“My kids have always lived there. It’s where their friends are—”

“It’s where you like to live.”

“My friends are there, yes.”

He sees the anger in my eyes, and he laughs. His hand settles on my thigh and strokes down to my knee. “I’m not criticizing you or your world, girl. I’m just saying, you’ve chosen to live there. It’s expensive to live there. Enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, find something you like better.”

The next morning, Kai’s teaching in Waikiki in front of the Outrigger Hotel and he’s got me a beach setup. He takes my beach bag and carries it to the lounge chair beneath one of the blue umbrellas.

“You’ll be all right here?” he asks, straightening my sunglasses on my nose.

“Yes.”

“Need anything?”

“No.”

“I’ll see you in an hour.”

He’s already leaving, but I stop him. “Kai.” He stops, turns to look at me. “Why do you have to live so far from me? Why can’t you live in Seattle or Bellevue?”

“Because I wouldn’t be a surf god and you’d quickly get bored with me.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

He gives me a cynical look. “Are you sure?”

I fall silent. I’m not sure. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s Hawaii I love or Kai. “You might like Seattle.”

He moves back toward me, reaches into my tote bag for my sunscreen and squirts a big white circle in his hand. “We talked about this already. I don’t leave the rock.”

I watch as he covers his face, rubbing it in before applying a second white layer to his nose. “If this can’t go anywhere with us, why am I here?”

“You’re here,” he answers, wiping his hands on the back of his red board shorts, “because you want an adventure.”

I have the most blissful day. In the late afternoon, waiting for Kai to finish his final surf lesson, I just sit on the lounge chair gazing out at the endless horizon of ocean.

Not far from me, a sea turtle pops his head up. The kids on the beach all stop and stare. I haven’t seen any sea turtles for ages, and I feel as though everything is suddenly right in the world.

All day today I’ve felt this way. Good. Calm. Content. I’m noticing color, too, like how yellow the underside of the palm fronds are. They’re more yellow than green, and other colors blast at me, the shocking red T-shirt on a little boy, the orange tube top on the sunburned teenage girl, the turquoise goggles on the man walking into the ocean to swim.

Has color always been so strong? So determined? So bold?