Chapter 8

The landing gear thumped down, the brakes grabbed, and the plane rolled to a stop at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. Hawaiian music was playing somewhere in the terminal, soft and warm, and when Maggie stepped off the plane, the air hit her face like a mist of perfume.

Fifty years old. She was fifty years old, and she had never felt so awake.

The sky was full of pale pink light. The ocean was behind the terminal, and she could smell it, salt and green things. She walked down the jet bridge with her small rolling bag, and there was a man holding a sign, a driver with a bright smile waiting for tourists. She got into the taxi line, and the sky was so huge, and she was a person who had a boarding pass in her pocket that proved she existed.

Richard caught up to her at the taxi stand. He had his own bag, his own ticket, his own careful distance. He didn't touch her; he just stood close enough to be read as an offer.

"I booked a room at the Royal Hawaiian," he said. "Separate beds."

Maggie absorbed that. Separate beds.

"Okay," she said.

The taxi ride took forty minutes. The driver, an older man with gold rings on his fingers and the patience of someone who had been born on these roads, told them about the fish market and the surf report and the place to get the best shave ice on the island. Maggie listened, and the car hummed, and the sun went down in a blaze of color.

They checked in. The room was large and white and smelled faintly of plumeria. Richard set his bag on the floor beside the far bed and looked at her. "I'll sleep on the lanai if you want."

"No," Maggie said. "We're married. We're allowed to share a room."