From the Natua house, it was a short drive to the Wailuku River. Daniel hadn’t been back ever since he was in high school. Before then, his father would always take him to the river when he returned home after weeks working away. And for those few hours, he belonged to just Daniel. As a boy it made him happy to know he had all of his father’s attention. Only now did he realize his father never belonged to anyone for long—he was always searching for something he could never hold onto and hurting so many along the way. “Oily hands” Koji once described him as having. Daniel wondered if his father ever thought of them after he left, only to catch himself; they’d slipped from his fingers a long time ago.

As the lava surged closer to the river’s watershed, the scent of sulfur had grown more potent. Daniel walked along the main path down to the river, the one place he had avoided for years, and where he still felt his father’s presence the strongest. He turned onto the small trail they had walked down so many years ago, immediately embraced by a forest of tall banyan trees. When he emerged at the river’s edge, Daniel took off his shoes and rolled up his pants, remembering the five-year-old boy walking with his father, laughing when each step in the wet mud sucked and smacked and sounded like a kiss. The river had been rough that day so they couldn’t swim, and instead they hiked along the embankment at the river’s edge. Daniel followed after his tall, lean father, who always seemed hungry, but he was never sure for what. It was hot and muggy, the air filled with the sounds of the rushing river, the high shrill of the birds above, the mosquitoes that buzzed and taunted as he swiped them away from his sweaty, salty body. All he wanted to do was to jump into the river to cool off, but his father kept walking in the breathless heat. It was the afternoon Daniel wanted to know why it was always so noisy.

His father finally paused. “Island voices,” he’d said, and very little else. He soon grew impatient with Daniel’s questions and began walking again, the white scar on his side dancing up and down like a wiggling worm.