“I’d like to carry on the tradition,” Daniel had said when he’d asked Koji if he could come over.

Tradition. Mariko would have liked that. She must have told Daniel of their yearly ritual.

“Tradition is good,” Koji had said.

* * *

“You going to sit there all day, or are you going to get out of the truck and help?” Daniel had stopped working and looked over at Koji, watching from his truck.

Koji shook away his thoughts and smiled. “Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job on your own, yeah,” he teased back.

Koji got out of his truck and grabbed a basket. The tree was laden with fruit, the warm air ripe with the sweetness of earth and melon and pineapple, the mangoes still firm to the touch. Mariko was right there with them.

“It was a good year,” Daniel said, the mangoes falling into the basket one after another with a soft thud.

“Nori will be overjoyed to get a couple of extra baskets this year. She’ll be making mango everything for the next few months, yeah,” Koji said, and laughed. He leaned the old wood ladder against the tree, climbed up, and quickly began filling a basket. By midday, they’d have all the baskets of mangoes stacked high on the front porch.

“Looks like you’ve found something you’re good at,” Daniel said, stopping to watch.

“Your mother trained me well,” Koji said.

“She would be happy,” Daniel said.

“Very.”

Perched on the ladder, Koji looked up toward the now quiet Mauna Loa, which had had the entire community tied in knots for six weeks, only to have the lava simply stop flowing a week after the army bombed the vents, before reaching the river. While the geologists and the army claimed credit, the locals laughed. They knew it was all Pele’s doing. She was playing with them, yeah, the locals said. The bombs were no more than a tap on her shoulder.

Koji turned when he heard the front door of the bungalow open. For just a moment he imagined that it was Mariko stepping out to the porch, heart jumping. Instead, it was Maile who walked out, setting down a pitcher of cold green tea. Still an old fool, he thought. She smiled and waved to them. In the months since he’d left the plantation, he could feel Mariko’s presence, urging him forward. It was time to stay in the present, however much he could. It was Razor who once told him that he needed to live life like the way he cut cane, “move quickly forward and don’t look back, yeah.”