A police car on the road, so I turned right to get away from it, which was the wrong way. Another police car, so I turned to avoid that one, too. I ended up on the highway driving north. I kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure the SUV behind me didn’t have a blue light on top of it. Because that’s what police cars looked like in Kona—just regular cars with blue lights on top. This made them harder to spot.
The sun, the sky, the ocean. Snow-capped Mauna Kea and the unfair beauty of it. I drove all the way to Waikoloa before turning back. It was late afternoon. I’d been gone for hours. I still didn’t want to go home. But the milk was getting hot. But she was dying.
?
But when I got home, she wasn’t there. Her car was gone. She hadn’t left a note.
I unpacked the groceries. My phone beeped. A text from Cam: Ana is taking us to volcano!
I wrote back: Great.
All I felt was relief, and maybe this was the wrong thing to feel. An afternoon relieved from her. But what about tomorrow? And the days after tomorrow? How many days did she have left?
I put her tarot cards away. I swept the floors. I swept my necklace into the dust bin. I was about to throw it away, but I picked it out of the dirt and set it on the windowsill instead.
The teal shirt, the blood, the flashlight rolling, rolling.
I hadn’t eaten all day. I didn’t feel like eating. I made myself eat anyway. I ate a banana. And then a Red Vine, maybe to see how it would feel. I chewed it partway and spit it out.
How he had landed, like he was sleeping.
I didn’t turn on the TV. I cleaned it instead. I took her tray to the kitchen. She’d eaten all the French toast and both of the Red Vines.
How she had said, “Drive.” How I had obeyed her. How I had wanted to leave, too.
?
By six the house was immaculate. I had replaced Ana’s dead tree branch with our family photo. If a stranger saw this photo, they would think, Those people look wholesome. I tossed the branch outside. The sun, low in the sky behind the trees. My barren garden, just a wet rectangle of soil.
The sound of a car coming closer. I turned. It was Chuck. I didn’t move. He got out of the car, walked toward the ohana. He was carrying a bag of takeout food. I couldn’t tell from where. He looked tired. And old. Lines on his forehead I hadn’t seen before, and this meant I looked older, too. “Hey,” he said carefully, like I was a bomb he might set off.
I nodded at his bag. “Dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“You going out tonight?” I was speaking evenly, which impressed me. “Are you going to play pool?”
Chuck touched his neck. “I don’t think so.”
“Chuck.” I wanted to make sure he was looking at me when I asked.
“Yeah?” Those bright blue eyes. I hadn’t seen them in the light like this for what felt like so long.
“Who is Brenda?”
His face twisted. He was trying to figure out how I knew.
“The boys told me you were looking for her the other night.”
“Oh,” Chuck said. I could tell he was trying to remember. And then he did remember—I saw it on his face—and he said, “Oh,” again.
“Are you having another affair, Chuck, because if you are, I can’t—”
“I am not having an affair.” He seemed exhausted.
“Are you sure?”
He rubbed his tired face. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” I wanted to believe him. “Okay.” I crossed my arms. “Who’s Brenda?”
“I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“She’s a coach.”
“What kind of coach?”
His shoulders slumped. “A sobriety coach,” he said quietly.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” I was hurt.
He moved his bag to the other hand. “I had to do this on my own.”
I was still hurt. “I’m proud of you,” I said. “Do you want to come in? I can make you some real dinner, if you want.” I felt the muscles in my neck tighten, expectant.
Chuck looked down. “I got dinner, but thank you.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that he might say no.
He glanced at our cars. “Ana’s not here,” he said.
“She took the boys to the volcano.”
“She’s alone with the boys?”
“Is that a problem?” I was mad he’d said no to my food.
Chuck said nothing.
I said nothing.
He checked his watch.
I excused him so he wouldn’t have to do it himself. “Go eat,” I said. “You don’t want it to get cold.”
?
An hour later he left. I didn’t know where he went.
?
The sky darkened. The moon rose. I took another shower. As if I were covered in his blood. I scrubbed harder. This time I bled.
I put a pillow in the center of the bed. But a little off-center so my barrier would look like an accidentally tossed pillow. It would be unwise to upset her. I didn’t trust her angry.
?
In the middle of the night, they came home. Outside the bedroom door, they whispered, good night, good night, good night. I listened to Ana take off her clothes. My weight shifted toward her when her body hit the bed. The first thing she did was move the pillow. The second thing she did was string my necklace back around my neck. And then she put her arm around me and five minutes later she was asleep. Locked under her arm, I couldn’t twist and turn anymore, and the rise and fall of her body against mine was soothing even when I didn’t want it to be. It was comfort, the most basic comfort of two bodies together, and there was nothing to do but sleep.
35
“It hasn’t hit Pahoa yet, but it’s about to. It’s so close.” Her glimmering eyes. How chaos excited her. She painted another sloppy stroke.
I was letting her paint my toes one final time. So that if she died today, I would have this purple sparkly polish to remember her by. I’d agreed because it was easier than disagreeing. It was also a strategic move. I thought if I did what she wanted, she might stop punishing me.
That morning Jed had walked into the kitchen bald. “Ana did it. Don’t be mad,” he’d said, making his arms into an X like I was going to throw stones at him.
I choked on my coffee. Don’t be mad? You look like a skinhead!
“I did it for people with cancer,” he said, proud.
I couldn’t stop coughing. “Where’s Cam?”
“Don’t worry,” Jed said. “He didn’t do it. He chickened out.”
Ana stopped to inspect her work. I had to get up. Just for a minute. I needed a break from her. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, “let me just do this last”—another sloppy stroke—“okay, you can go.”
I went to the boys’ bathroom. Jed’s beautiful hair was all over the floor I’d just cleaned. On the sink was the razor. A Japanese brand. Jed must have bought that recently, because I’d never seen it before.
When I got back to the living room, the documentary was playing again. The woman on the screen was sobbing. “And on top of dying, you have to be ugly.” She touched one of the patches of hair on her head like it disgusted her.
Ana’s toes twinkled happily on the coffee table. “Do you mind if we watch this again? It inspires me.”
“Sure.”
I put my foot back in her lap. Only a few more toes to go. A new woman appeared on the screen. She had barely any hair, but still, there was some.
“Ana?”
“Nan?”
“Can I try on your wig?”
“Of course, daw-ling.” She globbed on more nail polish. “I’ll grab it for you in a sec. You wanna be Wynonna or Marilyn?”
I pretended to consider the options. “I want the one you’re wearing.”