Aloha With Love

by Terence Brody

  “Well, that was a little odd, right?” Sarah asked. “Even for Dad?”

  Jenna put her papers down on the table and crossed her hands on top of them. “I knew he’d be hesitant about this. I mean,” she added, ruefully, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little blown away myself. But we’d always knew we’d sell Aunt May’s house once the renovation was complete. This way we’re losing the house, but giving May’s property a new way to live on—right?”

  She sighed. Who was she asking, her sister or herself?

  “I’ll go talk to him,” Mike volunteered. “Maybe it’s a man-to-man type of thing.”

  All three women at the table shot him the same look. Yeah right.

  “I’ll go,” said Jenna. “It’s our house, but Darren and the Barrington deal are because of me, good or not. I should be the one to talk to Dad.”

  She pushed back from the table, stuffed a scone in her mouth, and headed outside. When Jenna arrived in her father’s workspace, he was busy putting the finishing touches on the last of the kou coffee table legs, his back to her. Two had already been attached, and the remaining pair waited, freshly stained and sanded. Jim picked up one of the legs and turned it over in his hands, studying it carefully.

  “Dad?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Jenna felt her pulse in her throat. “Dad, I need you to talk to me.”

  Her father continued to examine the table leg in his hands, enrapt. He sniffed but kept quiet.

  “I miss her too, Dad.”

  After another long stretch of silence, Jim sat the table leg on his workbench and turned to face her. His eyes were glassy, and there was a softness to him Jenna had never noticed before—the kind that didn’t come with age. Grief clung to his skin. It pulled down his features, heavied his movements until they looked slow, strenuous.

  “This table was meant to go in May’s room at the retirement home,” he said. “Bring a piece of her house—of the island—to her there. I started working on it a few years ago. Then other projects got in the way. Took priority. By putting it off, I was never able to give it to her before she died.”

  Jenna understood. Time had a way of sneaking up on you, running out before you even realized the clock was ticking. This was a lesson she’d learned all too well over the past few weeks that she’d been home. “Dad, it’s not your fault. That stuff happens. May would have understood.”

  “She would have,” Jim agreed. He ran a large hand across the smooth surface of the coffee table. “But I’m going to finish it anyway. We need something to remember that old house by. To remember her.”

  “Yeah, we do.” Jenna’s thoughts flashed to the kou tree she’d added to her Terrace Pines models on the day of the Barrington pitch—a moment which seemed so long ago now. Had it been Aunt May in that moment, giving her one last nudge in the right direction?

  Jim used his shirt to wipe away dampness at the rims of his eyes. “Just so you know, I don’t need the world surfing tour. I got everything I could ever want right here.” The left corner of his mouth curved into a small smile. “You and your sister are my aloha. Always will be.”

  Something tightened in Jenna’s chest. “I hope the condo project is the right choice.” She didn’t say the rest—that accepting Barrington’s lucrative offer wasn’t half as attractive as painting walls and grouting tile with Ben Fletcher.

  “You have your Aunt May with you always. And your mom, too. Both of them were smarter than I ever will be, and so are you.”

  Her father’s vote of confidence warmed her heart.

  “A’a i ka hula, waiho i ka maka’u i ka hale,” she said. May’s wise words. Dare to dance and leave the shame at home.

  “I couldn’t agree more, Peanut,” Jim said as he wrapped his arms around Jenna’s shoulders and pulled her into the tightest hug he’d given her in years.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  With her laptop still on the fritz, Jenna had texted Ben to let him know the family would be accepting Barrington’s offer. That had been two days ago. He still hadn’t texted back, and Jenna hadn’t been out to the house to see if he was still hanging around working on the last few renovations. She’d wanted to—she’d even started to drive out to Aunt May’s a handful of times. But every time she’d turned around. She’d told Ben to pack his tools and go home. What would she do if she found him there? More to the point, how would she feel if she didn’t?

