in Chicago. No, renting insinuated that I was temporary, that I was only staying for a little while.
Instead, I bought a condo.
Buying instead of renting spoke volumes. It was a symbol of my commitment. It was a good omen to turn my dream into fruition.
It was a mark of my permanence — in this city and on the Chicago Bears team.
“Braddah, look at this view!” My sister, Oliana, ran to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan, pressing her face right up against the glass. She was the youngest of our siblings, seventeen, about to enter into her senior year of high school. Her jet-black hair hung to her waist, the front twisted into a braid that wrapped around the crown of her head. “The water is so blue.”
“It is nothing compared to home,” my mom said, dabbing the corners of her eyes with a tissue I knew was too damp to do anything anymore. Oliana looked a lot like our mother, both with the same wide, chocolate-brown eyes and dimples. Both thick with curves that all my sisters had. My eyes favored my father’s, a sort of golden maple syrup, but I had the same goofy smile as my mom, one that took over my entire face and usually garnered me a comment or two every time I met someone new.
Your smile is so unique!
You have such a big smile!
That’s the best smile I’ve ever seen!
Of course, I learned early on that to the girls, that smile told them one thing and one thing only.
Put this guy in the friend zone.
But we’ll get to that.
“Ah, my beautiful Mah,” I said, pulling my mom into my arms and kissing her temple. “No more tears.”
“I just cannot believe you’ll be so far from home now.” She sniffed. “California, not bad. But this… this city… in the Midwest?” She shook her head, like the mere thought of it made her want to faint.
“Did you forget that you have a spare key and a card that you can book as many flights as you want to on?” I smiled. “Consider it a second home for all of us.”
“You say that now. But when I start showing up every other weekend, you are going to take my key away.”
“Never,” I said, giving her another kiss before I joined Oliana at the window.
“I’m moving here with you,” she said just above a whisper, her wide eyes sweeping over the lake, the pier, the skyrises in the distance. “I’m so tired of the island. The same food, the same people, the same ocean and mountains and trees. I mean, just look out there.” She shook her head. “It’s like a whole new world.”
“Good luck telling that to Mah, Tita,” I said, elbowing her ribs. I usually reserved the Pidgin nickname for when she was acting particularly sassy, but I knew more than anyone that she loved the nod of acknowledgement that she was a spitfire.
She smirked. “Yeah, I’d be getting lickens if I so much as muttered it.”
“Yes, you would,” Mah said from behind us, where she was surveying the rest of my new condo skeptically. If it wasn’t home, it wasn’t good enough in her eyes. “So do not even think about it.”
Oliana and I shared knowing looks and smiles, and then I followed Mah around the apartment, making a mental list of things I’d need while she made an actual list that included far more than mine. It didn’t bother me, though — that was just who my mom was. And being that I was her only son, and a not-so-discreet mama’s boy, it didn’t surprise me that she wanted to make sure I was taken care of before they got on the plane back to Hawai’i.
Remember how I mentioned that love was the other thing I’d always wanted? Well, I had my four sisters to thank for that — and maybe my mother and father, too.
The Kumaka family was a big ball of sleeve-worn emotions, and we always had been.
I grew up watching Disney movies and rom-coms and talking about my feelings far sooner than any other boy or man I’d ever met. I remembered my first crush, in the second grade, when most boys could only focus on video games. I, on the other hand, stayed up all night before Valentine’s Day making a homemade card for the blue-eyed girl in my class who always smelled like citrus and vanilla. I gave it to her along with a box of chocolates