The Sea That Watches
The morning smelled like scorched sugar and salt, which meant Kalani had burned the breakfast again and left the windows open to hide it.
Moana stood in the doorway of the little tin-roofed house, watching steam curl off two cups of coffee that neither of them would drink in peace. Her aunt sat hunched at the table, spooning papaya into a bowl with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb. Outside, the volcano's shoulder caught the first orange light, and somewhere below the ridge, a rooster shrieked like it owed someone money.
"You're going to be late," Kalani said, not looking up.
"For what? I don't have anywhere to be." Moana crossed her arms. "That's kind of the whole problem, isn't it?"
Kalani's spoon paused over the bowl. Just for a second. Then it kept moving, scraping against ceramic, and that small, stubborn silence told Moana everything she needed to know about how this conversation would go. The same way it always went. The same way it had gone since she was seven years old and had first asked why she didn't have a mother's face to compare her own to in the mirror.
"Eat something," Kalani said instead.
"I'm not hungry."
"You're always hungry. You eat like a…