  Jenna smoothed down her skirt and stepped back to examine herself in the mirror. For the past several weeks, she had traded in her usual wardrobe of business chic pantsuits and high heels for dingy overalls and paint-spackled tank tops. She’d gone so long with messy ponytails and dirty fingernails she almost didn’t recognize her reflection—the girl staring back at her in the mirror wearing a floral blue and pink sundress. But there Jenna stood, looking perfectly refreshed in a tropical print dress, her hair soft around her shoulders. She swabbed a sheen of light pink gloss across her lips and draped a simple white orchid lei over her shoulders. Today was a day for celebration, and such important occasions required special accessories. The lei had been May’s.

  It’s like I never left the islands, she thought. Jenna’s heart fluttered. Her mirror reflection certainly looked the part on the outside, but her insides hadn’t quite caught up. Today was the day she’d been anticipating for months; the day she finally got her name on the dotted line of an architectural project bearing her design. But it was also the day she signed away Aunt May’s property, and the moment was bittersweet.

  A knock on the bedroom door. Jenna brushed her skirt down again and smoothed her hair, put on her best smile. “Come in.”

  Emma flounced into the room, wearing short-cropped denim shorts and a breezy linen top. She plopped onto the guest bedroom, settling Jenna’s laptop on the bed beside her. She flipped open the cover and booted the machine up.

  “The spinning pinwheel of death means you need to clean out your laptop more than once every decade,” Emma teased. “Your hard drive was full of digital garbage and it was slowing everything down. It’s the reason your email program was being finicky. You’re lucky the whole thing didn’t crash—or catch on fire.”

  Sweet relief. Keeping up with emails on her phone was inconvenient at best, impossible at worst—especially when the island Wi-Fi got glitchy. Half the time she couldn’t even open them, and she could forget actually accessing any attachments. “So it’s fixed?” Relief swept through Jenna.

  Emma beamed. “It’s fixed.” She pulled her cellphone out of her back pocket, did a double take at the time, and scurried off the bed. “You better hurry up and get ready. We don’t want to be late.”

  Jenna watched the bedroom door swing shut behind her niece. Emma looked so much like Sarah when she’d been that age, but between her knack for punctuality and her big dreams of pursuing her fantasies off the island, the girl sure had a lot of her Aunt Jenna running through her veins.

  Her laptop sat open before her, waiting. Jenna sucked in a deep breath. A mailbox full of work emails she could handle, but one name had been haunting her thoughts from the top of the inbox. Jenna launched her email program and scrolled down the feed until she saw Aunt May’s name. She clicked the video attachment, waited for the media to load, and then put her hand over her mouth to keep her heart from spilling out when her aunt appeared on screen.

  Aunt May sat on the porch of her retirement home, wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing on her last video call with Jenna.

  “Jenna, there was something I wanted to say earlier, but I held back because I don’t ever want you to think I’m interfering with your life,” the old woman said on video. “But after we finished, I kicked myself. Of course I want to interfere; you’re my little peanut.”

  Heaviness pushed inside Jenna’s eyes and she sucked her lips under, biting down hard with her teeth. She felt her jaw tremble and she sniffed, keeping her gaze locked on the screen.

  “So here goes,” Aunt May continued. “Whe
n it comes to love, don’t ever settle for less than what you deserve. True love is more than a practical choice, Jenna. Don’t worry about being pragmatic, on schedule, and under budget. Worry about making your heart dance, my girl. I pray God brings you a man who will love and cherish you—not for what you can give him, but for who you are. I know I’m biased, but you are a very special young lady who is going to change the world with your gifts. You deserve someone who sees that in you, just like I do.”

  She paused to check her watch, then clicked her tongue. “Oh no, I’m late to meet your daddy for lunch. I gotta go. Goodbye for now.” May looked at the screen and blew Jenna a virtual kiss. “I love you, Peanut.”

  The old woman leaned forward, fumbled with the camera, and the feed went dead.

  It took Jenna several minutes to realize she was sobbing. These were her aunt’s final words to her—words of wisdom, and hope, and love. How she wished May had shared this message on their video call! But, Jenna considered, would she have heard it so clearly then? Would it have meant as much in the moment as it did now?

