“Mom.” I take a centering breath before I continue. “If Dad were here, he would tell you the same thing. He was just as excited about the food truck as you were, but he was a stickler on not working yourself to the bone. You know that.”

Memories of Dad hugging her from behind during one of her hours-long cooking or cleaning sessions in the kitchen filter through my mind. He would give her a gentle squeeze, a kiss on the cheek, then whisper how she needed to take a break. She would always twist around to smile up at him and take a break for at least a few minutes. Always.

My words don’t carry the same charm as my dad’s.

“I know what’s good for me,” she snaps, as if she didn’t even hear what I just said. “To stay busy.”

My hand falls on the table. “Mom, you are staying busy just by working at the food truck with me every day.”

Finally, her dark eyes cut to me. “Not every day. You make me stay home one day a week, sometimes two. Like I’m a child.”

I stand up and walk to the sink for a glass of water. It’s the only way I can think to keep from unloading on her, to keep from saying what I truly feel.

Slowly, I sip until the glass is empty, then refill it. It does nothing to calm me. Turning around, I focus back on her, still rolling lumpia.

“That’s not fair, Mom. You know how important your health is to me. You can’t put in eight- to ten-hour days doing food prep in the morning and working at the truck, then continue cooking for hours when you’re home. That’s too much.”

“It’s not. I like the work,” she says, her voice hard, her tone clipped. “Besides, we have to work extra hard to make sure we do well at the festival. You don’t want to lose, do you?”

Her question, spoken in her signature impatient tone, leaves my head spinning. I know it all too well. She uses it whenever she’s asking a question she doesn’t want an answer to.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check.

“Of course I don’t want to lose. And we won’t. I’ve got everything covered. Your help at the food truck is more than enough.”

I take another sip of water and stare out the kitchen window of our Kihei condo. My gaze fixes on the indigo sky, the bright specks of starlight scattered throughout. Beneath the darkness above, I can just barely make out the hedge dotted in tropical flowers that marks this end of the condo property and the line of palm trees behind it. During the day in full-on sunlight, endless lush rolling hills complete the view.