Even on my mother’s quiet days, her fingers laced sections of my hair together with ease as she stared out at the waves. Those days she smelled like salt from the ocean and I knew that Auntie Bernadette would bring us supper.

Now I must take my mother’s place, sitting in the cabana alone.

It’s Saturday morning and the tour buses from Tumon come to Malesso. Their loud engines rattle our windows as they pass us by. We smell their diesel long after they leave. Before the buses started coming, the Japanese tourists drove rental cars through our village and often stopped at our store for a Coke or Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Now they buy at the larger store on the pier.

Then they load onto the boat for the ten-minute ride to Cocos Island. They will swim, ride Jet Skis, or parasail for the day. If they have big bucks, they might stay at the fancy hotel for a night or two. I’ve only been to Cocos Island once. Years ago, when Olivia was a baby. Tata took Frank and me for the day. But when we returned, my mother was curled up in bed and Olivia was crying, her diapers soaked and heavy with poop. We never went back after that.

Tata said he liked Cocos Island better before they made it a resort. He said the island used to have cabins, and when they were newlyweds he and my mother often rode out in his boat and spent the night there. I don’t see much difference, one island from the next. Besides, Cocos Island is only a mile away and not much bigger than a tiny village.

Mrs. Camacho, who lives down the road, used to complain to her husband that he never took her anywhere. She was born and raised on Guam and had never been off island. On their twenty-fifth anniversary Mr. Camacho told her he would surprise her and take her away. She was so excited. Auntie Bernadette said she packed and unpacked for a week. “What if it’s cold?” she asked Auntie Bernadette. “What if I need a coat?”

Mrs. Camacho shouldn’t have worried. Where did her husband take her? Cocos Island.

Roman

“How are you doing, old friend?” Roman asks me like he’s really interested in what happened while I was away from Malesso. He doesn’t fool me. He’s wondering where my father is.

Roman thinks Tata strung up the moon and stars in the sky. “Your father is the greatest fisherman on the island. He knows the best places to catch the biggest skipjack and he gets more crab than anyone in Malesso.” He tells me this like I’m not my father’s daughter. Like I’m some dumb girl who has never scraped out the guts of a fish.

Roman’s parents have known mine since they were children. When Roman and I were little, they teased us that we’d marry one day. I don’t plan to marry a boy with a crooked grin, who smells like fish, a boy who dreams of catching the biggest skipjack in the ocean or the most crab on full-moon nights.