PART I

DELIVERANCE

*

MALIA, 1995

Honoka‘a

(towards the end of the chapter)

AND THAT WAS how we were when the third sign came. We couldn’t cut any more corners. But Royce had come through, as simple as a phone call to your father and a phrase, “I think I got something for you, cuz,” and suddenly everything pointed to O‘ahu. We’d sold some of our stuff and then we sold more, roadsiding it in Waimea, by the playground, across the street from the Catholic church, where all the trees grow up over the parking strips and everyone has to drive past if they’re headed to the beach. We’d made enough from those sales, the food bank’s help, and Section Eight to get a cushion, enough for five tickets to O‘ahu with something still in the bank.

Your father had a plan for the rest of the money—a glass- bottom boat cruise on the Kona coast. I remember telling him no, we couldn’t do that, we needed to save every last penny for O‘ahu. But he’d asked what kind of father would he be if he couldn’t give his children relief?

“They deserve more than they get,” he said, I still remember this, “and we gotta remind them that things is gonna get better.”

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