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“Then perhaps we should try?” I asked.
Ari frowned. “What are you saying? Faking a relationship like Kai and Visir did? That’s something he could get away with, not me.”
“Not faking it. Just trying.”
A look of surprise flashed across his face, and for a moment he seemed vulnerable again. “Is that really what you want?”
“I don’t want our baby to be born into something fractured. I know this might be completely ridiculous, but maybe we could find a way to make it work for us.”
“If your justification is the happiness of the child, it’s not a good idea. They won’t be happy with parents who are pretending to love each other.”
“I never said anything about love. I’m just talking about trying.”
“Is that really what you want?” he asked.
“By the time the baby comes, maybe we’ll know what we want.”
He sighed. “This is a terrible idea. And it’s also the best idea.”
“It’s the only idea,” I said with a wry smile.
* * *
Ari asked Grandma Payaka and his cousins to join us in the common room, and we sat on cushions on the floor not too far from the ancestor totems where this whole debacle had its start.
“No mangos?” she asked, settling down into her well-worn cushion embroidered with crashing waves.
“No mangos,” he replied. “And I think it’ll all make sense why in a moment.”
She smiled at us. “Okay, go ahead.”
Ari looked like he could’ve been one of Makoa’s carvings, he was so tense. He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.
“Ari got me pregnant,” I announced. No point in dragging it out further.
His lips thinned to a near-invisible line.
“I deeply apologize for not being forthright with you about this earlier,” he said. “And I know this must be quite a surprise to hear.”
She nodded slowly. “The only thing I’m surprised about is that you told me so soon.”
Kai laughed. “No way, Grandma. You knew?”
“Who do you take me for? I’m the matriarch of this clan. Do you know how many births I’ve been present for, not to mention your own?”
“True,” Kai said.
“What is with you kids and trying to hide things from me?” she said. “And thinking I wouldn’t notice?”
Ari was sweating an ocean, and I was doing my best not to laugh.
“What gave it away?” I asked. “My bump?”
Grandma Payaka snorted. “Bump? There have been over a dozen signs I noticed well before you started showing. No, I’ve been waiting to see how you two would handle this.”
“We intend to do right by the clan traditions and have a trial relationship,” Ari said. “I never meant to do anything that would dishonor the Blue Fin name.”
“I know you didn’t,” she said. “I know your father shouldered you with heavy expectations. I’d done the same with him. You don’t need to be so hard on yourself, Ari. It’s taken me far too long to open my eyes to the blind hopes I’d placed on you all, but after Kai and Visir’s union, I’ve realized that all I want for my grandchildren is for you to be happy.”
