The 'Ohana Tree

by Rebecca Addison

  I tried to hide my smile as I took another drink, but he caught it and reluctantly grinned back. "Thank you."

  "Have I said yes? I don't remember saying yes, man."

  "You haven't," I said as I clinked the neck of my bottle against his. "But you will."

  I picked up some flowers for Tess and dropped in to see Akamu at Lulu's before driving up the old road toward the house. When I pulled into the driveway, they were sitting side by side on the lanai, my dad, and my girl, both with books in their laps and glasses on their noses. I watched from the car for a few minutes as they sipped their drinks without taking their eyes off the page, sucking in my breath when I saw Dad's hand move over and quickly give Tessa's knee a pat. And then I leaned back on the headrest and listened as my heart rate slowed down and the ball of anxiety sitting in my stomach quietly unraveled and disappeared. Because for the first time since I found her in the motel, I believed that it would all be okay.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Dipper,

  There are only three things you need to know about life. The first is that it's not going to be easy, especially for someone like you who was born into a mess that just kept getting messier. But I don't need to tell you that. The second is that everyone is hurting, just as much as you are, but often in very different ways. If you can understand that, you'll be able to find love and kindness in your heart for just about anybody, and your life will be easier for it. The third thing is that no one can do it alone. Even you, Dipper. Especially you.

  "Typical," she muttered, leaning over the notebook. "Even when he was writing to me he was still bossing me around."

  I glanced over. We'd been reading an entry from the notebook Garrett had entitled 'For Dipper: The Things I Know' each morning together for the last two months. Sometimes the entries made her cry, but most of them brought a smile, even if it was a sad one. I had yet to see her laugh, but Akamu and I were working on it.

  Our days had slipped into a comfortable rhythm. Tess and I would wake up before anyone else and drink coffee in bed while we read the notebook out loud. Then we would pull on some clothes and walk to the cliff edge and back hand in hand. Some days we talked non-stop about what Garrett had written, the places she'd been, the bands I'd worked with; other times we made the forty-five minute round trip in complete silence. By the time we made it back to the house, Akamu was getting organized for his day and we'd all make breakfast together. Tess had taught him to make his favorite foods and for the last two months, he had taken over cooking a few meals for the rest of us. Tess had a way about her, she knew when to step in and when to leave him to make his own mistakes, and, as a result, he had learned more new skills in the time she had been living with us than he had since he was in school. And with every challenge conquered, Akamu wanted more. He had things he wanted to achieve, including a list of museums around the world he wanted to visit. Whether he ever went to any of them didn't matter. He was stretching his limits. That was all due to Tess.

  After breakfast, I dropped Akamu at work then headed out to work on the never-ending list of jobs that needed to be done on the property, or if I was lucky enough, out to the studio to work on some songs. In the last few weeks, Dad had started doing a few hours a week at Makai Surf, usually out the back where he didn't have to interact with too many people. He was enjoying his new freedom, especially seeing his old friends at Pete's for a beer on Friday nights before opening, but he still felt anxious in open spaces which meant he hadn't been able to visit the mountain or the beach that he loved so much. I was immensely proud of him, even if things between us were still strained.

  Tess spent her days in the garden or baking pies. She'd started baking as a way to use up the fruit from our trees and after Aunty Lulu tried a slice one day she placed an order for her cafe on the spot. The demand had gotten so high that Tess had been approached by a couple of other cafes in town, all of which she politely turned down. When I suggested she hire someone to help her, she'd just smiled in that quiet, lopsided way of hers and said that she'd never intended it to be a business. She was just making pies.

  In the evenings, Tess and Akamu would cook together while I sat at the kitchen table and played for them on my guitar. Cooking had opened Aka's mind to all of the possibilities and suddenly we were eating new things again. After dinner, Tess and I walked through the orchard, collecting fruit for the next day's pies before the sun went down. We always went to the mango grove last and after we'd visited a few times, I told her the story of my mango tree. She listened carefully and then walked right up to the trunk, placing her hand against the wood as she gazed up through the leaves. She said she had her own theory about why it had stopped fruiting, but she wasn't going to tell me about it, yet.