  No, Jenna decided as she pulled a pillow from the bed to blot her tears. No, May’s timing was perfect. This was exactly what she needed to hear, and exactly when she needed to hear it.

  

  When Mike pulled the car into the gravel drive of Aunt May’s estate, Darren’s rental was already parked outside. Jenna noticed Orville Barrington had arrived, punctual as ever. He and Darren stood side by side, in matching blazers and matching goatees, admiring the view of the ocean.

  Jenna rolled her eyes. Curb appeal.

  Jim Burke pulled up in his pickup and brought the rusty old heap to a squealing halt beside Mike’s car. As Jenna, Sarah, Mike, Emma, and Ethan poured out of the Maxwell family vehicle, he cinched down a tarp covering the cargo bed.

  Jenna was just about to ask what he had in the back of his truck when Sarah grabbed her elbow, pulling her toward the house. Her voice was breathy with excitement.

  “I thought you said you stopped working on the house?”

  “We did,” Jenna responded. Then she looked at the house and the ground nearly fell out from beneath her.

  Aunt May’s house stood before them in all her full glory, as beautiful as Jenna had ever seen it. The cracked and broken windows were repaired, and the sagging front steps reset. The house had been painted a soft shade of pale yellow the same hue as the setting sun, offset by shutters stained the deep navy of the sky over the ocean at night. Delicate gingerbread trim in eggshell white furled along the eaves and raced up and down every angle of the home’s peaks and borders. Even the front landscaping had been pruned and brought back to life. Bright red hibiscus and heliconia bloomed between long, leafy fingers of fern and palm. The gravel leading up to the house’s front porch was new, too—all white shell and sand. Even the bright midday sun shining over the house’s roof seemed to cast a spotlight on May’s beautifully restored Victorian.

  “I don’t think Aunt May got the memo,” Sarah breathed.

  It took Jenna a few tries to find her voice. “Neither did Ben.”

  “Wow.” Mike pointed toward the side of the house, where Ben was loading his tools into the back of his construction truck. Evidence of this morning’s exterior work lay scattered about on the ground beside him—leftover pieces of trim, a half-emptied bag of potting soil, an assortment of leftover tools.

  By the looks of it, Jenna and her family—as well as Darren and Barrington—had arrived just in time for the grand reveal. “I don’t understand why he finished the interior,” Jenna mumbled under her breath.

  Her breath caught in her throat when Ben’s gaze caught hers, but whatever he was thinking, his poker face revealed nothing. She tried to communicate with him with just her eyes. What was going on? Why had he finished the house?

  Jenna was so busy trying to telepathically interrogate Ben, she didn’t hear the crunch of polished dress shoes behind her.

  “Hello, family!” Darren’s voice was loud—booming—and far too cheerful for Jenna’s taste.

  She turned her attention to the men behind her, then stifled a scoff. Both Darren and Orville Barrington looked so out of place amongst the laid-back tropical landscape it was almost comical. Their crisp Hawaiian print shirts were too starched, their blazers too warm for the summer weather. Even their matching goatees looked too precise to be anything other than markers of city slickers desperately trying to blend in with the rest of the tourists.

  Of course, Jenna reminded herself, this is business, not vacation.

  Barrington kept his arms crossed while Darren brandished his trademark smile. He stuffed a file folder full of paperwork under his arm, then offered his hand first to Sarah, then Mike, and, finally, to Jim.

  “Mr. Burke,” Darren exclaimed. “Wonderful to see you again.”

  Jim was gruff. “Darren.”

  Darren extended a handshake, and Jenna watched as her father’s oversized paw enveloped Darren’s smaller hand. She saw Darren’s realtor smile tense, then strain, as her father’s grip tightened. She smiled. Good.

  When Jim finally released Darren from the handshake, the younger man had to shake out his hand a few times. Jenna’s smile widened.

  Never one for pleasantries, Barrington turned his attention to Jenna. She corralled her grin into something more professional, and straightened her posture. “Mr. Barrington,” she started, “this is my dad, Jim Burke, my sister Sarah, and her husband Mike and their children, Emma and Ethan.”

