“Of course you do, Mama,” Leia said. “It’s your favorite, Nori. Little Nori from up the street. You’ve known her all of her life.”

A look of bewilderment washed over Mama Natua’s face.

“Look what I brought you,” Nori said, hoping to bring her back. She took out the bag of salty dry plums. “I know it’s your favorite.” She opened the bag and put one in the palm of her hand.

“Nori such a smart girl, yeah,” Mama said, slipping the dry plum between her lips and sucking noisily on it. “Sometimes she looked so sad. Broke my heart.”

Nori looked at Leia.

“Good days and bad,” Leia said softly. “She comes and goes.”

“You know my younger daughter, Noelani? She’s away in Honolulu for secretarial school. First one in the family to leave the island, yeah,” the old woman said, as she sucked on the dry plum and smiled.

“Mama, that was a long time ago,” Leia explained. “Noelani’s home now and working at the Kailua Plantation. She’ll be by later to see you.”

“Why you cut your hair? Makes you look old,” Mama Natua said.

“Mama,” Leia pleaded.

“I won’t cut it so short next time,” Nori said, appeasing.

It didn’t matter what Mama said now, Nori thought. I am getting older. She would be forty-nine in a few months. Would she one day forget everyone and everything, her mind a blank canvas? Nori shook the thought away. Instead, she smiled, pulled a chair over, and sat down next to the woman who had saved her childhood. She glanced at a photo of Mama and Uncle Nestor by her bedside, taken just after they married, both so young and beautiful. Nori reached for Mama Natua’s hand, her fingers tracing the deep grooves along Mama’s open palm before she placed another dried plum in it.

Mama stared at her for a moment. “I know you,” she said, her eyes brightening.

10. Fire and Ice

10

Fire and Ice

Daniel stayed mostly indoors during the first two days of the eruption, getting reacquainted with his surroundings while the volcanic fog blanketed him in a sleepy haze that slowed time. As soon as the air cleared, Daniel was outside walking along the outskirts of downtown, quiet streets lined with small, single-story clapboard houses with rusted corrugated roofs and sun-bleached walls, both foreign and familiar at the same time.