I wake up from a nap with the urge to make art. It shames me that I didn’t think of it before. What’s the one thing I came to Hawaii to do, besides forget Leo, and besides paddleboarding?
I came to paint.
The sketchbook is lying next to my head on the pillow, flipped to a sketch I did of Abby a few months ago. Puppy-Dog Eyes, I called it, that look she assembles on her face whenever she wants something and is determined to get it by pure cuteness alone.
I grab the sketchbook. Then I go over to my bag and take out the brand-new travel set of watercolors. Then I put together a makeshift art station outside on the balcony with the sketchbook and some loose-leaf heavier paper I brought for just this purpose, some paper towels, and a few of the clear plastic cups I found next to the ice bucket.
I sit on one of the deck chairs, rearrange my supplies one final time, and lift my arms over my head to stretch.
It feels strange, that I haven’t done this for an entire week, not since I drew the Not Ready sketch of Leo Friday night.
I avoid looking at that one, or any of my other sketches. I want to start blank. Fresh. New. Not weighed down by any past attempts.
I begin with the landscape before me, the sky and sea first, in the background, what I will later layer in shades of blue and aqua and pale clouds.
Then the shapes of the palm trees, always at an angle, blowing.
Then the foreground. The statue of Buddha, the round circles of his body and head.
Then, because I can’t seem to help myself, I add a figure. Then two figures. Too distant to identify. Who are they?
Afton and Michael?
Mom and the mystery dark-haired man?
I stare at the drawing. I’m a little bit out of control, but I can’t tell if this is helping or hurting me. I mean, I know it’s hurting. But is it also helping?
Art can convey everything. I can pour myself in with the paint. I can bleed stuff out through the strokes of my pencil, my pens, my brush.
But at the same time, it’s also static.
Art can’t actually fix your life.
The man I’ve drawn looks like Billy Wong, I think then.
My heart starts to beat fast. I put my sketchbook down and scroll through my phone like there could be some kind of proof there, past a hundred different images: Abby in the hammock, the tight rings of her drying curls against her head. Her smile is for Poppy. For Pop.
Afton feeding a bunch of little birds at our outdoor breakfast table the first morning. Before the hula class.
The Grand Staircase, that first night.
Mom and Billy sitting at a table, leaning toward each other.
Mom smiling with her eyes.
The realization that it’s Billy doesn’t even really surprise me. I didn’t want to consider that it could be Billy before. But suddenly it seems so obvious. He’s the only man on this island who’s feasible. Mom doesn’t have time to mess around with someone new. But she and Billy have known each other for years. Decades, even. She’s comfortable with him. They spend all their time together.
It has to be Billy.
Poor Pop, I think then, the reality of the situation crashing over me, not just Mom and some guy in Hawaii but Mom and Billy, all this time, both here and back home. All the nights she was “working late.” All the excuses. Poor, poor Pop. I pick up my phone again and read the texts between Pop and me.
I miss you a million.
I wish I were there.
You should be here, I text now. It’s not okay, you not being here.
I’m startled when the phone buzzes in my hand. Pop calling.
I know I shouldn’t, but I click accept and lift the phone to my ear. I want to hear his voice.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi. Do you have a minute? I wanted to talk to you some more.”
“Okay.”
“Is Abby with you?”
“No, she’s with Afton today.”
Pop makes a surprised noise. “All right,” he says. “Good. So you seemed a little off yesterday, and I just wanted to check up on you. Is everything okay?”
I consider his question.
“No. No, it’s not okay.”
“Why not?”
I bite my lip, and then the words start to tumble out. “Pop, come on. We’re not okay. None of us are. You should be here. This is a family vacation, and you’re part of our family, and you don’t get to decide that you’re not.”
“I told you,” he says. “I have to work.”
“That’s not going to cut it, Pop. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You’re making a choice. And this time you made the wrong choice.”
“All right,” he says after a minute. “I can see why you feel that way. And I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care,” I say.
“What?”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry. I care if you’re here. And you’re not here.”
“Ada . . .” He sounds tired. I don’t even know what time it is for him right now. He also sounds like he’s about to tell me that I don’t understand, that I can’t understand, but I won’t listen.
So I blabber on. “I know you and Mom are going through a rough patch, or whatever,” I say quickly. “You think we don’t notice these things, but we do. I don’t know much about love, but I have been there when people stopped loving each other; Afton and I both, we’ve had front row seats to that. And I just think . . .” I swallow as tears burn my eyes. “I just think that can’t happen with us this time, Pop. Not with you and Mom. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It can’t happen.”
“Ada, Ada, whoa,” he says. “Why do you think that—Your mom and me—It’s not—”
I push on. “Mom isn’t perfect. She works too much, and she . . . isn’t the amazing person everyone says she is, and I know that, but I also know that Mom isn’t the only member of this family, and you loved each other once, and you both made promises, and that means you have to fight for her. Are you doing that, Pop? Are you really fighting for her? And fighting for us? Can you do that? Can you fight?”
Then I’m out of breath. It should be Mom I’m giving this speech to, Mom I’m confronting, but this is the only way I can think of to keep them together: for Pop to try harder. For him to fix it.
Pop doesn’t say anything for a long, long time, which is okay, because now I’m sniffling.
“Yes,” he says finally. “Yes, Ada. I will do that.”
“Good.”
“But what happened with your mom? Did she say something that upset you? Why—”
“That’s all I really have to tell you, Pop. For now.”
I hang up before I can blab anything else. Because I’ve already said too much. I grab my art supplies and start to head back into the room.
And that’s when I almost collide with Afton.
Who’s been standing in the doorway for who knows how long.