At midnight, Welo Ridge slipped somewhere between heaven and sea. It looked the same to Lily, as she sat on the balcony overlooking the shoreline at Ano and Zee’s modest cottage. There were flecks of purple and a haze of light and color as the moon slipped into the water that reminded Lily of nights with Liam and her mother when they were young, singing into the stars of things they dreamed and hopes held tight. She thought she’d never return. Not to this land, to this home.
“Dr. K bought it ten years back,” Zee had explained as Ano wound his car up the long drive, straight into a newly constructed cottage that mirrored a larger home across the three-acre lot. Both homes were turquoise blue with white trim. Both housed large porches and floor-to-ceiling windows that could be opened during the rainy season to let the soft spray drift into the lower rooms and cool the temperatures. “He mentioned that the state wanted to demo it and swore it would be a good investment.”
But Ano had taken only one of the properties, the new one where he and Zinnia lived. Lily watched the other larger home from the balcony, a little shell shocked that Zinnia lived across from the old place—the same home Lily had grown up in before her mother’s death, before Liam and Ellen sold the family home to keep Lily from her grief.
“He lives there?” she’d asked her niece when blatant curiosity had overtaken her warranted indignation at Malini’s intrusion.
“When he’s not at the hospital.”
“He’s renovating,” Ano had supplied, slipping his car under the large carport next to his cottage.
“Yeah, but he’s been renovating for a good three years now,” Zee offered, as Ano pulled Lily’s bag from the trunk before she could grab it. Her niece beamed at her fiancé and led Lily into the house. “I’m not really sure what he’s doing there.”
“Maybe he’s getting it ready for his wife.”
“Tu kai,” Ano had cursed, a small laugh between his words. “Keilen’s not lolo. That Malini is da kine hungry for money. Everybody knows it. They’re not married anymore. She just hasn’t let that in her head yet.”
But Keilen hadn’t stopped Malini from yelling. In fact, Keilen had pried her grip from his arm and moved her to the back of the restaurant. Lily only caught snippets of words, most of them insults, but still understood that whatever relationship Keilen had with Malini wasn’t over.
A small grunt worked in Lily’s throat when she thought about the entire fiasco of a night. The mood had been right. The feel of him, the reminder of what might have been still lingered in the air, and Lily had nearly been convinced that things hadn’t changed that much. She’d even toyed with the idea that there could be a life on the island; one that gave her more than money and success.
“This is all we have in the fridge,” Zee said, sliding down next to Lily to hang her feet through the balcony railing like her aunt’s. The woman took her niece’s offered bottle of Blue Moon and had two long swigs down before Zinnia sat down fully. She waited a moment, following Lily’s gaze at the cottage across the property.
“My mom hung that trim herself,” she told Zee, pointing at the fish scale siding that lined midway through the siding under each window. “She wouldn’t let your dad help. He was twenty then and was in this phase where he thought because he was ‘man of the house’ that meant he needed to take charge of the upkeep.”
“And Granny wouldn’t hear of it, right?”
“Not at all.” The beer was frigid and small flakes of ice floated near the neck of the bottle—it was Lily’s favorite way to drink beer. She closed her eyes, remembering how angry her mother got when Liam finished one side of the cottage on his own while she shopped for groceries. “He was a grown man, but I swear I’d bet he was wagering if he could outrun her should she get the idea of running around the property threatening him with a belt.”
“He wouldn’t have out run her, I bet.”
“No,” Lily promised, lowering her bottle when the memory overtook her. How long had that been? Twenty years? More than that? Just then, with the silhouette of her mother’s handiwork shadowed in the moonlight, a wave of sensation overtook Lily and she could not shake the feeling of loss. After all this time, all these years, she still missed her mother something fierce.
She wanted to tell Zinnia more, maybe relate what her father might have said about his daughter’s impromptu engagement, but the night had been stressful enough and then the floodlights around the carport next door flickered to life and Lily forgot about the things she thought Zee should know.
