2008
"Hokulani! If you don't get your okole out here right now, you gon' get lickins."
There were a lot of things I understood about my father and a lot of things I didn't, but I tried not to dwell on either one too much because I also understood that was the nature of having a father. He moved through life with a level of caution I didn't have enough life experience to heed on my own, and I lived by the reckless abandon he had already grown away from. Most of the things I would learn from my parents wouldn't make sense until I was much older, maybe his age now, or the little nuggets of wisdom he'd planted as seeds wouldn't sprout until after I no longer had him around. But as much as he frustrated me sometimes, I didn't want to think about when that time would come around.
I operated under the belief that life was a current that flowed of its own free will and I was willing to let it take me whichever way it felt I should go. But luckily, my dad was always there to give me a nudge in the right direction.
When I forgot to take out the trash, his nudges weren't so subtle.
Dragging my feet like they were tied to weights, I thumped my way down the stairs to see him sitting at the kitchen table with his feet resting on a chair that had been pulled out. The bottoms of his feet were nearly blackened with dirt from cleaning out the garage after Leimomi had accidentally knocked over a bag of charcoal. (She had a thing for hanging around the hibachi that no one understood.)
Three giant bags of luau leaves were placed on the table in front of him, with one pile of prepared leaves off to the side.
Even before I'd jumped off the final step, my eyes had widened at the sight. Papa was making luau stew, my favorite comfort food.
"Is that—" I started, inching toward him. Before my fingers could land on the prized possession, my father's hand snaked out and smacked them away, and I winched at the sharp sting, narrowing my eyes in his direction. "I was just looking, Papa."
"How many times I gotta tell you for take out the trash, Hokulani?" he asks before darting his eyes to the side. We both look at the trash can whose lid can't even close. "You get one job in this house. And it's the easy one. You like put away the dishes like we make Kanani do 'em or what?"
I shook my head, casting my eyes down at my feet. I hated being scolded, especially for something I knew I could have easily done in two minutes when he first asked me to.
"Eh, look at me," he said. Gentler this time. "We no give you chores just 'cause. This is your kuleana to keep the house standing. It's important you learn this. Alright?"
"Yeah." He waited. "Yes."
With one final flick of his chin toward the trash, he went back to work. "Take 'em outside. Come help Papa after."
Despite being called out for my mistakes, my dad was never intentionally mean-spirited in the way he scolded us. I knew that wasn't the case for a lot of people, even some of my friends, so I appreciated it and tried not to take advantage of it, though I slipped every once in a while.
It was trash day tomorrow, so someone else had already taken out the bin to the front of our driveway. (Probably Mama.) (It was always Mama.) Which meant I had to drag the heavy bag all the way across the driveway and up to the street which almost tore a hole in the bottom. As soon as I slammed the lid shut and dusted my hands off, a group of guys started riding down the street in my direction.
Naturally, I turned on my heel and started walking quickly back to the house, but someone called out to me and I turned around at the sound of the familiar voice.
Kaipo had a growth spurt over the summer. Before, I'd had an inch over him, but now the roles were reversed and part of me was frustrated about it in a silly way. I'd spent so long being made fun of for being taller than most of the guys in my class up all the way until middle school that I'd found a way to appreciate it. Instead of cowering under their insults, I became empowered by my stature.
Losing this advantage over Kaipo was a bummer, even if we were friends.
"Hoku, you're supposed to pick up the bag next time," he teased as he pedaled his bike so that he sat on it beside me. The hair by the nape of his neck was still wet, and he looked as if someone had sprinkled a dusting of powdery white sand all over his shoulders. The scent of his salty brine prickled at my nose, and I found myself wishing I'd rushed home earlier so I could have gone with him to the beach.
At least for now, we were back to the same height.
"And you're supposed to find a shirt without a puka in it but—" I poked at his skin peeking out from between the hole in his shirt.
Kaipo brushed my hand away. "Ready for school next week?"
The other guys waiting down the street called out to him, but he flipped them off.
I crossed my arms, letting the wind caress my hair over to one side. "Not really."
"Don't tell me you're afraid of Kaiser High School," he scoffed.
"That's not the reason," I retorted.
He squinted. "Nani, then?"
I didn't respond.
Kaipo and I have known each other since we were in kindergarten. From the beginning, my parents had predicted we would fall in love and get married someday, much to my father's dismay. (Kaipo had dropped li hing mui gummy bears in Dad's poi at a party one time and the opinion had been changed ever since.) But I understood our feelings toward each other would never get to that point.
That didn't mean we didn't understand each other better than most.
