Mama was running, the muscles in her legs strong and taut. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such pure happiness or had covered so much ground. She ran down the wide-open streets crowded with vendors on market day, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to freshly caught fish and sushi, along with her favorite, mochi filled with sweet red beans. Dogs whined for scraps of food as people moved in thick throngs from one vendor to the next. Still, she ran down the dirt paths unhindered, wearing her favorite loose muumuu with the red hibiscus flowers, the crowds parting to let her through. Mama felt like a child of privilege, though her family had little. She was running toward her family home, a two-room shack near the beach, filled with beans and nuts they sold at the market. Her mother made a soup with them, which was the best thing she’d ever tasted. At one point, it felt as if she were soaring above the town, looking down and seeing her lithe body weaving in and out without a care in the world, so young and daring.

Mama could have gone on running forever, but for Nestor’s voice calling out to her. She strained to hear what he was saying until the wind carried it to her. “Not time yet,” her husband said.

Mama opened her eyes.

* * *

There was a stillness in the early hours of the morning, mouth dry as chalk and hungry. Mama hadn’t felt this kind of hunger in a long time, her thoughts slowly awakening, her arms and legs so stiff it was like swimming through a blanket of seaweed. Her fingers inched away from her body until they traced the deep dip left in the mattress by all the years Nestor had laid next to her. She was relieved to be at home in her own bed, the thought calming her confusion. Mama looked around the quiet room for any signs of Nestor, but even his shadow was gone now. She sighed and tried to push herself up into a sitting position, but her limbs refused to cooperate.

Where had she been all this time? Mama still wasn’t sure if she hadn’t walked on, to the other valley. She recalled seeing Nestor by the monkey pod tree and walking toward her husband but never reaching him. The rest had been lost in smoke. Mama did feel as if she’d just returned from a long journey, like when she was a child and her parents had taken her to visit her Auntie Kobayashi, her mother’s sister, in the village of Honomu, two hours north of Hilo. It was a world away from town back then. In a hired wagon drawn by two horses, she sat on rough burlap bags in the back of the wagon as every hard bump along the dirt road rattled through her body.