2009

"Can I get a slush float too?"

My dad stared at me with a questioning frown. I could picture him replaying all of the times I had asked for one before, but by the time I finished my food, I had been too full to finish it. But, like always, and without me having to ask twice, he turned toward the cashier and asked them to add it on.

We tried to have dinner at Rainbow Drive-In at least once a month. Sometimes we missed a month because something came up on that one day we had scheduled for it, like one of our parents having to work or someone getting sick, or even just life getting in the way like it always wanted to.

Mom was the only one that got the shoyu chicken plate while the rest of us opted for the classic and most-know loco moco plate. To me, nothing beat the sea of brown gravy they drenched over the plate, with a perfectly fried egg with a golden runny yolk in the center that reminded me of the sun.

"She's so pretty, Mommy!" Leimomi yelped, tugging on our mother's hand as she watched a young woman walk past from the pick-up window carrying her food. The woman blushed and thanked my sister before disappearing into the night. "Everyone is so pretty today! I love today!"

"They are," Mom said, smoothing her hand over Leimomi's silky brown hair. "And so are you."

"You too, Mom!" Leimomi looked over at us. "Nani and Hoku too! And Papa!"

"Especially Papa." Dad tapped on his belly with one hand and used his other to rub the beard he'd been growing out. It definitely suited him, even if he did that embarrassing move in public. The beard seemed to soften all of his features, making him appear like a gentle giant as opposed to the threatening figure he was often made out to be. There was nobody kinder and more welcoming than him.

"Yeah, Papa!" Leimomi held up her hands and, upon seeing that a table had opened up in the seating area, started running toward it, almost knocking down some random tutu in the process.

"Eh!" Mom clicked her tongue, but Leimomi wasn't paying attention. She turned to Kanani and pointed her finger between them; a silent command.

Kanani, whose head was buried in her phone, followed through without needing to be asked twice. By the time I turned away from them, she had already wrangled Leimomi and made her sit down calmly so she could go back to whoever she was talking to.

"I'm gonna shishi real quick," Mom whispered before weaving her way through the other lines to find the bathroom.

Dad and I stood there by the counter waiting for our order to be ready. Since it was the weekend, Rainbows was busy, hence the slingshot attempt from Leimomi to snag an open table. It was even busy enough that if I had been with anybody else, I probably would have suggested going somewhere else. Someone less crowded and less suffocating. Parking was a pain and I didn't always think the loco moco was worth me feeling like I was being surrounded on all sides by strangers, many of whom I could tell weren't from here. But I stepped closer to my dad which shielded me from the wind, and as I leaned my head against his arm, the nonsensical chattering muted into a whisper, which also helped. It was something I used to do a lot when I was younger and we would watch scary movies. As incredible as Jamie Lee Curtis was, Michael Meyers was far more frightening to me, so I would bury my face in my dad's arm and let the terrifying theme song and masked figure become background noise to the steady beat of my father's heart.

Aside from the rubbing his beard thing, I never understood how so many kids I knew from school were embarrassed to be seen with their parents in public, or even their entire family. Maybe I was just looking at it through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps I was just lucky. I didn't know what happened behind the closed doors of a family's home. But I was a quiet person who kept to myself a lot, which meant people felt comfortable talking around me about just about anything, probably more comfortable than they should have been. They assumed someone like me wouldn't have anyone to tell any of their secrets to. (And they were right.) Or they saw me as an inanimate object. As lifeless as a mass-produced painting on the wall, or the receptacle in which they threw their trash. A lot of kids my age talked about their families in a way that confused me, especially when they gave their reasons as to why they felt that way, often superficial or immature. They mocked their parents for things that should have been considered green flags in any family dynamic. Things that I valued beyond what I knew I could ever express, and things I knew others wished they could have themselves. But I guess that was the point. We were all growing up, and I wasn't the only one who felt like the world was working against them. It was normal for people my age to rebel or try to find their own voice separate from those they spent their entire lives around.

I was never ashamed of my family. The closest I came to wanting to hide from them was my disinterest in being associated with Kanani at school, but that had more to do with it seemingly being the only identifier applied to me, and not because I didn't want people to know we were sisters.

Nights like this felt fewer and farther between nowadays. Even though our outings remained the same, the endless loop of our days between was constantly changing, and not always for the best. I clung to the idea that no matter what happened to us, we would be able to come together and forget about the rest.

There was nobody I was more suited to go through life with than my family. Not everybody had that privilege and I was grateful I had this support system.

