There’s a sudden loud crash in the yard and I hurry to the window. It could be Daniel’s bicycle, or a chair left out, or a fallen tree limb. I hope and pray it isn’t the mango tree and already grieve at the thought. I can taste the succulent fruit on the tip of my tongue. I can’t see anything outside in the dark and driving rain. Something suddenly hits the window hard and I jump back awkwardly, as if I’ve been pushed. And just as quickly, Daniel is there, arms around my waist. “It’s just the wind,” I say, thankful the window hasn’t broken.

The wind howls painfully and the rain falls in torrents, as if all the gods are crying at once. Beyond Hilo town I imagine the roar of the ocean waves pounding furiously into Hilo Bay, flooding the roadway and railroad tracks, stealing tethered boats from the wharf, and thrusting them out to sea. As with so many other storms, we’ll wake up to a mess—severed branches like torn limbs, roof shingles, siding, and unrecognizable ocean debris littering the flooded streets and shops and leaving muddy pools everywhere. In the end, I know it doesn’t matter as long as no one is hurt.

I take the lamp and sit down on the sofa with Daniel. He snuggles up to me and I try to read to him, but the storm wins again by drowning out my voice. I stroke Daniel’s hair, rub his back, and feel him finally relaxing in my lap when we’re startled by something just beyond the noise of the storm, a thud, thud, thud that makes Daniel quickly sit up and listen. It takes another moment before we both realize that someone is pounding on the front door.

“There’s someone—”

“Don’t open it, don’t open it,” Daniel says, a small plea. He pulls at my arm, frightened all over again.

I think of the knife that was in the drawer of my bedside table, the one Franklin left for our protection now gone. “It’s all right,” I say, pulling Daniel closer. Even if it isn’t, even if I’m frightened too, even if my first thoughts are: Where is Franklin? Where has he been the past year? Where is he when we need him the most?