Then, Koa: Koa takes the proof to someone she hopes will help
...and has a disappointing response
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WILD GIRL
Chapter 19: Then, Koa
Ella’s father Kimo sat in the ancient rocker on his porch, nursing a Primo beer, his long-time brand. Koa walked toward the older man, using the raised path between the neatly squared, watery beds of his taro patch. The plants’ large, heart-shaped leaves brushed against her legs.
She spotted Kimo’s ATV in the lean-to garage. He didn’t have a car anymore; he used the four-wheeler to get around in the Valley and then topside. If he needed to go further, he hitchhiked. Ella worried about him getting proper medical care, but her father was too stubborn to do anything but what he wanted.
“Girl, its been forevah,” Kimo called, raising his beer. “Come drink with me like your maddah liked do.”
Koa smiled, but inwardly, her gut tightened. She’d hoped it was early enough in the day that he hadn’t had much to drink. “Hey, Uncle.” She reached the tumbledown porch and stepped up onto it. “Brought you some smoked pork.”
“Nice.” Kimo had a joint smoldering in a coconut shell filled with sand beside his rocking chair. He took a hit, then offered her the hand-rolled. “You like?”
Koa took the joint because he’d be offended if she didn’t. She needed him in a good mood. She did a shallow inhale, handed the pakalolo back to him. “Got a nice shoulder cut for you. Just caught and smoked.” She lowered her much-lightened pack and reached in to remove a ti-leaf-wrapped bundle. “Want me to put this in your fridge?”
“Thanks, eh. And get yourself a beer.”
Koa went inside the dim, cluttered cottage. She wrinkled her nose as she made her way through the filthy living area. Kimo had needed Ella to keep house for him prior to her marriage. Things hadn’t improved in the three years since she left.
Koa moved aside some smelly food containers and set the pork on the top shelf of the fridge where Kimo would be sure to see it the next time he opened the door. “The pork is ready to eat, so you can have it whenever you want,” she called over her shoulder. “No need to prepare unless you want to do something different with the meat.”
“Nice,” he hollered back. “Bring me a beer too, while you’re at it.”
Koa retrieved two bottles. She popped the tops with the opener screwed onto the end of the counter, watching the metal caps fall into the rubbish can below to join many others, along with their glass empties. She returned and took the rump-sprung rocker beside Kimo’s.
“Last time I was here was with Mama.” She handed the older man his beer.
“I miss her still.” He tapped his bottle to hers. “To your mama.”
“To Mama.”
They drank.
“I found out her name recently,” Koa said. “Mary Ilima Anderson.”
“Oh yeah?” Kimo snorted a laugh. “I called her Mama like you did. What she told me to call her.”
On impulse Koa took the ID card out of her pocket. “Found this, too.”
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