Nori found Leia in the kitchen, a half-strung lei hanging from her arm. Tall and amicable, Leia had a quiet strength most missed but Nori held dear. Hadn’t she been the older sister who always protected her? She was a younger version of Mama, a nurturer, and had inherited her lei stringing skills. Mama Natua was once celebrated as the best lei maker in Hilo town, creating beautiful garlands from the island’s natural bounty, and was well known for weaving traditional open-ended ti leaf leis coveted by hula dancers from all the islands. The locals always joked that “Mama Natua could make a beautiful lei made out of tin cans!” Nori loved watching Mama Natua’s hands in constant motion, while the Natua porch and kitchen always resembled the outdoors—baskets of flowers, ti leaves, fern fronds, seashells, even seeds piled high on the table—the air thick with sea salt, or smelling sweetly of everything from pine to pikake when Nori walked in, her bare feet sliding across traces of sand on the wood floor. It was no different now.

“How is she doing?” Nori asked.

“She has no idea Mauna Loa has erupted,” Leia answered.

“Better that way, yeah.”

Leia nodded, and peeked into the basket Nori carried to see a banana bread and ono butter mochi. “Thank you for this,” she said, and led Nori into Mama’s dark, warm bedroom, which smelled stale and medicinal. “Lately, she doesn’t like the room too bright,” Leia whispered.

Nori nodded. When her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw white-haired Mama sitting in an old armchair.

Over the years, Mama had stubbornly refused to see a dentist or a medical doctor. She didn’t trust modern medicine. She believed that all the medicine she needed came from the plants that grew all around her. Nori hoped she might consider letting Daniel examine her since she’d known him since birth.

Once majestic, Mama was now a shrunken and wrinkled version of herself sitting in the chair. Her hands still moved in front of her as if she were stringing together the leis that had been worn by everyone from well-known hula dancers to the movie star Shirley Temple to Queen Lili’uokalani. It was believed that pure Hawaiian blood flowed through Mama’s veins too, even if it had been thinned by generations of outside marriages. She’d always been their closest connection to the old Hawaiian ways.

Mama Natua looked up. “You come home, Noelani?”

“Mama, it’s not Noelani. It’s Nori. You remember Nori,” Leia said.

Mama Natua looked from her daughter to Nori. “You change your hair, yeah?”

Nori instinctively touched the back of her hair, peppered with gray. “No, it’s the same, Mama.”

“Where your bangs?”

Nori smiled. “Mama, I haven’t had bangs since I was seven years old.”

Mama Natua watched her suspiciously. “I don’t know you,” she said, turning away.