Chapter 31: Koa doesn't take the news well

Koa stood outside the women’s shelter, her backpack on, right on time, as the hunter turned into the parking lot in his truck. She clutched a plastic bag of food the administrator had gathered from the shelter’s cupboards and given her to take home. Morning sun was warm on her skin, but a shiver of uncertainty chilled her as the truck pulled up, because Kent’s face was carefully expressionless. No smile today.

She'd spent a restless night on the trundle bed in Ella’s room after an evening combing through baby magazines and discussing Ella’s plans for the birth.

“Please come stay with me here,” Ella had begged. “After I have the baby, we can look for a place together. I don’t want to do this alone. If you’re my roommate, I won’t be tempted to go back to Manny.”

Once the administrator heard the extreme conditions under which Koa lived in Waimalia, she agreed that Koa could stay with Ella through the birth. The nonprofit would then help them get set up with an affordable place in Hilo, and connect them each to various services until they “got on their feet.”

Koa was panicky at the thought of leaving the Valley permanently. “I’m not ready,” she’d told her friend. “The Valley is my home.”

Koa hated making Ella cry. “I’ll come back,” she’d promised her friend. “I just need time.”

But now Ella wasn’t speaking to her, and Koa couldn’t fulfill even the simple promise of returning for another visit without some kind of transportation.

All she wanted in this moment was for the hunter take her to go see her aunt. Cathy Anderson-Pili would have answers: about her mother, about her family. About where she came from, where she belonged, where she could go when she was done helping Ella.

Truth was, she couldn’t imagine a life spent entirely outside of the Valley, and didn’t want to.

“Hey, Koa,” Kent said as she hurried around the truck and managed to open the door herself.

Koa put the bag of canned goods on the floor and hopped up into the passenger seat. "Can we go see my aunt now?”

The hunter wore a mask she couldn’t read. "We need to talk first. There's a good breakfast place nearby. Have you ever been to a restaurant for a meal?”

Koa shook her head as curiosity overrode anxiety. “Ella told me about them.”

Kent drove to a diner in Hilo with a red awning curtain over the door and plastic-padded booths visible through a large window. He parked the truck against the curb. Koa got out and stood holding onto the closed door handle, unwilling to let go of the familiar.

Ahead of her, Kent held the restaurant’s door ajar. He gestured for her to go in first. “It’s good manners for a man to hold the door open for a woman.”

“Why?” Koa asked, hesitating.

“Old custom.” He shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “Just come in.”

Once inside, Koa froze. From beside the door she took in the people sitting with food in front of them, other people wearing aprons bustling back and forth. A clash of dishes in the background, a hum of conversation, tinkling background music. Delicious smells so thick they felt like a substance.

The hunter reached over and took her hand; he gave it a gentle tug. “We find our own table to sit at in this restaurant. This way.”

He led her to an empty booth, still holding her hand—which felt nice. Reassuring.

Koa slid onto the bench seat across from Kent, the way other couples were doing. She stroked the worn plastic of the seat and then the cool hard laminate tabletop as her gaze darted around the unfamiliar setting. A friendly-looking man in an apron set down plastic glasses filled with ice and water. He asked if they needed a menu. Kent said no, they knew what they wanted. Kent told him some things. He wrote it down on a pad of paper, and left.

“How was your night at the shelter?”

“Okay.” Koa sipped the glass of water, marveling at the ice cubes clinking against her teeth. “Ella wanted me to stay with her. Until the birth, and then after that. She wants me to live with her in Hilo after the baby’s born.”

Kent’s mouth curved in a smile. “That means she’s not planning to go back to her husband.”

“I told her no. I’m not ready to leave the Valley.”

His smile disappeared. “Why?”

Koa shrugged. “It’s my home.” Her throat had gone dry; her heart thundered. She drank more water. “I know the Valley. All this. It’s too strange.”

“Maybe you need time to get used to it. More visits topside.”

Koa didn’t answer.

Soon a plate of round flat cakes embedded with banana, yellow fluffy eggs, and bacon in sizzling strips was set before her.

“Oh, this is amazing.” Koa picked up her fork. “You just ask for it, and they bring all this to you.”

“Well, there’s a little thing called payment involved at the end,” Kent chuckled. “Try putting some lilikoi syrup on those banana pancakes. Now that’s amazing.”

They didn’t talk for a while because Koa was too busy savoring new flavors and textures.

Kent spoke again when both their plates were mostly empty.

"Koa, after I talked to you on the phone, I spoke with a doctor yesterday about your mother, Mary Anderson, and her baby. His name was Dr. Ito. He delivered the baby that died.”

Koa's fork clattered onto her plate as she set it down. "What did he say about Mama?”

Kent explained something about Mama having an operation called a tubal ligation. “Most likely, Mary could not have given birth to you after that procedure."

The world seemed to tilt.

Koa gripped the edge of the table to stabilize things, her breakfast forgotten. She stared into Kent’s dark brown eyes, trying to find the pupil in them. Unable to see it. "But... if Mama’s not my mother, then who am I?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Kent said gently. “I’ve been searching online.”

“What about my aunt?”

“She’s the one who told me that Mary couldn’t have children anymore. She said she couldn’t be your aunt.”

Koa scrambled out of the booth. She looked wildly around the diner.

She was trapped.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to PASSAGES: Travel the USA and more! to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.