"You realize there's a good chance you won't even run into her, right?" he continued, resting his arms on the front of his bike.
It was petty, I knew that. But I spent so long living in the shadow of my older sister—smart, beautiful, a social butterfly—that finally ending up at the same school did nothing to settle the uneasy butterflies in my own stomach, the only ones I'd ever represent. Kanani was popular and I knew the second I stepped foot on that campus, I'd be known as Kanani's sister.
I wanted my own identity.
I also knew I was too shy to discover one myself.
"Let's hope so," I finally replied, taking steps away from him.
He took the hint and kicked one foot back up onto the bike pedal. "Don't think so hard about it. It'll be fine."
Before he could ride away, I called out his name and he turned around.
"You want to catch the bus together?" I asked.
Kaipo had an older brother, older than Kanani, that drove him to school a lot. It was a long shot that he'd pass up the ride to catch the bus with me instead.
I was surprised when, without hesitation, he agreed to my proposition and told me what time to meet him by the bus stop next week Monday. I gave him a small wave before hurrying back to the house where my father was still working on the same pile of leaves he'd been handling earlier.
"Was that Kaipo?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes and dragged out the chair next to him, sliding the other bag of leaves over to my side. "You have the ears of a hawk."
"That boy is going to get you in trouble one day."
"It was a bowl of poi, Papa. You need to move on."
"It's never just a bowl of poi," he said before flicking me on the nose. I laughed and pushed his hand away.
Luau stew was one of the first things my dad taught us how to make. I secretly think it was because prepping the leaves—tearing off the point, peeling the stems—was bothersome and he just wanted us to do the hard work for him. Then one night, my mother told me it was his favorite comfort food, and he tended to make it whenever he was having a bad day at work.
We worked in tandem until all three bags were prepped while the smell of stew meat simmering away on the stove flooded the house in the most savory, comforting aroma. As my father took all of the leaves over to the stove to submerge them in the giant cauldron-like pot, the front door creaked as my mom walked inside with her shoulders slumped over from all the work bags she was carrying.
My mother worked for the state. (State, she said with a laugh for obvious reasons.) It wasn't the highest paying job and she was often talked down upon on the phone by people who probably couldn't name one interesting fact about the illegally occupied nation they wanted to work in, but she put up with it because she got all of the holidays off and almost a month worth of vacation days every year. She valued family time and she got a lot of it.
"Oh, it smells so ono in here," she groaned as she dropped her bags onto the floor and made her way into the kitchen. She passed by me briefly, pressing a kiss on the top of my head, before drifting over to my father.
If there was one thing I was thankful for, it was the relationship my parents had. Some of my friends weren't as fortunate, with many of whom had parents that were separated or shooting friendly fire inside their house while their kids watched from the sidelines, but I knew if I ever ended up in a long-term relationship, I had a good example in them.
"How was work?" she asked, muffled by the sound of her face pressed into my father's chest. His arm was slung around her shoulder, anchoring her into place by his side, a place I knew she'd never leave.
"Could be better." He tapped the bottom of her chin, gently nudging her face up to his. "How was your day?"
She smiled. "Could be better." Her arms tightened around his waist. "Is better now."
I faked a gag. "Nauseating."
The two of them laughed before finally detaching from each other. My mother walked back over to the table and sat down next to me. I tried my best to ignore the pronounced dark circles and undereye bags that always seemed to be present. She wore them like a badge of honor; to me they were reminders of how hard she worked for so little in return.
"School starts next week."
I waved my hands in the air. "Woo. I'm so excited," I replied in a deadpan tone.
She crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Do you want to go shopping for some new clothes this weekend?"
"I have clothes."
"New ones," she repeated.
I brushed her off. "It's fine. I don't need them."
My mother always tried her best to give us everything even though I knew it wasn't easy. Raising three kids in Hawai'i was expensive, and we spent a long time cutting coupons and eating canned foods. I didn't want to burden her with something as silly as a new outfit for the first day of high school.
"Just the two of us," she enticed. "Promise. We can even go to Cookie Corner."
That was unfair. She knew cookies were my weakness.
Reading the troubled constellations on my face, she pressed forward again, this time laying her hand down over mine. "We can do something nice. It's not going to be the end of the world."
"But—"
"No buts." She stood up and ruffled my hair before picking her bags up off the ground. "You should be excited for a new school. It'll be fun."
"Fat chance."
"Eh," my dad scolded. "Stop being so grumpy. Your mom wants to take you shopping. Let her."
"Fine. But I don't need it."
"Maybe you need those lickins after all," my dad threatened and I ran away, hearing my parents' laugh trail behind me.