"Lunch!"
"Joe, honey . . . " She dropped the drawl. "I'm busy today, let's see . . . How about Tuesday? I want to check something out on the windward side. We could eat over there."
"Good deal."
On Tuesday, she picked him up by the sandbox on the lower level of the shopping center. As they drove toward the pali, Joe said, "I'm sentimental about that sandbox. Kate used to play there." He was surprised to see pain flicker on Mo's face. "What's the matter?"
"I had a child, once. He died—when he was two—from a condition my husband forgot to tell me ran in his family. His nerves didn't work."
"How awful."
"I don't think about it much," Mo said. They were silent for a few minutes. "So, what have you been doing?"
"Losing money. I got completely involved in the market. I made a major mistake, but I learned a lot."
"I'll show you where I took the bamboo picture," she said, turning onto the old pali road. She turned again and stopped by a weathered concrete bridge. They got out and walked to the other end of the bridge where a tall grove had grown from the bank below. Mo put her elbows on the side wall of the bridge, and leaned out, midway up the grove. Joe leaned out beside her. A breeze stirred and they were enveloped by melodious knocking, a hundred percussionists set free.
"Wow!" Joe said. "A bamboo orchestra. I've never heard that before." They listened for a few minutes and then drove through the pali tunnel, emerging high over Kaneohe Bay—planes of pure light green, turquoise, dark blue. "Just another day in paradise," he said.