The boys came home right after practice because they were still grounded. And because I had texted them: Please come home right after practice. I thought it would be easier if they had a little time to get to know Ana before Chuck threw a fit. I’d been very nice and a little manipulative about it on the phone—“It would really mean a lot to me to have her here, Chuck, and she’s dying”—but my sweetness had not charmed him.
“How long?” he wanted to know.
Ana and I were sitting on the couch with Portico and talking about Peter—“I bet he and his horse live up on this mountain,” she was saying—when Jed and Cam walked in.
“Hi, boys,” I said, suddenly needing to be the perfect mother.
“Hi,” Ana said. She’d put on the black wig with the neon pink streak because she thought they’d like her best in that one.
Jed put his hands on his waist, which reminded me of his father. Cam just looked sad, which upset me.
“I know, babies, I’m sorry. I rushed home this morning with breakfast, but you were gone.”
“Yeah right,” Cam muttered.
“I promise I did,” I said.
“She did,” Ana confirmed, although she couldn’t have possibly known because I hadn’t told her. Still, I liked that she had come to my defense. Chuck probably wouldn’t have done that.
“Please be polite and say hello to our guest. This,” I said, presenting her with an open palm, “is Ana.”
“Your mother didn’t tell me you were so handsome,” Ana said. “Are you fraternal or identical?”
Cam sighed. They hated this question.
“Oh, time out,” Ana said. “You hate that question.”
That made Jed smile.
“Sit down,” Ana said. She moved Portico to the other hand and scooted over on the couch.
“Ana’s going to be staying with us for a while,” I said.
“Where?” Cam wanted to know.
“In my room.”
Jed rubbed his eyes. “Is Dad living in the ohana now for real?”
“Just for a little while,” I said in my most comforting tone.
They exchanged a look. They seemed to be saying: We knew this would happen. And then Jed rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Dad sucks right now.”
Cam, still looking at his brother, agreed. “Yeah, I’d probably kick him out, too.”
“Sit down with us,” I said, pleading a little.
They exchanged another look, and then they sat. Jed took the recliner, and Cam sat between Ana and me on the couch. “Mom, can you make us dinner? I’m hungry,” Jed said, not looking at me because he was transfixed by Portico, who was wrapping herself around Ana’s wrist.
I looked at the fridge and knew it was empty. “I guess I could run to the store.”
“We should make pasta all’Amatriciana,” Ana declared, pronouncing it with a thick Italian accent.
“What,” Jed said with a counterfeit sneer. “You’re Italian?”
“Me?” Ana motioned to herself. “No. Are you Italian?”
“Maybe I am.” Jed’s head danced like Liko’s, which was unsettling.
“We’re not Italian, are we, Mom?” Cam asked.
“No, honey,” I said, “we’re not.” Since I didn’t know who my father was, I could have been lying. It was always easier to pretend he wasn’t an actual person with a heritage.
Jed shifted forward. “I think we should eat your snake.”
Ana held Portico up. “Do you think she would taste good?”
“Sick!” Jed laughed.
“I’m down with pasta,” Cam said.
“Pasta all’Amatriciana is pasta with bacon,” Ana told us. I wondered if she actually wanted this or if she just knew bacon was a thing that would appeal to teenagers.
“I could do bacon,” Jed said, too casually. I could tell he was trying to impress her.
“I’ll run to the store,” I said, getting up. “Ana, are you okay if—”
“We’re great.” She raised her eyebrows.
“Okay.” I snatched my purse off the counter. Phone, phone, where was my— “Phone,” Ana said, holding it out for me.
“Thanks,” I said. We were such a good team. I slipped on my flip-flops at the door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Bye, Mom,” Cam said.
“Bye, Mom,” Jed said, reaching out to touch Portico’s head.
“Bye, Mom,” Ana said. As I walked away, I heard her say to Jed, “Do you want to hold her?”
?
I stood in line at Safeway with my teeming cart. This was the biggest shop I’d done in a long time. Bacon and four different types of pasta and the good kind of Parmesan and three packs of Red Vines for Ana and Ranch Corn Nuts for Jed (his favorite) and fruity Mentos for Cam (his favorite), plus all the essentials we’d run out of—milk, eggs, ketchup, lettuce, bananas. The bananas weren’t ripe enough to squash, but we could wait and squash them later if we felt like it.
Sting’s “Fields of Gold” fuzzed through the speakers. The AC was almost too cold. My eyes floated to the magazine racks. Oprah in a decadent gown holding two small, clean dogs and the words: A Brand New You! I was about to pick it up, but then the line moved forward and I moved with it and no, Nan, you don’t need that magazine, and the answers probably aren’t in there anyway, and then the word Fan-tas-tic spilled out over everything.
That familiar voice and, oh no, oh yes, it was Marcy, two people ahead of me, talking to the cashier about bags. “I love that you still provide bags here,” she said. “You’re the only ones who still do that.”
I crouched down, maybe pretending to tie my shoe even though I was wearing flip-flops. I could see Marcy’s Tevas and her perfectly applied bland pink nail polish and the haole rot on her calves. Khakis and a tunic—that’s what she was wearing.
“I’m cooking mahi-mahi for my husband tonight,” Marcy informed the cashier, who hadn’t asked about her dinner.
I wanted the cashier to ignore her or grunt or say, “Who cares,” but, like every cashier in Hawaii, this one was also too nice.
“You know what’s good? A little seaweed flakes on top,” she said, to which Marcy replied, “That is a fan-tas-tic idea, thank you.”
As I watched her Tevas walk away, I noticed her heels weren’t cracked at all. I didn’t look at my heels to compare because I already knew how badly cracked they’d gotten. They had split into canyons.
As I hoisted myself up in the most dignified way possible and shook out my leg because it had started to fall asleep, I imagined Brad and Marcy’s mahi-mahi dinner and knew it would be boring. Or I hoped it would be boring. After their boring dinner they would probably take a boring stroll down Ali’i and have boring sex, and maybe I could cultivate some compassion for Marcy, who didn’t even know how boring she was. And yes, I was able to cultivate some compassion, and the great thing about that was that it was not only inarguably nice; it also made me a better person.
?
When I got back, the twins had switched positions. Jed was next to Ana now and Cam was lying back on the recliner with Portico stretched straight down the center of his chest like a zipper on a jacket.
“That was fast, Nan,” Ana said, impressed.
“You call Mom Nan?” Cam asked.
Ana smiled at me. “I do,” she said. “Is that okay?”
Cam shrugged.