“Let me get you something to drink,” Leia said. “Be right back, yeah.”

Mama was joyous. She gazed across the yard at the full canopy of the monkey pod tree and the familiar road beyond, breathing in deeply to find Pele lingering in the air, yet overpowered by the scent of damp earth and seaweed, the smell of the ocean carried to her by the wind. As a child, she always loved the ocean, the roar of the waves, swimming in the push and pull of the salty sea, the sand collected between her toes, something Nestor, born an island boy, never liked. He thought the ocean was dangerous and unreliable. “Like a wild animal, yeah,” he’d always say. “Can’t be trusted. Can’t be tamed.”

That was exactly what attracted her to it.

Mama laughed and leaned into the memory it reawakened, quietly sneaking out of the house those early mornings while her family slept. It was still dark as the moon lit her way along the same road she’d been walking down since she first married. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour or more, and Mama loved this time just before dawn when night slowly lightened into day and secrets were revealed. During her early morning foraging, the air was still cool and moist. Mama swung her hips and moved down the road with the same urgent sway of the trees to the incessant music of pomfret, pomfret from the coqui frogs and the steady chorus of cicadas.

Mama loved the freedom of venturing out without the girls, who always wanted to tag along and help her collect what she needed for the leis. For Leia and Noelani, along with little Nori, who was always waiting to join them, it was all fun and games, a scavenger hunt. They gathered mounds of flowers, kukui nuts, and ti leaves before going down to the beach and running into and out of the waves, collecting whatever they thought was pretty, whether Mama could use them for her leis or not—seaweed, stones, pieces of driftwood, fallen leaves, broken pieces of glass.

“Yes, no, no, yes,” Mama said, pointing to their hands filled with their sandy, damp treasures, which were just as quickly discarded.

She smiled at the memory.