The Wave of the Stars

Chapter Ten // The Painting

Happy baby cooing filled the sun-streaked living room in the middle of the day. Maren laid on the floor, happily clutching her new seashell blanket in her hand and waving it back and forth in the air. She would start crawling soon and Kanoa couldn't be happier as she sat on the couch, hand in hand with Brennan, watching their Maren learn and grow. The Beach Boys spun on in the background, and the drapes blew in the salty breeze. And only the beach, as always, was missing from this near-perfect picture.

Kanoa had countless photos of herself as a baby sitting in sand or eating sand or walking in the water as it breathed upon the shore. Maren had...next to none. Her sweet, chubby baby was going to have a very different babyhood than Kanoa had originally hoped and dreamed, but she would make it worthwhile. It would be spent, often, in this living room, with the window open, and The Beach Boys on the record player and there wasn't anything inherently wrong with that image, except the missing water and miniscule-crushed-seashells and rocks, and--but, Kanoa reminded herself again and again, it would be okay.

"I am going to church tomorrow." Brennan broke the sacred silence with a not-exactly-welcomed statement

"Oh." She shifted, ever so slightly, to look at him. He met her eyes with ocean depths of courage and strength shining in his own.

"I am going to Olive's church. Do you...want to come?" Brennan's thumb caressed the back of her hand and she resisted the urge to withdraw her hand.

"No." She was just going to tell him straight out and he would have to be okay with that. She knew Brennan had grown up going to church. She knew she'd grown up going to Mass. She knew why she'd stopped and why she'd decided to never go back.

"Okay." Brennan squeezed her hand and didn't press the issue further.

Kanoa leaned her head on his shoulder, looking back to Maren as she sporadically shook her arms and squealed at nothing in particular. "Thank you."

"I talked to my sister yesterday."

An odd shift in conversation, but not an unwelcome one. "How is she?"

"She is well. Mother is...not so well." Brennan's face pressed into a grim line. "I wish they were closer so I could help."

"I know. I wish we were closer to anybody in our family."

"Kanoa," he whispered, his hand squeezing hers again, "we do not have to stay here."

"But this is home." Kanoa whispered against his shirt, shutting her eyes to the possibility of yet more change in such a short span.

"No...you and Maren are my home. No place can define home to me." He stopped, body moving with his deep breath, "Of course I hold a longing for Tanzania, for South Africa, and for mother's cooking. But," He placed a hand over Kanoa's heart, "this is where my home remains. Always."

Kanoa placed her hand over his and closed her eyes tighter still. "Thank you for giving up so much for me, Bren. I don't think you know how much your love means to me." She took his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "You mean so much to me." Tears in her eyes again. Was this to never stop? When would her emotions get back to normal?

"Oa." Brennan wiped his thumb beneath her eyes. "Why the tears?"

"I can't stop crying lately." Kanoa sniffed and tried to laugh.

"Come." He opened her arms and she leaned in.

"I feel so stupid."

"Tears are not stupid."

Kanoa could only shake her head as they continued like a waterfall which only reminded her of O'ahu which served to make her think about her mother and her father and missing places and people and not being content to just stay here forever. But she couldn't even think about leaving yet. Why couldn't she be so easygoing like Brennan?

They stayed there for a while, Maren content to entertain herself and kick her legs and babble nonsensical baby words that meant very much to her and babies across the world but very little to anybody else, and Kanoa locked in Brennan's embrace as they cried together over joys and losses, over pain and healing, over just about everything there was to cry about. They were running out of tissue boxes in their house.

Eventually Kanoa pulled away--not because she exactly wanted to, but because she was inspired to paint something within her that she needed to express in a safe manner. Brennan released her and she scooted into her wheelchair and into her office to pull out her paints and paper. She took it to the kitchen, taping the paper to the table, and beginning.

After an hour of painting in silence, a conglomeration of shapes and colors was present upon the paper and Kanoa's face--a very Van Gogh sort of styled version of her face--looked back at her, the expression present going from deep, majestic blues then downturned to fire-red and hot volcanic spewings then to a purple of darkness and despair...to the very middle which held a burst of small, defined light--a semblance of hope. The ocean's waves were painted all around her portrait, sometimes washing over her in agony, sometimes in renewal. But it was the eyes that struck Kanoa. They were her mother's photographed eyes.

Was this how people on the outside saw her now? If Brennan took her photo, would the same pain-filled eyes reflect back? Kanoa couldn't let that happen. She had to release the pain through paint. This helped take the bricks off of her chest.

Brennan's warmth seeped into her back and Kanoa knew he was taking in every detail of the painting and her heart sped up and burned and chilled and slowed all at the same time. What would he say? What would he do? After a few moments of swinging her legs off the edge of a cliff, he still had no words. Kanoa opened her mouth to break the silence, but Brennan moved past her to pick up her brushes and begin rinsing them out at the sink.

It was an action of love and acceptance--an action that superseded words and Kanoa's heart burst with sudden, severe, encompassing love for him. He placed her brushes on a towel on the table and sat across from her, hands clasped together, face drawn in solemn lines.

"Kanoa..." He breathed and spread his hands open. What would his next words be? What if he asked her to give up painting? Why was she suddenly so worried? Wasn't she just so overflowing with love for him a moment ago? "Can I keep this?" He gestured toward the painting and Kanoa's fears and defenses vanished under the weight of his question.

"You want my painting?"

"If that is alright with you." His dark brown eyes of eternity searched her temporal, faltering ones. Could he see the pain present within them that she was so afraid of?

"Yes." He was constantly surprising her with these acts of love that she didn't know were possible and she was constantly feeling overwhelmed by his endless showcase of patience and care and how intentional he was with her fragility. "Please keep it, Bren. It would mean the world to me for you to have it."

His face cracked into a wide smile and he didn't look away from her. "You know you are the most beautiful creation I have ever seen in my life."

Kanoa's cheeks heated and she pressed a paint-stained hand to one. "You're making me blush, Bren."

"That is always my goal." He winked at her and Kanoa turned even redder. This was her husband. Her sweet, strong husband. "Even with all of this--all of these feelings and questions inside of you," He waved a hand over her painting, "you are still breathtaking."

"Bren." Kanoa tried to keep her voice steady. Why couldn't she stop crying? "You're supposed to keep me from crying." Her lips lifted into a wobbly smile. "I don't deserve you."

Brennan snorted. "No, Oa. I see your strength. I see your fire. I see the way you still fight to live against the odds. It is I who does not deserve you."

But what if she wasn't as strong as he insisted she was? And what if she stopped fighting? What if the odds became so very stacked against her that she couldn't help but crumble beneath them? Would his love burn out if her own internal fire did?

But, a flicker of hope lit within her heart, stoking the coals--what if that was exactly it about love? What if the recipient changed in themself, but love remained ever constant?