Dad held his hand in front of his mouth as he yawned. He had been accepting a lot of overtime to keep up with our rising bills and it was taking a toll on his body. I was perpetually tired because of my growing body; Dad was worn out. I wish I could trade with him for at least a day, just to give him a break.

"Are you alright?"

He stared down at me, surprised by the question. "Huh?"

"You look tired. More than usual."

Never the one to want anyone to see him as anything other than strong, he straightened his back and rolled his shoulders out. It was pointless since I had only ever known a life with him by my side, which meant I saw him from every angle, even those that were considered less than flattering. I knew his face better than I knew my own most days.

"Yeah, I'm good."

I lifted my chin. "I think you're lying."

My father laughed, and all at once, I felt like a child again but in the best way possible. As if nothing bad in the world would ever touch us if I could hear his laugh. I couldn't imagine a world without it, and I had always believed it was my life's mission to make sure I heard that life as many times as possible.

But I also had a duty as his daughter to recognize when he needed to be looked after. He couldn't spend his entire life laughing for us just because he liked to see us smile while he was stuck having his life drained out of him by some job.

"I promise," he continued. "I'm fine. I'll always be fine."

My dad was such an impenetrable force of love that deep down, I believed him. He would always be fine. He would always be the rock beneath my unsteady feet, ready to catch me even when the world felt like it would slip out from under me.

I poked his arm. "Liar."

"Hey." He lifted his arm over my shoulder and rubbed the top of my head like he always did when I was younger. "I'm the adult here. I'm the one that takes care of you, not the other way around."

"I'm almost fifteen. I can take care of you."

"Oh, ku'uipo." He laughed again. "You're funny. Thank you."

"So? Are you gonna tell me what's wrong?"

Dad crossed his arms. "I actually wanted to talk to you about something."

Oh no. He had that look on his face, which could only mean one thing—

"When were you going to tell us that you switched out of band?"

While I was under no illusion this was going to stay secret forever, especially since I had a hard time keeping things like this from my parents, I had hoped I would have gotten a little bit more time to plan how I was going to tell him about it.

"Maybe next year?" I joked. He didn't say anything. "Before you ask, I talked to Mr. Murray before I did it and he was nice about it."

"I know you did and I'm sure he was," he replied.

Narrowing my eyes, I questioned the confidence in his response. I wasn't sure why I expected something a little more along the lines of disappointment from him, the loud kind. That wasn't my dad at all. Maybe I was just stuck on the idea of how we all thought a parent was supposed to react to their child keeping something from them.

"Did the school call you or something?"

He shook his head. "I just know you. You wouldn't dip and not tell him the truth."

I was relieved, both by my father's unexpected nonchalant attitude and by Mr. Murray's easy acceptance of me asking for his signature to process the transfer.

It was a stormy day when I walked over to the band room to ask for the signature. I remembered smelling the heaviness in the air and then looking up to see a blank canvas of grey above me, which was all the ominous foreboding any fourteen-year-old girl needed for such a menial task. If I was desperate, I probably could have asked my counselor to get the signature for me and I'm sure he would have agreed. But after all of the generosity that Mr. Murray had extended to me over the past few months, I knew I couldn't just leave him hanging like that.

I quickly realized what a pointless exercise in self-inducing stress my worrying was. Mr. Murray had explained that he understood completely why I didn't feel up to the commitment required for staying in his class, and that he wished me well on whatever the future held for me. More importantly, and something I appreciated more than I could explain to him, he had given me the number to a music store in Kaimuki where I could inquire about lessons, as well as a number to one of his former students who played the oboe and was currently going to school at UH Manoa.

"And you're sure about leaving?" he asked.

I nodded. "I think I would have grown to resent it if I stayed. I loved playing music, but I didn't like the rest of it."

I waited for some devastating blow I knew wasn't coming. My father could be stern but he was never harsh. And while he wasn't immune to human emotions that sometimes made us react negatively to the things people we love said or did, he would always support his most ride or die, and that meant loving and supporting his daughters no matter what they did.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of my mother returning from the bathroom, and he tightened his grip around me, pulling me in closer to his chest. "We'll talk about it more where you feel comfortable. Sound good?"

I nodded.

"Nobody knows the best for you more than yourself. Always remember that, yeah?"

"Love you."

A kiss on the forehead. "Love you."

"God, I'm starving," Mom groaned, hand placed over her stomach. "Nothing yet?"

Kahananui. Four loco moco, one shoyu chicken, two coke, two fruit punch, one slush float.

"Just waiting for you, babe," he said before walking up to the counter.