Staring up at the house I grew up in, was raised in, and became the Stevie standing on a stage in front of the entire world as I do now—it's a surreal experience that resembles time travel. If I blink slowly enough and dream hard enough, I can envision a time when my dad still walks along these creaky steps, tells me stories of old Hawaii, and whispers I love you into the winds so it'll travel across our islands.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Brendon asks, the low hum of the car engine buzzing beneath us.

I nod once but the shakiness of my breath and unsteady rise and fall of my chest betrays my true feelings.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Tell me the truth. Please."

"I'm kind of scared of what I'll find in there." Using the sun as an excuse to pull the visor down is a smart plan in my head. Reduce the possibility of my mom looking out of the window and seeing me sitting here. "It's been years. I don't know what it'll look like."

"That's a valid response but I also think you're a little scared of what you'll look like when you're in there."

More proof of how much he knows me, and how close time is ticking until I'll have no choice but to freefall into my unknown. "Can I ask you a question? I know your answer won't solve all of my problems but just entertain me."

"Sure."

"If your dad ever owned up to all of his wrongs and vowed to make amends in whatever way you needed him to, would you forgive him? your mother? Is there a world where there's enough of an apology to make up for all of the bad?"

Brendon looks out at the view in front of him. Foreign but familiar through knowing me. It causes me to think about how influential our surroundings are to who we become as people. Not just where we find ourselves but who we surround ourselves with. I remember the friendliness of the bar in Melbourne where his family's friend Hudson works, and how much it reminded me of being at a party at home. Just a good time with good company.

I think of the excitement of Brendon growing up on the track. Finding solace in the smell of burnt rubber and fuel. Being part of a team of people from different corners of the map. Visiting various cities across the world and being immersed in a new culture every other week. The gnawing intensity of an unfolding season and not quite knowing how much of an impact one single race can have on his career. Imagining how scary it is knowing one wrong turn can make all the lights go out forever. The toll that an intense competition must have on a person so young, still trying to figure out who he is as a person without all of the race stuff.

I imagine what it must be like to be thrust into this world and not have a father show his love for him, and a mother that enables the toxic relationship. What that must do to this man and how it has molded him into who he is today. Despite the neglect over the years, instead of succumbing to it and becoming a carbon copy of his father, he forged himself into someone kind and thoughtful. Someone that defies the odds and forces himself to the front of the pack because it's not going to be handed to him.

So, what does that make me?

A woman born on an island who dreamed of making it out in the big, bad world. Constantly questioning if she is worthy of the heritage from which she is forged—she imagines like a wave forming and curling and crashing against a shore, only to pull back once more and try again. The terror that overrode every nerve-ending of confidence she thought she had about herself as soon as she got on the plane to Los Angeles for the first time and the subsequent terror that's been instilled in her ever since, wondering if this dream she's living is something she's about to violently torn away from her at any moment. (Wake up, Stevie, it's all it's ever been, just a dream!) A jumbled mess of the constant struggle that comes with the territory of existing in such an industry, even while knowing she has her friends by her side and worrying she might somehow be the reason for their downfall. Trying to reconcile what it means to leave home and represent a people who have been excluded from the spaces she occupies now and wondering if the fulfillment of being her authentic self outweighs the risk it causes because people like her aren't made to feel welcome.

I wonder how different the woman I am right now would be if my dad was never taken from me. If I'd gotten him for a few years longer, or even a few decades. What he would think of me and what I'm doing. Whether or not he would try to come to as many concerts as possible and show me off to his friends at work. Would my heart beat the same? Would I still crave a love as deep as the ocean to fill the void left behind by my father's death while simultaneously being afraid that loving someone too much might just end up in heartbreak? Doomed to cling to someone as I keep them at a distance?

Then, of course, I wonder how different my mother would be if she didn't, too, lose him. If there is a version of her in some other universe where she hasn't let the pain become her and worked through it instead. If she had let me bear some of the burdens and healed some of my own as well. How we could've been a team instead of two parallel lines, desperate to intersect without realizing we've drifted too far onto different planes already.

"Am I a bad person if I can't forgive her?"

Brendon doesn't immediately reply with of course not because we both know that's the logical answer. I know that; he knows that. What I need is the reassurance that I'm not losing my mind or taking the easy way out. As much as I want to, as much as my heart begs me to, some wounds cannot heal in such ways. Sometimes, when it's too painful to face, to love is to love from afar.

"Trust your gut. Do what you have to do. There is no right or wrong."

"You didn't answer the question."

He runs a thumb along my cheek. "Which one?"

"Both, actually."

"You're not a bad person." Quietly, he adds. "Maybe there is a world. I'm sure there is. But I don't know if that's the world I want to live in."

I place my hand on the door handle and take a deep breath before pushing it open. Before I hop out, Brendon leaves over and through a soft, hushed breath, he whispers something into my ear. Instead of causing goosebumps to rise along my arms like I imagined they would, the words settle onto me like a warm embrace. And though I don't say anything back, stuck with the words caught in my throat, he leans back, making sure to catch my eye.

"Don't ever forget that, okay?"

I nod because it's all I can do. And then I leave, waiting until I hear the car peel away from the curb before walking up the steps.

