By February, I sent a telegram to the construction firm he worked for on O‵ahu and they were decent enough to have replied. “Frank Abe never returned to work after Christmas.” How could he have just disappeared into thin air? I can’t help but wonder how many of these inquiries they receive, frantic wives chasing after lost husbands. When did I become one of them? Nori, Leia, and Mama Natua bring food, which appears in the icebox as if it was always there. I feel nothing on most days, dead to the world around me. Except for Daniel.

* * *

Nights are the most difficult, when the shadows emerge to play tricks on me. Some nights my despair feels like a deadweight pulling me downward, drowning me. I know I’m luckier than most, I have a house. Daniel is asleep in the other room. He’s a smart boy of six who has stopped asking about his father after seeing how pale I’ve become, how I’ve stopped eating or sleeping much, walking around the house like I’m in a trance.

“Are you sick, Mama?” he asks.

He reaches out and places his open palm against my forehead, mimicking me, and I shake my head and begin to cry. I can’t say why I know this time is different, but this time I can feel it in my body, a small, hard seed in the middle of my chest.

This time he isn’t coming back.

Another month goes by. I no longer think of where Franklin is or why he has left us. I can’t think of a future without him, so I return to the past—one early morning just after we marry and he takes me to see Waianuenue Falls along the Wailuku River. As we walk along the path, thick and dense with foliage, the cool air smells of tinny, damp earth, moisture dripping from the banyan trees, the sound of rushing water falling in the distance. We are enveloped by a twilight composed of giant ferns, blooming wild ginger, and flourishing monstera plants that cocoon us in their own private world. He holds my hand and leads me forward, clearing the way for me to follow. I grip his hand as the damp air rushes at us and the thunder and crash of falling water grows louder. When we finally step out from under the shadows and into the open clearing, the shock of light stuns me.

“Look!” Franklin yells above the roar.

I shade my eyes to see the eighty-foot surge of foaming water crashing down into a dark, blue-green pool. Franklin wraps his arms around me and kisses me as a rainbow arches over the waterfall. Then he steps back and I instantly miss the warmth of his body.