A few nights earlier, she and Daniel had been walking back from Mano and Kailani’s place. A moonless darkness blanketed them, along with the distant sounds of the cicadas and the wind gusting through the trees. She felt comforted, shielded by the shadows. All night they had talked and laughed together, like when they were young and Maile dared to hope. Daniel’s voice suddenly filled the quiet again, telling her about studying and working in Chicago, including some of the patients he encountered at the hospital, and how it was Auntie Nori who asked him to check on Mama Natua when he returned.

“Mama’s lucky to have such a good doctor,” she’d said, still impressed that he had fulfilled his dreams.

Daniel remained quiet, and it seemed that her words had simply floated away. Maile was mystified by his sudden silence when he finally said, “Sometimes good isn’t enough.”

“Try telling that to the aunties after all you’ve done for Mama,” she’d said, hoping to lighten his mood, which had shifted so quickly. “Auntie Nori can’t stop talking about—”

“Mama’s suffering from senility,” Daniel interrupted. “It doesn’t take a genius to treat her.”

Maile stopped walking. The darkness suddenly felt suffocating; his sharp words hung heavily in the air. She felt the blood rush to her head. “Maybe not,” she said, “but it still takes a doctor whom Mama trusts enough to treat her, and that says a lot.”

Daniel stopped, too, and turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound so arrogant.”

Maile saw him clearer as the clouds shifted and moonlight seeped through, saw the anguish and apology in his gaze. She never would have spoken up in Honolulu, held back by fear, but she was home now, and with Daniel. She’d forgotten how good it was to simply say what she felt. She looked at him and saw that there was something she’d missed, too wrapped up in her own anxieties. Whatever was upsetting him lay just beneath the surface.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Daniel answered, and smiled. “I should get you home.”

She stepped closer and inhaled the sweet, dark air, changing the subject as they began to walk again. “Uncle Koji must be happy you’re back,” she said.

“Right now, I don’t think he’s too happy with me,” he said.

“Why?”

“We had a disagreement last week,” Daniel said quietly. “I left before hearing his side of it.”

Maile couldn’t remember a time when they’d ever fought over anything in all the years she’d known them. “About what?” she asked.

Again Daniel paused. She watched him weigh whether to tell her or not.

“He lied to me . . . kept the fact from me that my father returned when I was a boy. He and my mom both did.”