The women didn’t speak; they didn’t, in fact, do anything at all, but watch the activity below—Keilen ambling from his Mercedes with his jacket over one shoulder and his button-up sleeves rolled so that his forearms and all those dark tattoos of his were visible. He moved inside the cottage, switching on each light as he went and still Lily could do no more than watch, observe.
Zinnia, however, could never stand silence for long, and in between her own sips of beer, she concentrated on her aunt’s responses, how closely she watched Keilen across the yard.
“You know, he only married Malini because she was a lot saner five years ago.”
“Malini Wilson has never been sane.” Lily shook her head, remembering just how big of an idiot that girl had made herself over Keilen in high school. She hadn’t cared a bit that the hallways were filled or that Keilen would tell her to control herself whenever she kissed him against the lockers or right at the tables in the full cafeteria. Lily’s memories, she knew, were likely clouded by her own jealousy, but dear God, Malini seemed to still love an audience.
“Well that’s obvious now.” Zinnia took another sip, shrugging as they continued to watch her mother’s old home coming to life. “Ano told me what went down between them.”
“It’s not my business.”
Her niece ignored her, rubbing the cold bottle across her forehead. “They dated for six months.”
“It’s not your business either.”
A quick laugh, as though Lily had cracked a joke and not attempted to fuss at Zee and she continued, nonplussed. “And then, just as Keilen decides it’s not going anywhere, Malini claims she’s pregnant.”
Lily jerked her gaze at Zinnia and a hot, sick feeling curled around her stomach. “It’s not…wait. Pregnant? Keilen has a child?”
“She’s a liar.” Lily didn’t like the way her niece smiled, as though she knew something, believed something her aunt would never admit. “He married her, trusted her word, and then she claims she miscarried, but he’s a doctor and doctors talk, nurses do, too. Ano told me one of Dr. K’s surgical nurses had a sister in OB. They couldn’t tell him a thing, HIPPA rules and all that, but somehow Milani’s bill got sent to Dr. K since they were married. There was an explanation of benefits that included a negative pregnancy test.”
Lily could only watch her niece, unconvinced that Keilen would be so gullible. “He just believed her without…and then married her?”
“Dr. K is a very trusting person. To a fault.” Zee’s face took on a look Lily had never seen before. It was far off and a little sad, as though she thought of things she’d keep to herself. Things that she didn’t believe Lily needed to know.
“I guess he is.”
“The thing is, Lil, I’ve know the man two years and from the first day I met him, he asked about you.”
She tried disregarding the small truth. Kaimuki was small. But there was still a good fifteen degrees of separation in Hawaii. Fifteen hundred acres across eight major islands. That didn’t leave much room for strangers and eventually, you’d run into someone who knew someone who knew you. Zinnia was an orphan whose parents had died horrifically. She’d been taken by her young aunt away to the mainland. Of course Keilen knew her.
“That’s not a shock, Zee.”
“No,” she started, resting back on a hand as she moved her feet from side to side. “But asking me every week how you are or how you’re getting along all by yourself in New Orleans? That’s not just friendly conversation starters. He worried and wondered about you for a long time. I suspect longer than I’ve known him.”
“Zinnia…”
Her niece smiled at her warning tone, not remotely threatened by it. “I’m not saying he’s pined for you all these years, Lil.” The smile was infectious, genuine, and even though Lily knew her niece was plotting something having to do with herself and Keilen, Lily couldn’t find it in her to complain. “I’m just saying you left an impression. Probably a lot bigger one than you’d believe.”
Teenaged Lily would have laughed, possibly punched the air if someone said that to her about Keilen. She’d been so desperate for him to pass a look her way. He’d been the dream, after all, but that hadn’t been her reality. Not when she was a kid at least. “Well,” she said, hiding whatever excuse she’d give her niece behind a long swig of her beer.
She looked back across the property, stunned then saddened when Keilen pulled a beer from his fridge, scrubbing his fingers through his hair as he drank.
Behind them, a phone rang, a shrill, loud sound that echoed onto the balcony. Ano’s voice carried behind it, his tone tired, a little exasperated as he called Zee inside.
