My grandmother became thoughtful, sad. ‘But then, of course, she left me, they left me, and there you all are living on the other side of the world.’ She paused again. ‘Anyway, why should I complain? I have you here right now, don’t I?’

Oriwia and her daughter left Paa behind in Hawai‘i. He was having a great time.

Chapter 19

Aki

Chappy endeared himself to Ela’s family right from the time he landed in Hawai‘i. The same couldn’t be said of Oriwia, though the family was too polite to say anything about that. During the first visit, they didn’t come to know the real Oriwia, the gutsy, loyal, big-hearted girl and woman we all knew at home. I could see they thought her dissatisfied and snobbish. Disappointment and heat had a lot to do with her frown and her silence, at times her absence from our company. Now she’s going to listen to what I’ve said on to this machine here and she’ll have a go at me. But, too late, the words have already flown out of my mouth. There’s more to come.

Even though Paa laughed his head off when he found Oriwia had gone home dragging her love-struck daughter, it was no laughing matter to me. I was insulted. Ela and I had been married nearly twenty years by then, and during the first year of our marriage I had filled out adoption papers that made me the legal father of Eric and Ke‘alohilani. Though we had expected to have more children, and I had come off my ships in those early days hoping to be given a very special piece of news, this had not happened. But we were content with our family as it was.

Eric and Lani are my true sons, the most loving of boys. When I was home, they came everywhere with me; they waited for hours on the road when they knew I was coming; they clung to me. They called me Father.

Now they were young men in their early twenties. I found work for Eric on the boats. He became a journeyman, travelling the world as I had, and was home about once every three months. He had married the previous year. Lani didn’t have paid work but stayed home to help his grandfather and make sure there was a daily supply of vegetables, wood and fish. It may have seemed an idle and idyllic life to an onlooker, but Oriwia should have known better. He was a quiet, home-loving young man. This didn’t mean he was useless. What he did was important to the family. Two young people walking hand in hand didn’t seem to me a reason to insult my wife’s people. Though he never said so, I know Chappy was embarrassed that his wife and daughter had gone off in the way they did.