Soon, besides selling the famous Okawa fresh fish, Nori cooked and baked in the small kitchen in back—relatives coming in and out to help—and also sold hot coffee, soda pop, sushi, sweetbread, coconut tarts, red bean buns, and whatever else could be quickly downed while working on a boat or sitting at the counter. She began serving breakfast and lunch when she saw how the locals liked to linger at the market every day, as did a pack of homeless, mostly congenial dogs waiting for daily scraps. Tables and chairs were set up not only in the market, but also out back in the yard for those who wanted to sit and linger longer. All considered the market an extension of their own homes. It was ohana, family run and founded by one of their own, and it quickly became the main gathering place in Hilo for island news and gossip.

And business promised to become even brighter in the months ahead. The railway station just down the street was expanding service to sugar mills north of Hilo along the Hamakua coast, which would soon bring in more customers as the sugar and shipping industries continued to grow. Nori was overwhelmed. She’d never expected the market to succeed so quickly, consuming all her time and energy. Every evening she put her boys to bed and headed straight for her own. Before dawn every morning Nori was downstairs at the market mixing, rolling, and baking loaves of sweetbread, breaking eggs, and frying Portuguese sausage and bacon for the dockworkers and hungry fishermen who flocked there for breakfast before they returned home to sleep. While Nori was grateful for the Okawa Fish Market’s popularity, she was unprepared for all the work it involved. By her second month in business, she hired her cousin, Jelly, to work the counter full-time, and Jelly’s fourteen-year-old son, Nobu, to do the stocking and heavy work, while other relatives took turns watching the boys upstairs as the market continued to grow.

* * *