Page 41 of Between Hello and Goodbye

I loaded our lunch dishes into the washer while watching the scene on the lanai through the window. My brother and his wife talked and laughed with Faith, listened to her advice with smiles of hope and excitement blooming on their faces. My chest felt warm with pride, as if I could take credit for her. As if she were part of our little clan. As if she belonged here.

As if she were mine…

I shook my head to clear the bullshit out. She wasn’t mine and wasn’t going to be. I didn’t have relationships that lasted longer than a night or two, and even if I did, she lived thousands of miles away. She needed her big city, while I couldn’t imagine stepping foot on the mainland ever again. I’d finally found a modicum of peace here. The islands helped temper the rage that constantly simmered in me that our parents had broken my and Morgan’s childhood and left me to put the pieces back together. Faith was beautiful and fun, and her sly, flirty smiles gave me inappropriate thoughts, but it couldn’t—and shouldn’t—go any further.

The fact I had to keep giving myself these mental cold showers was driving me fucking nuts.

Enough already.

“You moved here because you love the island, right?” Faith was saying when I came back out onto the lanai. “Because it’s beautiful and serene and all that jazz.”

Morgan laughed. “All that jazz. Yep, about sums it up.” He turned his huge grin up to me. “Faith has some fantastic ideas.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, not looking at her.

“I was just suggesting they could take their clients on excursions around the island and photograph them at the falls or the beach…”

“Or at the canyon!” Kal piped up as he clambered up the wooden stairs. Dust from his foray under the porch coated his hair and clothes.

“Right, the canyon. Whatever that is,” Faith said, shooting him a smile. “Or that trail that tried to kill me. Photograph your clients in the beauty of the island, and they’ll feel like they’ve become a part of it. That’s what they’ll take home with them.”

“I love it,” Nalani said.

“Me too,” Morgan said. He put his hand to his chest. “Mahalo nui loa, Faith.”

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking about how when I leave, I like the idea of taking a little piece of the island home with me.”

Because she was leaving. End of.

“Time to get going,” I said dully.

My family walked us to the front porch, and Kaleo tugged Faith’s arm. “Are you coming back? You have to meet Momi. That’s my great-grandma.”

“My grandmother,” Nalani explained. “And yes, we’d love to have you back again.”

Faith’s smile didn’t touch her eyes. “It was very nice meeting you all.”

And in that moment, I knew she wasn’t staying another day, never mind the rest of her trip.She turned and crutched toward my Jeep without another word. I said my goodbyes, gave Kal a hug, and followed after.

“I’m pretty tired,” Faith said when I got behind the wheel. “I’d like to go back to the condo.”

“What about the shave ice?” I asked. Now that I knew the minutes with her were ticking down, I wanted all of them.

“I changed my mind,” she said.

“Okay.”

We drove in silence the entire ride back to Kapa’a. In the lot in front of her complex, I threw the car in park and faced forward.

“Your family is great,” she said after a moment. “That little Kal is a cutie. He obviously worships you. Morgan too. You’re lucky to have them.”

“Yep.”

Another silence.

“I’m going back to Seattle,” she said. “Tomorrow. I’ve decided.”

“I figured.”