Page 70 of Up in Flames
"She knew you loved her, Kaleo. She knew it every day. You didn't have to be there for her to know it. You didn't even haveto tell her for her to know. Love... Aloha... comes from the heart, but it lives there, too."
He nodded. "Yeah, I know... But I still feel like I should have been there."
"What happened?"
"There was a car accident today. We were called to the scene where two cars were hit by a train. The only survivor from both cars was a little girl."
Images from the scene played over and over in his head.
"When we rescued her from the car, she hugged me, holding me so tight."
He heard his mother's soft chuckle through the phone. "A little'opihi."
He laughed out loud. "The EMT I was working with said limpet."
"Funny, isn't it?" His mother sighed. "No matter where you go in this world, there are things that are same all over the place."
"It's true. It's so true." He leaned against the table and smiled. "She held on and I had to hold her all the way to the hospital and then for a while in the Emergency Room until she got used to things. Well that and Lexie gave her a stuffed animal."
"Ahhh..." His mother's voice was full of love. "Thrown over for a stuffy."
It was true. "It wasn't until later, hours later, that I realized I used to hugTutulike that when I would cry as a kid."
"She was always your favorite when you were sad."
There was so much truth in his mother's words. There was no denying it.
"Yeah... I just remember when she was sick. When she died, I was at hula class."
A sharp ache settled in his chest.
"I should have been there with her."
"Kaleo, you were a little boy, and no one wants to think that people in their lives are human. Frail. That we'll die someday. We want our loved ones to live forever."
"If only that was possible."
"Her passing was something no one could predict."
He nodded, silent on his end of the call.
"She was sick, but she'd beat bigger battles before. She had breast cancer before you were born. She beat that. How could anyone think that the flu would be enough to take her."
"I just wish... I wish I could have told her that I loved her one more time."
"Don't we all. But, I bet you tell her love her all the time. You just don't know it."
He felt his forehead pinch in a frown.
"When you do your job. When you help save people. When you do what you love as a job. She knows. She feels that love, Kaleo. And I hope you feel her love, too."
"Yeah."
He felt Lexie's arms around his middle and her head against his back.
She was holding him.
Hugging him.
Every
