“There are stores,” he said. “Also, your kids are grown up enough to pack their own swimsuits.”
“They won’t, though, and you know that.”
He took three steps across the room and reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder. She wanted, very suddenly, to lean on him. To sink into him. She had no right to do that. For one, she shouldn’t be wanting to lean against Logan when she was married to Will. For another, Logan had lost his wife.
It might have been seven years, but it was… There was an order to things. A time frame. You were supposed to lose your parents. Maybe not when you were thirty-seven. But it wasn’t like she was a child either.
She was done being…parented.
She blinked back sudden tears.
The problem was, she hadn’t felt finished being mothered.
Who was going to take care of her after her surgery?
No one took care of you like your mother did.
She wanted to sit down and cry like a motherless child, because shewasmotherless and she hated it, but she had to go buy sunblock and swimsuits.
“Let’s go to the store. We can get whatever you need.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to go.”
“How about just I go, and you sit for a minute.”
She thought about that. She wouldn’t sit, though. That was the thing. She would end up doing other things. “You don’t have to come.”
“Let me go with you. We might need some things too. I’m not the organizational mastermind you are. Chloe might not even have shoes.”
“She had shoes to get on the plane. Also, she’s sixteen, not six.”
He smiled, and it felt soothing in some way. “Don’t remind me.”
“Yeah, I feel your pain.”
“Come on, we’ll go to the store. You’ll see that you can get everything you need, and it doesn’t matter if you got everything packed just right.”
“I should tell Will.”
“He’s messing around with the grill. The kids are in the game room downstairs. I know, with Hawaii outside the door. Let’s go.”
There was something about the gentle authority that made her want to go right with him. She was buried beneath the weight of all of these decisions all the time. Of everything she had to do always.
Of all the organization. She wasn’t able to keep track of it right now. She didn’t even know what she didn’t know.
They walked out of the vacation rental, three floors of glory with a wide deck overlooking Waikiki, and walked from the gravel driveway across the street to the store.
It was more than just a convenience store—though it was very convenient. It had everything. From clothes to sushi to tourist-trap-level merch and everything in between. They got a cart, and she put four masks and snorkels into it. “Just in case,” she said.
Suddenly she felt the need to stockpile any and everything she might need. Just in case.
She grabbed three pairs of board shorts. Kukui nut necklaces. Food for the barbecue.
Logan didn’t say much of anything. He just pushed the cart. But there was something steady about him being there. Like he was anchoring her.
Not expecting anything from her, just being there. It was sort of a radical experience. To walk and breathe for a second and just look mindlessly at the rows of Oahu-specific bottle openers and hula girls.
He took over at a certain point, getting all the food they needed, and remembering sunblock when she’d nearly forgotten it. He put everything on the belt when they went to check out, and he paid, which she didn’t need him to do.