  The dark hours before bed were spent in the living room playing music, singing or listening to Dad read aloud from one of his novels, and on Saturday mornings, Tess and I would leave for the studio. We played all day and stayed overnight in the bunk room, sleeping late on Sunday and eating our breakfast out on the deck. She was playing again, tentatively at first, and then for long stretches without pausing. Her music had changed in the time I'd known her. It still made me want to weep. But there was hope, there, too, and playing her instrument didn't seem to upset her in the way it had before. Life felt steady, like all of the working parts were well oiled and everything was doing what it should.

  "I wish I didn't have to go back to work," I said one morning at the end of her third month with us. The sun was up, already fierce and hot through the curtains and we had just finished reading Garrett's notebook for the day.

  "Do you have to?"

  I nodded. "Yeah. The money from the Lana'i job ran out a few weeks ago and I don't have anyone booked into the studio for the next three months."

  She rolled onto her side. "I wish we could make time stand still again like we did on Lana'i."

  "Me, too."

  "Making love, making music, making love," she said quietly, leaning over and placing her palm against my cheek as she kissed me.

  "Me, too. I'd better go," I said against her lips. "Sorry we're missing our walk today. I have to pick up the guys in half an hour."

  She kissed me and stroked the back of my neck. "There's no time for a walk. But half an hour is plenty for a lot of other things."

  I reluctantly pulled away, rolling off the bed, pulling on my shorts and slipping a shirt over my head. "Not for what I have in mind."

  Her eyes met mine and I looked back, but we both knew that it was all just a game. There was one issue that we hadn't ironed out yet. Every night we went to bed and lay side by side, usually naked since we were in the middle of a spell of hot, sticky weather. I held her in my arms and stroked her hair as she fell asleep, and at least once a week one of us would reach for the other, wanting and hungry. But we still hadn't slept together since the night before she'd moved to the motel and I couldn't see us breaking that streak anytime soon. It wasn't that I didn't want to. I still ached for her every time she came near me. I didn't know what was holding me back other than that every time things were heading in that direction my body seemed to have other ideas. I froze up, my heart rate doubling in a second and my hands growing slick with sweat. Needless to say, my sudden panic didn't help me in other areas, either. We didn't talk about it and Tess never pushed the issue, but I saw that she was disappointed, and maybe even a little hurt. I hated that she probably thought it was her fault, but then again, I didn't have a decent excuse to offer her, either. So I pretended everything was fine instead.

  "Is Dr. Frania coming today?" I asked her when I got to the door.

  She climbed off the bed and walked to me, rising up on her toes and giving me a kiss goodbye. "She'll be here when you get home."

  I looped an arm around the small of her back and pulled her close, bending to whisper in her ear in the way that she loved. "Let's have a picnic under the macadamia nut trees tonight, just you and me."

  She raised an eyebrow. "It's Monday. Dinner
at the table, remember? It was hard enough for me to convince him that it doesn't have to be pork ribs and potato salad every week."

  Behind the door, Akamu sang to himself as he got ready for work. Ever since Pete took over ownership of Makai and Aka was reinstated as Manager he'd been sleeping better and the old spring in his step was back.

  "I don't care," I said. "He needs to learn that life can't always be the way he wants it to be. Especially my life."

  She met my eyes. "Okay, then. I would love that. I'll make us some food, and we can walk out there after Dr. Frania leaves."

  I kissed her forehead and opened the door. "It's a plan."

  I spent the day with two of my uncles and a truckload of horseshit. I tried listening to music while we shoveled and carted loads of it with wheelbarrows up to the vegetable gardens we were building at the local school, then I tried singing. But that day was a day where nothing was going to take my mind off it. Shit has a way of doing that. When I finally emptied the last load, I went straight to my old outdoor shower at Pete's house and stripped off all of my clothes. There was no way I was going home to Tessa smelling like a barn. I borrowed some clothes off Pete and stayed to hear about what a pain in the ass Akamu was to work for, and then I drove out of town and up the hill toward home.

