Strong Like the Sea, стр. 60

When we pick Auntie and Uncle up at the airport, I bounce right up to give them the treasures I picked for them at market: a turtle necklace for Uncle and a flower hair clip for Auntie.

“It’s beautiful.” Auntie hugs me and climbs in the back seat beside Uncle, who gently turns the turtle over in his hands and puts it on. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I pretend it’s no big deal, but inside, I’m super glad they like what I found. Maybe I needed to prove to myself that I could find things if I wanted to.

“How goes the cleanup?” Dad signals and pulls onto the road.

“They finished yesterday.” Uncle leans forward in his seat. “One group said their goal was to reach the clean swath by my beach, so they kept going.”

“That’s my girl.” Dad pats my knee. “Hear that?”

“I didn’t do it alone; my friends probably did more than me.” I shrug, but a pesky smile catches my lips anyway.

My phone lights up with a text from Malia:

Jack’s dad lost his job.

What! When?

Couple weeks. Kase says rent is overdue. Might have 2 move.

Castle Crew without Jack? I chew on that thought, but it’s sour. He belongs with us. Well—us and Sam’s store. We can share.

You sure? What did Jack say?

Nothing. Didn’t want us to know.

We text a few more times, but Jack should know better than to keep secrets from us. We’re stronger together. And as soon as I get back, I’ll tell him so.

A few tour busses already dot the Rainbow Falls parking lot when Dad pulls in, but we still find a good spot beside the stone wall to watch the falls. Even though the falls are more root-beer color than blue today, a wide rainbow glows so bright in the mist it seems almost solid.

“Do you know why Mom used this waterfall for the painting? What makes this one special?” I ask.

Dad looks to Auntie, then Uncle. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this one of the first places you traveled after you took Elizabeth in?”

“She was still new to us then, but she was ours just the same,” Auntie says. “Elizabeth is our hānai child—the child of our heart if not from our blood.”

Uncle slides an arm around Auntie. “She was young, so I don’t know what she remembers of here, but yes, we brought her here for the first of many family trips.”

“You should have seen her,” Auntie laughs. “Small kine thing with frizzy hair, all knees and elbows. Skinny as a lost kitten, but so inquisitive. Always wanted to know everything. She stole our hearts—how could we not open our home?”

Dad crooks a thumb at the falls. “She said it was her rainbow after the storm.”

“So . . .” I peer over the stone wall to the colors sparkling in the mist. “This is where you became a family.”

“We were already ohana. Maybe this is where she knew it was real,” Uncle says.

“It’s a place of legend and rainbows,” Auntie agrees. “Maybe that’s how she remembers it.”

“Actually—” Dad clears his throat, his eyes bright as he slides into teacher mode, “the best way to see a vibrant rainbow is to come in the morning when the sun is still low in the sky behind you.”

“Mom told me she saw a rainbow from her airplane once, but it was shaped like a giant full circle below the plane.”

“That’s true,” Dad says. “You’d have to be really high to see the full ring a rainbow makes around you, but you’re always in the center of it. Down here, the earth gets in the way, so we usually only see a part of the curve.”

“I thought you were a math teacher.” Uncle folds his arms, but we all know he’s only pretending to be grumpy. He’s got that twinkle.

“Elizabeth loves rainbows, and I love her. So, I learned how to get her the best I could. A little planning makes a big difference.”

They keep talking, but an old man totters by with a basket full of luahala leaves and settles onto the grass. Within minutes, his calloused fingers twist and weave the first handful into a bird, and he sets it on the ground beside him. He makes a turtle next, then a dish, and then a hat.

“Alex, time’s up.” Dad nudges my elbow. “Ready to go?”

“Okay,” I say, but I keep watching as the man crafts an angelfish. “He’s so good.”

“Hey, we’ll take that one, hah?” Uncle buys one and passes it to me. “An angelfish for our angel of the beach.”

“Thanks.” I turn it over in my hands.

Our day goes on like that, from place to place with barely enough time to walk in and see what Mom liked about the area, then out and gone to the next. In and out with no time to linger.

We wind down and down and down the steep, narrow road past tsunami warning signs to the sheltered oasis of green below: Laupahoehoe Point, where slow, unbroken swirls of pahoehoe lava once flowed into the sea.

At the shore, waves smash against concrete formations and rocket into the air with sprays that would do Laie Point proud. Uncle says the Army Corps of Engineers made the cement as a special breakwater to stop the ocean from eroding the land.

Dad says we’ve got twenty-five minutes, so I climb up the hill on a staircase of roots and try to guess which waves will make the biggest splash.

Uncle walks the other way to a little hill, where Auntie stands in front of a white stone marker.

I hop back down the tree stairway and catch up to Uncle as he curls Auntie’s hand in his.

“What is it?” My steps slow at the many leis of shells, leaves, and flowers carefully arranged at the base of the stone, which reads:

IN MEMORY OF

THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE TIDAL WAVE

APRIL 1, 1946

Two columns of names with ages fill the rest of the stone—most of them kids.

“There was a school here