Mama sat in the chair with wheels that the young man had brought. There was something familiar about him. Her hands had grasped the arms of the chair in confusion when it began to move. She heard her daughter laugh with delight. It wasn’t until the young man pushed her out to the porch that Mama’s stiff limbs relaxed. It felt as if she were a child again, being carried outside for the first time. The warm air embraced her and a light suddenly flickered on in her head. She wanted to cry when she sensed the slow shift of clarity returning. Her memories were usually scrambled. She saw faces and places that didn’t follow in any one sequence and would just as quickly slip away from her, like trying to hold on to water. But Mama knew this place. She knew the sweet, earthy smells, she knew the buzzing and scratching sounds, she knew the creaks and cracks of the old floorboards of the porch, even the rich soil that lay underneath them.

Mama looked up when she heard voices from the kitchen, suddenly remembering again that the young man was Mariko’s boy. She wanted to tell her daughter and Mariko’s boy how happy she was to be back sitting out on the porch again, but by the time the words formed in her mouth they had already disappeared back into the house.

He was asking her daughter so many questions.

“How is she sleeping? Has she gained her appetite back? How are her bowel movements?”

“Off and on all day. Better. Could be better.”

Who was this child they were talking about?

* * *

Mama stopped listening to them. The porch was always where her heart beat strongest. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply, taking in the scents of damp earth and sea salt mixed with sweet pikake and orchids that brought back memories Mama couldn’t forget no matter how hard she tried, sticking to her skin like the white sap from a plumeria tree. Mama had strung her leis at the table almost every day for sixty-five years, the last forty with Leia by her side, keeping an eye on the neighborhood as she worked. Nothing got by her. Didn’t she know the Kalani daughter was pregnant even before she came to her begging for help? Didn’t she stop those Pakai brothers from tormenting that scabby, homeless dog, only to raise him herself to a ripe old age? And didn’t she recognize that little Nori up the road needed a home too? She tended to those who hurt, yeah, and had dried enough tears to fill a pond.