had a child. She was right; Chloe is not. Aside from the unpredictable hours, no health benefits, and low pay, Chloe finds she has a new sensitivity, a tenderness that connects her to all mothers in a way she never had before. Her skin is too thin to put her name as witness on documents spotted with the tears of a woman in the agony of admitting that she cannot care for the life she created, carried, and birthed.
Heather calls it Motherzone. She says once you have a child you are changed, for the better, but forever.
Chloe hangs up her apron on a hook by the unscreened window, turns the hot plate on for tea. Twenty-five hundred miles to the east, it is nearly July, the most beautiful time of year in her favorite city in the world. Here, there are tangles of branches, the ever-present humidity like an overbearing relative, a complicated, Micheneresque territory, America’s grass-skirted stepchild, banana trees and birds of paradise. Outside the tree-house window, miles away, Chloe can glimpse a sparkling strip of sapphire sea.
On the little shelves Dan built are the following items:
An eggplant-colored teakettle and Spanish mug.
A newborn-size "Witness 4 Jesus" T-shirt from Heather's newly released and born-again, on-again fiancé Eric. She called it Chloe’s going-away gift—and Chloe’s to Heather? The lease on a fully furnished, brightly painted, low-rent house in a fabulous neighborhood.
Taped to the wall, forwarded by Heather, a postcard from Mexico with the image of a Christmas cactus silhouetted against a bronze sunset. On the reverse, there is nothing but her old Portland Heights address, no words where there might be a message: a thank-you card.
A printed e-mail itinerary; Dr. Pinter, Ann, and the girls are coming for two weeks at Labor Day. “We want to get to know this Dan better,” her father had said on their weekly phone call.
Below the apron, on the hook by the door, a red hoodie, size L, from the first order Chloe placed for Dan and Paolo’s kiteboarding shop, the Windsong logo stitched over the heart.
A gorgeous brand-new, never-used leather satchel, also forwarded by Heather. “A guy with a baby strapped to his chest came by right after you left. He didn’t seem surprised when I told him you were gone.”
OUTSIDE THE TREE HOUSE, there is the telltale crunching of tires on koa and banana leaves, and Chloe leans out the window. Two months ago, after his surf shop was featured in Kiteboarding magazine, Dan picked her up from her waitressing job at the Cannery in a sun-faded red Ford Windstar. She came out to find him braced, beaming, against the hood.
“You bought a minivan?”
“Yeah. The price was right, and it’s got an excellent safety rating.”
“Safety rating?” Chloe had snorted.
“Yeah, you know.” He polished some invisible dirt off the hood with his sweatshirt sleeve. “And then, Paolo and I are going to trick it all out with some tribal art along the doors, maybe a tiki head on the grille. I’ll get the Windsong logo on it; it’s a totally sweet ride. I’m going to take out the backseat, for my gear, but there will still be plenty of room for all of us.”
Dan honks once now. He has a place for her to see, a one-bedroom guest cottage on a large estate in Makawao, because they can’t exactly stay in the tree house much longer.
“And it’s perfect for us, babe—the landlord is a pediatrician!”
Chloe is six and a half months pregnant.
Every night, when Dan gets back from the surf shop, he lays her down on the bed and uncaps the wild hibiscus lotion. Like a concert pianist practicing a memorized piece on a tabletop, he runs his lotioned palms over the mound of Chloe’s abdomen in light, circular massage. He hums, eyes closed, and it is like she is seeing him again, all those hours as a Girlfriend on the beach, watching him lovingly claim his surfboards with a puck of wax. The expression on his face is peaceful, unhurried. Every night, he is marking them, Chloe and their daughter, with his hands as one of his things, bodily claiming them the way a cat does as it weaves between your legs, rubbing its head on your shins. It is enough.
“Babe, let’s go!” Dan calls now, and Chloe wipes out her mug, puts it carefully on the shelf.
Crossing the catwalk, she thinks about the past, all of the connections, all the lives she has touched in the last three years. All those adoptions