  I always smelled it first. The air around the house was thick and sweet. A couple of bees, drunk on the smell of the sugar, lazily tapped at the kitchen window. Dr. Frania's car was in its usual spot, so I crept into the house through the back door as quietly as I could. As I passed the kitchen windows, I smiled at the line of freshly baked pies on the table.

  "Hi," I said, poking my head around the corner. They were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa facing one another and Tess was picking at the fabric along the back of it with her fingernail, refusing to look at me. "What's going on?"

  "Come and sit down Kai," Dr. Frania said in her typical no-nonsense tone. I walked in and took a seat on the armchair. Tess still kept her eyes down.

  "Why don't you want to have sex?"

  "Excuse me?" I narrowed my eyes. I knew she talked about me in her sessions with Dr. Frania. But I thought she drew the line somewhere. Clearly, it wasn't in the same place that I thought. "Tess, why -"

  "You're right," she said. "Tess, tell him why you haven't talked to him about it before now."

  "I don't know," she mumbled, "I thought maybe you'd stopped looking at me in that way. You know, since things happened."

  Dr. Frania turned to me and clasped her hands together, leaning forward on her knees. "Is that true?"

  "No!"

  "How do you feel when you see Tessa naked? Do you become aroused?"

  "Oh my god," I said, rubbing a hand over my face. "I can't talk to you about this. I've known you since I was a kid. This is too weird."

  She tilted her head to the side and tried to hide her smile. "This will help her. And I know you'll do anything to help her feel better."

  "Are you this manipulative with all of your patients?"

  She winked. "Perhaps. Just answer her question."

  "Was there a question?"

  She looked at Tess and nodded.

  Tess cleared her throat. "Are you still attracted to me, Kai, or am I just another person you want to help?"

  I stared at her, so small on our big old sofa and so vulnerable as she nervously chewed her lip. I felt like an asshole for allowing her to think that whatever my problem was had anything to do with her. "I still want you," I said, trying to ignore Dr. Frania's long, steady gaze. "I'm still aroused when I'm with you." Her mouth twitched. "It's not you."

  "Can you tell me what happens when you are about to achieve penetration?" Dr. Frania cut in.

  I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. For fuck's sake.

  "I feel like I'm panicking. And then I can't do it."

  She sat back on the sofa and nodded slowly. "And your penis?"

  I clenched my jaw and glared at Tess. She had her hand over her mouth and was giving me 'I'm sorry' eyes.

  Dr. Frania leaned forward, raising her eyebrows. "I see. Well, that's interesting."

  "Is it?"

  "You tell me, Kai, why do you think this happens?"

  Tessa's eyes were back on me then, wanting to hear my answer. "Because I'm scared."

  "Scared of.."

  "Scared of loving her too much."

  "And?"

  "Losing her."

  Tess made a noise and I saw that she was trying hard not to cry. Dr. Frania picked up the box of tissues on the coffee table and passed them to her without taking her eyes off me. "You've been hurt by a woman leaving you before," she said. I swallowed hard. "It must be hard for you to trust."

  Was it? I didn't know. I wasn't in the habit of analyzing my feelings. I was too busy working to think about why I did things, or how I felt. In fact, at that moment, I would have given anything to go back to work. Even spending another day in a truck full of shit would have been better than answering any more of Dr. Frania's questions.

  "John is going to try something challenging this week," she said, standing up to signal that the conversation was now over. I breathed a sigh of relief. "He's going to stay the night at his mother's house, and Akamu will be going with him."

  "No way," I said, standing up too. "Akamu needs to stay here. He's not used to sleeping away from home."

  She touched my arm. "He’s excited about it. He's been trying to talk your father into it for months. You need to be supportive. You know this is a significant step for your dad."