Zinnia got up, patting Lily on the back as she started inside, and Lily nodded a small acknowledgement. The beer was starting to warm, but she drank it anyway, vision unfocused before she blinked, continuing to watch Keilen like a stalker as he moved around her mother’s house.
It seemed odd to her, somehow, a little intrusive that he walked on floors she’d mopped as a kid, how he’d taken over the place as his own. Through the windows Lily could make out the walls, beige and bare except for temporary hooks Keilen seemed to use for stapled papers and blueprints, and here and there, a few thin bags. There were no pictures in frames, no shots of Lily and Liam when they were babies; no reminders at all of her mother and the comforting, welcoming home she’d built for them.
But Lily wasn’t a child. If she was honest with herself, she was grateful that Keilen had saved the property from the state. Otherwise, the home would likely have been torn down, with the state clearing the lot and doing something horrible like build a Trader Joe’s or an obnoxiously modern apartment complex. The views were spectacular, and the beach was clear. It was home to anyone who’d discovered it. It made sense that Keilen would want to live there.
He finished his beer in three long pulls and tossed the bottle into a green recycling bin. Lily watched him, breath held just as she’d done as a teenager. Watching Keilen Rivers had been her sad little pastime, and as he discarded his keys and wallet onto the kitchen island, Lily felt the same stupid emotions come back to her. She no longer wore braces, and her boobs had finally developed, but there she was, still watching, and dammit, yes, still wanting Keilen.
It was ridiculous to admit to herself. It was ridiculous to feel, but she was helpless, felt a little stupid that Malini’s interruption and Keilen’s own stupidity at marrying that crazy flakes nutjob really didn’t matter. Despite knowing it wouldn’t be forever—that wasn’t a hope life had ever given her—Malini’s outrage didn’t diminish the desire that flared inside her when he took off his shirt and tossed it onto the sofa.
“Good lord,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes, a small flagellation that did nothing to keep her from continuing to watch him.
She moved then, pouring out the lukewarm beer as she walked toward the back door, gaze still keen and sidelong at the house next door. Then Keilen stopped in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, and the smallest grin touched the left side of his mouth as he traced the middle of the wall. Lily didn’t need to guess what he stared at. Unless he’d painted over it, those markings he touched, the ones that left him half-grinning were dates and ages; horizontal lines that marked Liam and Lily’s height.
Keilen touched each one with the tip of his finger, small brushes that moved up and up and with each graze of his finger to the wall, that half grin grew until the marks stopped and there were no more to count. Fourteen. That’s when her mother stopped keeping track of how big Lily had gotten. She’d been too sick.
Detachment was easy for Lily. Aside from Zee, she kept people at a distance. Even Keilen, all those years ago, only got half-promises. Even if she’d meant them when she made them, Lily had known that time with him, if it had been given, might have been fleeting. She’d always planned to live on the mainland. She’d always planned to keep the past at bay along with the grief that lived there at her mother’s death. Even at twenty-two, kissing Keilen, wanting to be with him, had only been a temporary plan. But sometimes, when New Orleans was at its quieted, when her caseload was low and her heart ached for Zinnia, for home, Lily wondered about the what-ifs. Had the fire never happened, what would those two weeks have been like? Would anything that happened kept her home? Would she have stayed for Keilen? Who would she be if she had?
He moved away from the wall then, stopping to stare through the glass doors at the back of the house, attention on the horizon and the dip of heaven and earth that washed the night in color.
Lily shook her head, trying her best to ignore the beauty in his silhouette and the emotion just looking at Keilen worked inside her. She didn’t let anyone inside; especially anyone with plans on staying in Kaimuki. There wasn’t space enough for anyone in Lily’s heart. There were only shards left of it. Death had splintered it long ago.
That was what she told herself. That was what she tried to remind herself as she watched that beautiful man.
Keilen turned, face hard, expression drawn and she was reminded that contemplating what-ifs, for everyone, made little sense. He’d fought his own battles. He’d had his own losses, and they were on display if one knew where to look. They showed in his stance, his face. Just then, with Keilen’s hard expression worrying her, mesmerizing her, Lily realized she didn’t hold a monopoly on broken hearts.