Daniel watched the surge of lava rise and fall, rise and fall, until the molten liquid pooled and flowed down over jagged lava rock like streaming tears, hot and blistering.

It was as beautiful as it was terrifying.

7. Waiting

7

Waiting

Koji stood just inside the screen door of the Okawa Fish Market. A good two hours had passed since the first eruption, and everyone remained indoors waiting for news from the geologists at the Volcano Observatory Center. Outside, the air thickened with heat and the noxious smell of rotten eggs. Wilson and Mano hadn’t returned yet, leaving Koji to wonder if Daniel’s steamer laid waiting just outside the bay, or if it had returned to O‵ahu. He knew Daniel wouldn’t be happy about turning back so close to home. Koji was reminded of a younger Daniel, so smart and curious, asking questions that he wasn’t always able to answer.

Over the years, Koji had remained the closest thing Daniel had to a father. As boys, Koji and Franklin Abe were once as close as brothers. Whenever he and Razor could get away from the plantation, they’d spend all their free time down in Hilo with Franklin, who always took the lead with his smooth-talking, easy ways. He was a good-looking hapa: a mix of Japanese, Portuguese, and Filipino on his mother’s side, while full-blood Japanese on his father’s side. When they were young, he seemed invincible. But when Franklin’s mother unexpectedly died, and his father returned to Japan and remarried, he was seventeen and chose to stay in Hilo. Frank had always been restless, but it seemed to intensify from then on, and later it was Koji who remained a constant presence in Mariko’s and Daniel’s lives after Franklin had abandoned them.

* * *

Through the screen door of the market, Koji saw a glimmer of light moving through the hazy darkness, growing sharper as Gus Yamamoto’s boy came into view, flashlight in hand. Gus had a phone at his gas station down the street, and Koji hoped his son was bringing news the locals at the market had been waiting for.

He pushed open the screen door and the boy dashed in.

“The geologists at the observatory just called,” he announced, his voice rising with importance. “They say the lava is flowing toward Mauna Kea volcano and away from Hilo town.”

The news was met by rousing cheers from the waiting crowd of locals, but he didn’t see Razor.

Koji looked at the faces of his longtime friends, their anxious air lightened by the news. They never took the island for granted. They lived on sacred ground. What Koji loved most about his Hilo family was their toughness, generations who had withstood so many hardships and disasters. Even through the difficulties of the Depression, Hilo’s local community had maintained their everyday lives, fishing, hunting, and bartering to make ends meet. They were survivors.