know things. Just like you do.”

  Coco stepped back.

  “Don’t worry. Knowing is a natural thing, but most people have forgotten and get scared when they see it.”

  “I’m not scared,” Coco said.

  “And that’s why you have it. That, and it’s in your blood,” Auntie said, eyes boring into Lana, whose skin began to itch.

  Lana had an idea. “Say, would you mind if we come talk some more about this with you one of these days? It seems like we could use some guidance in this matter.” She nodded
toward Coco.

  Auntie closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Her hands shook with age, but you could feel a well of strength hidden beneath her skin. “I will, on one condition,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You give me a year.”

  The house suddenly began to rock, rafters creaking and groaning as the earth shifted beneath them. Coco and Marie rushed to her side. It stopped just as quickly as it started.

  “Earthquake. A manini one,” Auntie said.

  “What’s manini?” Coco asked.

  “Small. Nothing to worry about.”

  Earthquakes were nothing new on this side of the island. Even in Hilo they had their fair share of rumbling. But living on O‘ahu, Lana hadn’t felt one in a while. They were highly unsettling, especially in a tiny hut on the edge of Kīlauea.

  Lana shook it off. “There’s so much uncertainty with the war, I have no idea how long the girls will even be with me. Their folks are in the camp.”

  Auntie looked through her. “I know.”

  A narrow black cat strolled up the steps, rubbing on Coco’s leg and then Marie’s, distracting them momentarily. Good thing they’d left Sailor in the truck.

  “Can you see?” Lana asked in a hushed voice.

  Auntie repeated, “I’ll need at least a year.”

  Lana was struck with the sudden thought that the girls would be with her for the coming year and beyond. How far beyond, she couldn’t tell. For a moment she doubted, wondering how the government could justify holding on to the Wagners for so long, but then sureness flooded in. She tasted bitterness in her mouth, along with the sweet taste of honey. She swallowed to try to clear it.

  The next thing she knew, Auntie was standing up and ordering the girls to run down the trail and pick her more a‘ali‘i. She showed them a small branch of the delicate reddish leaves and sent them away.

  Once they were out of earshot, Auntie said, “It’s time you know.”

  She was so close Lana could smell her earthy breath. “Know what?”

  A small aftershock rattled the windows.