  It was a huge step. My dad hadn't slept anywhere but in his own bed for the last seventeen years. "And while they're gone you will have the house to yourselves," she continued. "I want you to spend the rest of this week sleeping in another room, apart from Tess. Take the time to think about your mother, see if you can work through some of those feelings. It's important that you separate that one traumatic incident as a child from your relationships as an adult, you see?"

  I nodded.

  "And then, when John and Akamu leave for the night, I want you to go back to Tessa and just see what happens. Yes?"

  Tessa was sitting on the sofa, smiling at me with wet eyes. "Okay."

  "I will see you in a week," she said to Tess. "Hopefully, you will have some progress to report."

  "Well, that was awkward," I said as Tess packed food into a bag in the kitchen. Akamu was sitting at the table, scowling at us from under his eyebrows.

  "We have chicken and chicken is a very nice meal because Tessa made it and Tessa can cook better than you, Kai. Better than you."

  "I’m sure it will be amazing," I said, opening the door. "You can tell me all about it when I get back from my picnic."

  I shut the door on him as he continued to tell me about the chicken, feeling only slightly guilty that he'd be eating without us that night.

  "That was a bit mean," Tessa said as we walked through the kitchen garden. In the time she had lived with us she'd worked in it every day, expanding it by three long rectangle beds and filling them with sweet potato, greens, and herbs. When we got to her strawberry patch she bent down and picked a few from under the netting she used to keep the birds away.

  "He'll get over it. Although I bet I'm going to hear about how amazing that chicken was for the rest of the week."

  She popped a strawberry into my mouth.

  When we reached the trees, we spread out a blanket and Tess arranged the food on plates. She'd made a pie with vegetables from the garden and two little mango tarts with fruit from our trees.

  "I have a question," she said as soon as I sat down.

  "Is it a really embarrassing one, that maybe you might want to invite my entire family down here to hear?"

  She winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't know how to bring it up. I didn't know she'd go into, you know, details."

  "It's okay, I should have talked to you about it, too."

  She passed me a plate. "We can talk about that in a minute."

  "Oh, good."
>
  "What I want to know, is.." her voice trailed off as she tucked her hair behind her ear and frowned as if she was trying to find the right words. "How are you so together? I feel like I'm such a mess. And you, you look after everyone and you're so, I don't know, solid all of the time. How do you do that?"

  "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

  "Kai," she said, putting her plate down, "both of our mothers left us. Why am I like this, and you're, well, you? I don't get it."

  I put my plate down next to hers and took her hand. "I have Akamu. Even when my dad checked out, I still had someone who loved me enough for a hundred mothers."

  She nodded slowly and picked up her plate again. "I guess that makes sense. I mean, Akamu is.." She looked past me with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Well, he is pretty great."

  I turned just as Tessa's face broke into a smile. Akamu had just made it into the clearing and somewhere out of sight my dad was following him. We heard him shouting as he crashed through the trees. With every couple of heavy steps he took, Aka swung his head behind him and when he saw us under the tree, he picked up his pace, stumbling over the uneven ground with his hands outstretched.

  I bent my head under the low hanging branches and looked at Tess. "What's that he's holding?"

  She leaned forward with her weight on her hands and squinted. "It's the chicken."

  Akamu started to run. "BECAUSE WE ALWAYS EAT TOGETHER ON MONDAYS!"

  We exchanged a look, and her face broke into a grin that quickly became a giggle and then we were laughing together, our hands clutching our stomachs as we watched my brother get closer and closer holding that ridiculous chicken in his hands. We howled and snorted. Our eyes streamed and our noses ran. And then as Akamu made it to our blanket and our shrieks began to fade, we locked eyes. We were happy. She was laughing again.

  Chapter Forty

  He's a good man, Dipper. I know his father and I love his brother like he's my own son. And this good man loves you. I want you to see that, but you won't stop looking the other way. I know he's caring for you, loving you because that is who Kai Onakea is. What are you going to do about it?