been destroyed during Katrina. She couldn’t imagine if this place took on too much water—
“You haven’t been living here long enough, kaikuahine.” He dropped her arm as they came to the incline and a clearer walkway. “Lakes don’t flood.” He moved ahead of her, guiding her past a row of stone benches and a section of trees that lined the bank that led to the lake. “It drains into the river over there, see?” Kona pointed into the distance and Gia squinted, making out the winding bend of a larger river that surrounded the North Shore.
“I didn’t know he ever came here.”
“Once, with me when I was trying to sneak Keira out. Some asshole flattened my tire and Keira was having a…rough time with her mom. Lu brought me here and we got Keira out of her house for a couple hours.” They moved closer down the embankment and came to an old cabin. “This place was all overgrown and vacant and he camped out on the bank while I talked Keira off the ledge.”
Set back on the property was the ruins of an old sugar mill. The charred, weathered mossy rock remains stood in tall columns on one side of the structure with the half-leaning chimney from the fireplace sloping against a cluster of heavy rock. But the roof, sides and framing of the structure were all gone.
“Lu loved it here. He said it was peaceful so when my kuku died and my makuahine decided not to bury him in the city, and none of his ex-wives’ families would let him have a plot back in Maui, I bought this place.” Kona nodded, pointing beyond the ruins to the sunset and the circle of large oaks cascaded around a small cemetery. “This is where we brought Luka.” He looked away from the newer headstones, two of them, like he couldn’t stand to look at them for long. “I…I couldn’t leave him in that crowded cemetery where Mom buried him. So, he’s here. With kuku and whoever else once lived here a hundred years ago.”
“And your mom?”
Kona shook his head, giving her a dismissive frown. “With her sister’s people on the Big Island.”
Gia had avoided saying goodbye to Luka for so long she wasn’t sure if she could walk any farther. Kona made three wide steps, stopping when he glanced at his side, turning to face her. He’d brought her here for a reason. She understood that and she knew that what lie in under the earth wasn’t her Luka. He was everywhere and nowhere. He was above her and around her.
But Kona thought she should have her goodbye. She saw that plainly as he watched her.
“Gia,” he called, reaching for her.
She took a step, but only one, spotting the top curve of his headstone, seeing the black letters that spelled his name but couldn’t make herself move any closer. Then, Gia knelt into the ground, holding herself around the middle as Kona lowered his outstretched hand and sat next to her, resting his large forearms against his knees.
Gia could only watch her hands and rub her fingers together until she felt strong enough, ready enough to walk the rest of the way to that headstone.
“You know,” Kona started, his head turned toward Luka’s grave, “I lose my brother every day.” Gia looked up at him, confused by his meaning, but the man turned back to face her, making her calm with the small lift of his shoulders. “At first, it was small things, like not having to complain when he left water all over the sink after he washed his face because I was in a cell and Luka wasn’t there anymore to wash his face.”
Kona waved a hand, his eyes losing focus as though some memory had latched itself to his attention for longer than he’d intended. He managed to blink, shifting his gaze and his concentration back to Gia when he spoke again. “Then, later, when I got out and I was so lonely for him, for Keira too and I’d be at the team house watching a movie, the same movies I’d seen a dozen times before with my brother, movies that always made me laugh, but didn’t anymore. They couldn’t because he wasn’t there to laugh with. He wasn’t there to share those stupid inside jokes with.”
Kona looked down, like Gia had, staring at nothing, seeming to let his grief, his loss and the sting of Luka missing from his life wrap around him has