  Barrington nodded politely at each of the names in turn, but the motion was all business. When the introductions were finished, Barrington swept his hand around the property. He gestured to the beach, the jungle wrapping around the edges of May’s land—everything, Jenna noticed, except the house.

  “This is one of the most beautiful properties I could ever hope to develop,” Barrington said. “I’m glad to see there are no hard feelings between us about Terrace Pines.”

  Just a sunny five percent, Jenna thought. She pulled her shoulders back and blinked the memory away. “No, sir.”

  “Jenna would never burn bridges in a business relationship,” Darren contributed helpfully.

  Barrington’s lip twitched and Jenna wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was—shut it, Darren.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said.

  The not-so-subtle note of sarcasm in his voice seemed to confirm Jenna’s theory. Tension in her shoulders relaxed, but something else stirred in her belly—something warm and decidedly unfriendly. How could these two men truly not see the beauty of the home? Were they both really so obsessed with the commercial value of something that they didn’t see the inherent beauty of it? A magnificently restored home stood before them—a home loved by so many—and there was no doubt in Jenna’s mind the only things running through Darren Taylor and Orville Barrington’s heads were dollar signs, and all the money this deal would make when they turned May’s gardens into condos.

  What was worse—only a mere few weeks ago, Jenna might have been thinking the same things herself.

  Her stomach twisted, turned sour. How could she have been so blind, so dismissive?

  Darren leaned in close to Jenna, pointing a suspicious finger to Ben’s work truck. “I thought your contractor had already wrapped up his work?”

  The way he said contractor sounded an awful lot like boyfriend. Jenna neither liked the implication, nor the fact that she and Ben were not currently on speaking terms. The sour feeling in her stomach crawled up into her chest. “I did, too.”

  Barrington cleared his throat. He motioned toward the file of paperwork in Darren’s hand. “Well, shall we all do this?”

  Darren shot Barrington a confirming glance and shifted away from Jenna, deftly opening his file and spreading out a thick stack of paperwork on the hood of the Maxwell’s car. Everyone gathered around—everyone except Jim and Jenna. Jenna glanced at her father, but he didn’t make eye contact. Were his feet suddenly as heavy as hers were?
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  “Mr. Barrington and I have already signed where we need to,” Darren said as he pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and clicked it open. “So we’ll just need Sarah and Jenna to sign.”

  He turned to Sarah. Brandished another showstopping smile. “Sarah, how about you first?”

  Sarah looked for Jenna at her side, then turned an impatient glance over her shoulder where Jenna stood behind her. She mouthed a silent squeal, and then accepted then pen from Darren’s proffered fingers and quickly signed her name as Darren guided her through the pages. Jenna counted the signatures, the sourness in her chest moving further up her throat with each pen stroke.

  “Here.” Sarah signed. One inch.

  “Here.” Sarah signed. Two inches.

  “And here.” Sarah signed. The taste was in Jenna’s mouth now.

  Then her sister turned and smiled back at the house. “Aunt May would have loved this house,” she said.

  The taste coated Jenna’s tongue as emotion threatened to rush through her lips. She nodded at her sister and turned back to the house. Her eyes swept to Ben’s truck, but he was no longer there.

  Finished signing, Sarah prepared to hand the pen to Jenna, but Darren intercepted.

  “I brought Jenna her own special pen to sign with.” He pulled a pen case from his pocket and handed it to Jenna with a flourish.

  A special pen? There was something in Darren’s smile that Jenna didn’t recognize. No, she did recognize it, she just hadn’t seen it in a very long time. How long had it been since Darren looked at her like that—like she was special, like he only had eyes for her?

  She accepted the pen case and flipped it open. Inside was a thin gold fountain pen. Atop the pen, on the cushion of black velvet, was a perfect princess-cut engagement ring—a large round diamond, set on a delicate band the same shade of gold as the pen. Somehow, Jenna was able to push past the terrible taste in her mouth to speak.

  “Darren ... what is this?”