Maybe I don't give my mother enough credit, or perhaps I have no idea of the many ways grief manifests in people and the way they act because the house is mostly clean. A little too clean. Sterile is a word I can use. Like the house has been sitting empty all these years, and only my father's ghost is the one hanging around.

Fresh out of the shower with her hair up in a towel. The sweet smell of plumerias follows her. It takes a second to realize I'm there.

"You should probably lock the door."

"What are you doing here?"

I take another look around. "Like mother, like daughter, I guess."

I can't remember the last time I caught my mother off guard, but once she gathers her sense, she scrambles to put more clothes. She looks five years younger in her current state compared to the version of her that showed up on my doorstep in LA. What a paradox to age in a city so fixated on retaining youth.

"Can I sit?"

My mother looks at me like I've grown three heads. "Yes."

I sink like a pebble dropped into the ocean, except I've swam in these waters many times before. The nervous tapping of my foot acts as a metronome.

"I heard about the Grammy nominations. Congratulations."

"Thanks. We worked hard on this album and it feels good to have it acknowledged."

"I actually—" She fans her hands in search of something before the folded-up newspaper tucked beneath a book on the coffee table catches her eye. Leaning over, she picks it up and unfolds it onto the space between us. There on the front page of the Honolulu Star Advertiser is MARS—a shot from our New Year's concert in Las Vegas.

ISLANDS GO WILD FOR ALBUM OF THE YEAR NOMINEE, ESCAPE VELOCITY!

I place the newspaper down on the couch. "That's sweet."

"You can keep it if you want. Uncle Kimo next door bought twenty of them. He'll give me another one."

"We have to talk."

She waits, twisting her hands. "Okay."

"I need you to listen. No interrupting."

"...Okay."

Cut to the chase. Rip the bandaid off.

"I'm not here to act like everything is okay. Or even pretend like I know if there is ever a time where it will be again. But I can't go forward without you acknowledging how much you hurt me. When I needed you most, you left me alone. Turned to everyone and everything else except for your daughter, and that is something I have never fully recovered from. Losing you and dad at the same time."

Torn away are her steel walls of pride; in front of me sits the raw form of a woman in all of her messy glory. Proof that Hawaii is not an invincible paradise and we are as susceptible to the cruelty of the world, sometimes by our own hands.

"Nothing I can say or do will make up for it or excuse how much I failed you after your father died, but I messed up. And I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life."

"The thing is we both will. Whether we like it or not."

"You're right."

I look down at my hands and realize I'm doing the same thing she is.

Like mother, like daughter.

"I've thought a lot about what this place means to me. Hawaii, this house, the people. For years I thought I was running away from something and taking the easy way out. But people don't tell you that sometimes running is the smart thing. The brave thing. Sometimes running is braver than staying. Even if we never go back to how we were, I know we won't further spiral into something worse because I've been able to grow as a person on my own, and I'm grateful for all I've learned. Happy I was able to turn my pain into something beautiful at times, not because pain is beautiful but because rising above it is.

"I promise, I understand that you were hurt and lost and that you turned to things you thought could heal your pain. I don't agree with it at all and I think you need to seriously consider what kind of help you can get to turn your life around. We are incredibly lucky to have someone like Marty in our lives to help us, but he has his own family to take care of, and he won't always be there when we need him. I can't stop him from taking care of you too, and I wouldn't want him to, but you need to do this for yourself. And if you can't, if that's not enough, then do it for Dad. Because he would be so heartbroken to see you like this."

For once, I'm not battling between anger and sadness. The water is calm and still, and I am but a flower floating along its gentle waves. When tears slip down my mother's face and she tries to wipe them away discreetly, I reach into my purse and hand her a tissue.

"You can be better than this. You are better than this. Wash your clothes without wearing them four times. Buy groceries for your kitchen and cook yourself a good home-cooked meal every once in a while. Make this place a home again. You'll feel like yourself."

The problem with admiring my father like a superhero is that no matter what my mother did, as terribly human as she has always been, she was instantly villainized in my mind instead of seen as a flawed person. I can choose to recognize her faults without excusing or accepting them and understand she is still worthy of a chance to turn her life around, even if I don't think I can be there to watch it happen.

Even if I can't forgive her, not right now, not when she's not ready, I can still remember she was the mother who helped raised me. The woman my father loved and chose to build a family with. I am the product of a good thing that doesn't always stay golden. Most things never do.

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the ticket I asked Marty to set aside for me. It's not for a seat I'll ever be able to see clearly from the stage, but knowing me, I'll be able to sense if she's there or not. I won't be broken if she chooses not to. Here I am, blowing into her house like a hurricane and ready to leave, hopefully with less destruction. But if we can never share peace, maybe our hearts can when we go off on our own.

"You don't have to come, but I'll leave this here if you want to. I don't know when we'll see each other again. If I ever feel comfortable, I'll reach out. In the meantime, Marty will be in touch. Show him your respect, please. And mālama pono, mama."

On the outside, she's too quiet. Giving in too easily to my demands. In our mother-daughter language, she's giving me space.

"Aloha 'oe, Stevie."