You have your mother's eyes.
        “We could look it over right now,” I said, gesturing toward the darkening silhouette of the church. “Meet the priest, if you want.”
        Your mother thought about this for a long moment, then finally shook her head. “We do know people here, but they're your friends more than mine. For a baptism we need family, godparents, our very closest friends. I just don't want to have Rachael christened here . . . I'm sorry.”
        “I'm ready to go,” Daniel announces, popping the last french fry into his mouth.
        “Me too,” David says. Miss Junior Miss Hawaiian Island Beauty has already finished her burger and left. Michael pushes his chair back. With only two days left before our departure, I can tell the boys' thoughts are already turning toward Kansas and home.
“OK, let me pay the check.”
        Outside, the gray light has dissolved into the tranquil dark of a cool Hawaiian night. Above our heads, above the Spanish cathedral-like spires of Cook pines, the blue-black sky is laced with stars. There's no hurry here, and we seem to drift more than walk along the sidewalk, away from the fading clatter and din of the café toward the shadow of the laundrette, toward whatever future awaits us. When your mother's familiar slim silhouette looms up out of the gloom before us, I can't help but think: Keep trying.
        She walks into the cone of white light from the street lamp in front of Art of Lana`i, and I notice she's frowning. “Where's Rachael?”
        David is the swiftest. He reaches the door of the Blue Ginger before the rest of us can cut across the grass. Through the screen door I spot him nodding red-faced to the round Hawaiian woman, who sits beside your stroller like a stern sentry. When she sees me coming through the door, she shakes her head and says: “You forgot your keiki!”
        The Filipino girl who runs the register, the middle-aged Filipino cook, and the other half dozen diners all stare at us as David grabs the handle of the stroller and begins to push you—still snoozing away, traveling your own uncharted dreamscape—toward the door.
I say it before they can: “Stupid haoles.”
        “I can't believe you left her behind,” Mary says when we're all outside again.
        “You left the laundry,” I reply.
        No one laughs. The night settles on us heavily as we trudge toward the laundrette. Even Daniel walks with shoulders sagging. When we reach the dimly-lit laundrette, I see from the brown wicker basket that Auntie with Quarters has the good dryer, as usual, though she's nowhere in sight at the moment. The laundrette is deserted except for the whirring drone of the two melancholy machines. Like exhausted hounds after the chase, the boys settle themselves on the grass lawn outside while Mary pushes you through the open doorway. I follow.

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