The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards

       5

      No one knew exactly which ancestors had passed their genes to Lilia or her four brothers. From their mother’s side they were Hawaiian, Filipino and Samoan. From their father’s they were Chinese, along with a large dose of the UK. International bloodlines weren’t unusual on the island of Kauai, where she’d been raised. Neither were they atypical in the South Bay area of California where she had moved at age eighteen to care for her aunt.

      Now looking at her oldest brother, Eli, who had picked her up from the airport in a four-seater beach buggy, she remembered a game they had played as children. Each sibling had imagined that ancestors long departed had personally chosen him or her as a favorite. Their personal guardian angels.

      Eli had always claimed their Samoan great-grandfather had chosen him. He was big-boned and substantial, with the darkest coloring of any of the Swallow siblings, although that was never easy to document because of the hours each child spent in the sun. As a teen he had come home sporting an intricate Samoan shoulder tattoo, and since then he had added to it until now most of one muscular arm was covered.

      Eli owned a shop that gave tours and rented buggies, like the one he was driving today, and he swore the more Polynesian he looked, the more business he attracted. Some of his steadiest customers were female. When he’d threatened to knot a lavalava around his waist and show up for work bare-chested, his wife, Amber, had put her foot down. Business was fine just the way it was.

      Eli was a man of few words, so Lilia knew he was waiting for her to tell him why she had come home with such short notice. He would never ask outright.

      “Do you remember what we used to pretend about our ancestors?” she asked.

      “You thought you were descended from some English princess or maybe a Chinese courtesan. I don’t think you knew what that meant.”

      “It was all about the palaces. There was a book in the school library with amazing photos. I wanted to live in one.”

      “California doesn’t have a lot of palaces.”

      “Kai decided he was all Hawaiian, remember? That was the year he borrowed his first ukulele from Uncle Ike.” Kai, who sang and played beautifully, was the second oldest Swallow, followed by Micah and then after Lilia, Jordan. Lilia was the only girl, and for the first five years of her life she had been treated almost exactly like her brothers, including short haircuts, hand-me-down clothes and freedom.

      “We had a great childhood.” As she spoke she envisioned baby Toby, whose childhood so far was anything but, and unexpectedly her voice caught.

      Eli glanced away from the two-lane road to search her face. “You didn’t say what’s what with Graham.”

      She had debated this question since she boarded the plane to Honolulu, and then during the hours she had waited for the final flight to Kauai. She had managed to get home, but not on the best schedule. She was exhausted and still too emotional to trust herself.

      “Graham’s last two CT scans were clear.”

      “Yeah, I knew that.”

      “Our relationship took a bad turn, Eli. I’m guessing it won’t take a good one again.”

      He didn’t say anything for miles of tropical foliage and red dirt fields that had once grown sugarcane and pineapples and now nurtured a variety of crops. She tried to focus on distant mountains instead of her pain.

      “Marriage, it’s hard.” Eli gave one definitive nod, as if that said it all.

      “Yours still good?”

      “Oh yeah, she puts up with me, with everything, Amber does. But three kids under ten? Not much time to think about anything else.”

      “Would you want something different?”

      “Nobody’s life is perfect. Good is a lot to hope for, and we have more than that. We work together, raise our kids, put food on our table. We’re thankful.”

      She remembered the teenage Eli, who for a school project had memorized a Samoan grace and made everyone in the family sing it for months before meals. He was the Swallow who attended church most regularly, who faithfully tithed and volunteered whenever he was needed. He was a good man, and Lilia wasn’t surprised he was the one who had volunteered to drive her home.

      “Good would be good enough for me. That’s really all I wanted.” She stared out the window. “I never asked for more.”

      He continued the conversation, which was a sign he was worried. “Illness takes a lot out of a family. Amber’s brother nearly died in that accident, remember? For a while her mom and dad split up over it.” Amber’s brother had wrapped his car around a kukui tree after too many beers at a graduation party. He still walked with a cane.

      “Does illness make a man forget his marriage vows?”

      He whistled softly, and that was all she got until they passed through the quaintly scenic town of Kapa’a, ten square miles that were large enough for a few stoplights, a variety of shops and hotels, and stretches of palm tree–lined beaches. In English Kapa’a meant solid, and the solid little town had been built on rice, pineapples and now, tourism.

      Out of town Eli followed a winding two-lane road past one-story houses screened by extravagant clusters of oleander and banana trees, along with chain-link or concrete block fences. In the past decades the area had built up steadily, but homes, by mainland standards, were still modest, even though in the islands the most substandard housing was expensive.

      Roosters crowed, a familiar sound, and Eli waited patiently at a one-lane bridge until traffic coming from the other direction had crossed. She could see the Sleeping Giant, a mountain that had shadowed her childhood. Her family had owned the land and house they lived on for generations and watched the landscape change to suit new residents. This still felt like home.

      “Graham is hard to know,” Eli said at last. “But one thing I always figured? He loves my sister.”

      “Words mean so little.”

      “You’re taking time to think?”

      “I don’t expect anything to change. But that’s why I’m here.”

      “Will you move back? If you decide to leave him?”

      She had asked herself the same question on the plane. Family surrounding her would be wonderful, and she loved her childhood home. But everything else she loved was in California. Her house, her friends, Swallow’s Nest Design, her small but thriving interior design business. While she could run her website from Kauai, she would be forced to scale down. Her online store and design consultation would be impossible because the cost of travel and shipping would be prohibitive. Opportunities here would be different, but they wouldn’t suit her needs or talents nearly as well.

      She put the other reason into words. “I think I was born with island fever. I love the mainland, but I would come home more often. I missed coming home so much this past year. I didn’t think I could leave Graham.”

      “Be sure you have all the facts straight, Lilia.”

      “I heard the facts directly from him. And saw the proof.” She gave up pretending she could keep what had happened a secret. “He has a son, Eli. He claims it was a one-night stand, but he used the trust fund we needed to