Rise and Stay

Content warning: Contains themes of pregnancy loss and grief

Sunbeams turned floating flour into glitter—too pretty for the mess I’d made. My fingers twisted through sticky dough, a ball of goop on the counter. Outside, mina birds chirped. The sea sighed against the sand across the street, breeze heavy with salt and sweet plumeria. I breathed it in like it might help.

But the birds didn’t care. The sea didn’t care. They carried on, like the world hadn’t burned down.

Mine had.

BEEP.

The pre-heated oven broke my thoughts. And so did a smack on my bottom.

“What the hell you doing, Emi?” Tutu snapped. “We only got an hour to get these to the party. Get it together, ah?”

I rolled the irritating dough into a ball and punched it.

“Clock’s ticking,” Tutu added. “Cousin’s shower starts at noon. We not showing up empty-handed.”

“Mhhm.” I punched it again. I hated stubborn manapua. It never baked right—at least not for me.

Why I offered to bake manapua, when mine always turned out like gas station rolls, I couldn’t say. Bridal showers deserve better carbs. But the good news? Tutu helped me bake. The bad news? Tutu helped me bake.

Tutu’s dark eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

I nodded.

“Lies, aye?!” She yanked a fan, woven from hala leaves, and whacked me on the shoulder. “I know something wrong.”

Tutu used to say hala leaves could slap the bullshit out of anyone. As a kid, I’d often get a whack against my face, my bottom, the back of my head. Tutu wasn’t a gentle grandma.

You didn't hug Tutu—you bargained. You didn't tell her about your problems—you prayed not to become one of hers. Acting up meant getting whacked with woven leaves or rubber slippers. My butt knew both well.

Tutu, hardened by the loss of her kingdom, her land, her language, didn’t always like what I reminded her of. Maybe she didn't like me. But I knew she loved me—even as the half-white grandkid.

A gecko scurried across the cracked windowsill, its tiny claws tapping like the ticking of the old clock on the wall. I just needed one hour—one batch that didn’t collapse—to feel like I could do something right again.

Tutu sighed, her bare feet smacking across the tile. Her muʻumuʻu swished past me, the hem brushing my leg, dust clinging to the edge.

She stopped, eyed me from head to toe, and shook her head. The silence said it all: I baked like a toddler loose in a pantry, all flour and chaos.

The dough sagged under my fingers, wet and sticky. I beat it again with a fist, too hard.

“When you two gonna try again?” Tutu asked.

The question hit like hala to the face.

I didn’t answer right away. My eyes caught the scar slashed from her forehead to her nose—from of a fight with Papa forty years ago. He drove off down the street, but her muʻumuʻu got caught in the car door. He dragged her all the way to the traffic light, her face scraping gravel the whole way.

A doctor offered plastic surgery to fix it. She said no—wanted Papa to live with what he’d done, wanted his sin to stay on her face.

“Soon,” I said, looking away. I couldn’t say it yet—not out loud.

The smell of sweet meat and hoisin clung to the air. The pork hissed in the pan as Tutu swirled oil and sugar like she could do it in her sleep.

“Grief will keep you empty,” she said. “Gotta move on.”

Her words seared like the pork.

“Maybe I need to take some time to heal,” I said. “That's what mom says.”

“No waiting.”

“Yes, Tutu.”

Arguing with her was like yelling at lava rock: pointless, and if you poked it too much it might burn.

She slid the smoky pork into a bowl and eyeballed my kneading job with a scowl. She shoved her way beside me and punched the dough like she had a grudge.

Another scar zagged along her forearm, from a bar fight decades ago. A man whistled at her. He got a bottle cracked over his head, and she got a knife to the arm.

Her dark eyes drifted over me.

She sighed.

“I lost one too, you know.”

I froze. The fan clicked in the corner while a moped hissed past on the street outside. Tutu watched me warily.

“You?” I asked.

“Christmas Eve, ’68,” she said. “Car accident. Nine months pregnant. Baby girl.”

She rested her hand on mine.

I couldn’t believe it.

I’d seen Tutu gut a thousand fish with the same hand holding mine now. Watched her chase a drunk uncle down the street with a broom, cursing in Hawaiian, English, and pidgin. Once, when I blacked out after falling from a mango tree, she barked, “Walk it off!” But I didn't wake up, so she hiked my limp body over her shoulder and walked me three miles to the clinic.

But I'd never heard her open up—not like this.

“I still think ‘bout her all da time,” she said. “Especially on holidays.”

My breath caught. She’d always been moody, but in winter? She lost control. Fights, thrown beer bottles, cussing and insults. Christmas didn’t bring our ohana together. It tested us. Tutu made sure of that.

But now, I understood what I never had before. She didn't have some weird beef with Santa—just grief.

“I’m sorry, Tutu,” I said.

She grunted.

My mind drifted back to last week. The hospital smell clung to me—bleach, blood, the fake lemon scent. I couldn’t scrub it off.

David couldn’t get off work in time. I waited alone for hours in the ER, until I finally lay on the table while the ultrasound tech pressed cold gel against my abdomen.

“Is my baby okay?” I asked.

“I can’t say,” he said, eyes avoiding mine. Outside the doors, hospital staff laughed loudly, giggling and gossiping. I wanted to vomit.

I waited, stiff and silent, already knowing the results. It all blurred—blood, the tech’s silence, that hollow ache in my gut. One moment, I had queasiness. A backache. Congestion. The next—I felt fine. Empty.

Lost another.

David never blamed me. Said we were in this together.

But I blamed me–blamed my body. David kept hoping to be a dad. I kept breaking that hope like one of Tutu’s beer bottles when she got mad.

“Aye, Emi.” Tutu waved a hand in front of my face. I drifted back to the kitchen. The breeze, swaying the curtains. The air felt heavy.

My vision blurred. I gripped the counter just to stay upright. I’d kept the grief low, like a gas flame—but it burned its way up my throat.

“What the hell?” Tutu said, eyes wide. Tutu didn’t do emotion. But she didn’t laugh or scold or whack me again with hala leaves or tell me to cry to someone who cared.

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. I buried my face in her soft shoulder and sobbed. She smelled like cocoa butter and soy sauce.

We swayed. The chimes outside knocked together, annoying and nice, like they didn’t know how to sound.

BEEP.

The oven. One hour gone, noon right around the corner.

Tutu released me, set the dough onto a baking sheet, and slid it into the oven.

“Hopefully this one sticks, eh?” she said. “We gotta get out of here.”

My breath caught, and I almost laughed.

She meant the manapua. But something inside me rose, too—something stubborn. Hope, maybe. I’d taken a test this morning: positive. Behind the oven glass, the dough began to lift.

I pressed a hand to my belly. Please rise, I thought. Please stay.