Mr. Family

The Stratocaster in his hands. Playing…

But he was doing this for Hiialo.

“You’ll be all right, Pincushion,” said Hiialo, patting the toy in Kal’s hand. She trailed after him as he went to the kitchen drawer where he kept needles, thread, extra guitar picks, junk. The scissors were missing, as usual.

“Hiialo, I need your scissors. Could you please get them for me?”

“Yes, Daddy. Thank you for fixing Pincushion.” She went over to the couch and looked underneath it, then went to her room to find the scissors.

Sunshine. Hiialo was like sunshine now, but she was changeable as the north-shore weather. And sometimes as wild.

Would Erika Blade, a thirty-six-year-old childless woman, really be able to handle it?

Dear Erika,

I’m glad you’re coming to Hawaii. I’ll try to call you once a week. Here are the pictures I promised you of my house. You can see what Hiialo looks like now. She is holding Pincushion, who is her favorite toy…

I mentioned my family on the phone. My folks live in Haena, and my sister, Niau, lives in Poipu, on the south side of the island. My brother Leo…

MIDAFTERNOON sunlight shone through the open hatch and the windows of the Lien Hua. Lying in her berth, Erika read Kal’s second letter and studied the photographs he’d sent. At four, Hiialo was sturdy, with thick, wavy, medium brown hair cut in a pageboy. Even in the photograph, in which she was crouched on the lanai of the green bungalow with the thing called Pincushion, she seemed full of energy, ready to leap to her feet and race away. Not like Chris…

That’s okay, thought Erika. I know I can love her.

If she was certain of anything, it was her ability to love and care for children. Chris had been exceptionally good, exceptionally bright. Exceptionally quiet. But she could love Hiialo. It would be easy.

Another photo showed Kal with his brothers and sister and parents and their three dogs, all Akitas. His father—King, said the corresponding name on the back of the photo—was tall and white-haired. His mother, Mary Helen, seemed compact and athletic. And Kal and his siblings all had a look of radiant good health and of energy and power—not unlike the dogs. One brother was bearded, the other clean-shaven. His sister had shoulder-length light brown hair. They were a handsome family. Kal was the youngest.

The photo and letter, the proof that he really was a family man in every sense, reassured Erika. Since his phone call, she’d had doubts. Kal was a stranger. With David so far away, no one would really know if she got into trouble.

She ought to write to him, tell him.

She ought to tell someone what she was doing.

But she knew what her brother would say: Kal will get over Maka’s death.

For the hundredth time, Erika tried to quiet her qualms about that. She had advised him to wait—for someone else, someone he could love.

She should send him photos of her and David and Chris and Jean to give him the same kind of reassurance he’d given her. But she had no photos of herself with them, only with Chris, when she was in a wheelchair.

Not an option.

She looked back to the letter.

…I haven’t told anyone our plans. June is a long way off. Before you come, I’ll explain to my folks and Hiialo. Also, my in-laws. Maka’s folks live on Molokai, but her brother and her cousin live in Hanalei and they’re like family. In Hawaii, ohana, or family, means more than just your immediate relatives. It can extend to all your loved ones—

The telephone rang, and she went down into the galley to answer. It was Adele, calling to ask how the painting was going. Did she have anything else yet? Had she tried placing those “other pieces” in a gallery?

“Ah…I’m just experimenting right now.” Erika thought it through at light speed. “Actually a friend has invited me to Hawaii in June. I’m going to do some work there.”

“Oh, great! Which island?”

“Kauai.” Belatedly Erika recalled that Adele had seen Kal’s ad. But surely it wouldn’t occur to her that Erika had answered the ad.

It didn’t. “Wonderful. I think it’s recovered a lot since Iniki. The hurricane in ‘92? Try to get up to the north shore…”

Erika listened to Adele’s suggestions and chewed on her bottom lip.

Yes, it was good that David was in Greenland and no one really had to know what she was doing. She would write to her brother and tell him who she was staying with and where. But why say more? If it turned out that Kal didn’t like her, no one would have to know the truth.

“Erika? Are you there?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I’m spaced out today, Adele. What is it?”

“There are some galleries on Kauai that carry your prints. I’ll send you their names. I know they’d love it if you stopped in.”

The Okika Gallery, Erika remembered. Kal’s parents owned three galleries. It seemed like destiny. She longed to tell Adele everything. But if she did, Adele would worry. Anyone would worry, would question her judgment. Erika hated that. Better to say nothing, just leave Adele her new address and stick to her story. “All right.”

After they’d hung up, Erika climbed back up to the main cabin, where the paintings of Kal and Hiialo and Maka confronted her. She needed someone to ease her anxiety, to believe with her in this risk she was taking, believe that it would work out.

There was really only one person who could help with that, and Erika wished the phone would ring again.

He had promised to call.

Apelila: April

Dear Kal,

Thanks for your letter and the photographs and your phone calls. I painted the enclosed picture for Hiialo. I did it using the photos you sent. I hope she can recognize who it’s supposed to be…

The watercolor was of Pincushion. Kal loved it, had wanted to keep it himself. He’d considered taking it down to the gallery to get it framed, but then…Questions. How come he had an Erika Blade original. Of Pincushion.

I stole it, Mom.

Instead, he’d put the watercolor in a cheap document frame, replacing a photo of the great blues guitarist Robert Johnson, and he’d given it to Hiialo, as Erika had wanted, saying it was from a pen pal. After explaining what a pen pal was, he’d added, “Sometimes I talk to her on the phone, too.”

Soon he’d have to explain more. To everyone. Erika was coming to live in his house, maybe for good.

Sitting on the porch swing while Hiialo played in her room, Kal remembered his phone conversation with Erika just that morning. He had asked if she’d told her brother what they were doing. “I wrote to him,” she’d said, and Kal had wondered if she knew she wasn’t answering the question. He was pretty sure she did.

He was pretty sure she’d told her brother almost nothing.

Kal talked to her once a week, always calling Thursday at seven in the morning. It was his day off, Hiialo usually wasn’t up by then, and it was around ten in Santa Barbara. Making the call was agonizing every time. The cultural gap between them was bigger than Waimea Canyon. But Kal wanted to know all he could about Erika Blade before she arrived, before he brought her into Hiialo’s life.

She was hard to know. She turned conversations away from herself and tuned into him, perceiving his difficulties as a single father almost as though she’d been one herself. Or had known one, which she had.

Her brother.

He left the swing and went inside. It was already one o’clock, and he had things to do. He’d recently enclosed the back lanai, creating a new room—for Erika. It still needed finishing touches. But Danny and Jakka had stopped by that morning, and a jam session had eaten half the day. “Hiialo, let’s go to Hanalei. I need something from the hardware store.”