Friday, February 8th, New Hampshire

"Is this the famous artist Katherine O'Malley?" were the first words I heard when I picked up the phone that cold February day.

"Daddy?" I asked, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.

"How's the weather over there in sunny New Hampshire these days?" he asked in his deep, unmistakable voice, the smiling, teasing tone clear.

"You're watching the weather channel aren't you?" I accused grumpily as I lifted my eyes to my apartment window and looked through the frost covered windows to the whiteout beyond.

"Gosh I miss shoveling the snow," he chuckled.

"Shut up daddy!" I ordered.

"Here I could be tobogganing down a mountain with my favorite daughter and instead I have to spend my days swimming and snorkeling and surfing in the warm, blue Pacific waters," he said, feigning sadness.

"I'm very busy right now father."

"Are you? Gosh Katy I hope I didn't interrupt you with your latest beau," my father said, his teasing tone now full of curiosity.

"Yeah right! Its two in the afternoon daddy ... it's not like I spend my days in bed with," I started, then quickly stopped, not wanting to discuss any aspect of my sex life, or lack of it, with my father.

"Craig said he thought you were on the verge of running off with some bearded, long haired weirdo who hunts defenseless animals," my father answered.

"Craig?" I sputtered, now not knowing if daddy was teasing me or if my stupid brother had made up some story up about me.

"Yup, I talked to him on Sunday."

"You did?"

"Yes, in fact he called me. I know, I know, it's unusual for children to call their parents but once in a while my son does takes the time to call his lonely old dad," he answered, a small complaint clear in his voice.

"I've called," I protested guiltily, knowing his implied criticism was based in fact. "Besides, Craig told me at Christmas that you have girlfriends passing almost non stop through your house."

"Girlfriends?" he asked. "And what does that have to do with my daughters continuing poor treatment of her old man?"

"It's disgusting," I accused, yet felt guilty the second I said it.

"This is coming from the daughter who hasn't come to visit her father in almost two years."

"Since you left mom, you mean?" I accused, my voice shrill.

"I didn't call to have an argument honey?"

"Please don't daddy," I finally whispered. "God, I just can't take any more ... shit, why do you always try to make me feel bad?" I demanded as I felt my voice getting louder and shriller. Don't, I warned myself.

"Things going badly honey?" dad asked, his soft inquiring tone now full of concern.

"Shit, I can't paint daddy ... not even a bloody vase of flowers ... its fucking snowing here every bloody day ... it's freezing ... I have no money ... or prospects ... I have no sex life ... Christ I haven't got properly laid in months ... do you really want to know if things are going 'baaaadly' daddy?" The words had exploded from my mouth, unbidden, unplanned. Aghast I banged the receiver twice hard against my thigh before bringing it back to my ear. Christ, had I used the word fuck? Had I told my father I hadn't got properly laid? I wanted to just smash the receiver back into its cradle and then run out into the snowstorm as I listened to the silence at the other end.

"Who is this? Where's Katherine O'Malley?" dad finally asked.

I was crying, six months frustration suddenly and unexpectedly released in a torrent of tears.

"Honey, are you okay?" dad asked when I didn't respond.

I hung up! Then I didn't answer the phone when it started to ring thirty seconds later.

I simply sat crying in the corner of my big couch feeling sorry for myself. Wondering why I was so sad. And then I started to berate myself for taking it out on my father. Another fucking wonderful day in the life of Katherine O'Malley I thought as the tears coursed down my cheeks.

I was almost twenty-one, hell it'd be only another five days until I hit the big TWO-ONE ... until I officially became an adult. Except I felt like a little girl, a lost and unhappy little girl. And I couldn't figure out why.

I was smart ... intelligent ... or so everyone had always said. I'd done well in school and had my pick of colleges. And I'd found something I loved ... and that I was good at. Art ... Painting. Except now I couldn't paint a bloody tree let alone the thousands of visions that flitted across my mind, demanding to be put down on paper.

I was athletic and good looking ... And yet I'd left a string of boyfriends lying in my wake the last two years. Somehow I'd been able to find every loser who managed to get within fifty miles of me. Okay fate can deliver the odd bad apple but when it happens again and again it's very hard not to realize that you've got something to do with the problem. It's something really great to learn about yourself, that if you're put in a room with nine perfect men and one loser that invariably you'll pick the loser.

And it had nothing to do with my father ... or did it?

He should never have divorced mom ... and I'd come to accept it as a given that all my problems started when my parents had separated. Even though I had been nineteen at the time and had finished my second year of Art College by then.

And why did I still measure every potential beau against him and my brother if he was so bad? And why did my most intimate thoughts and dreams so often include him? I mean I hadn't even seen him since he'd left for Hawaii some eighteen months earlier.

My brother Craig arrived four hours later, having driven the one hundred miles that separated his campus from my apartment in a driving, winter blizzard.

Angry at dad for sending him I still couldn't conceal the delight I felt when I opened the door and found his snow covered form on my doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, my smile telling him my real feelings. "You could have killed yourself you idiot ... are you crazy?"

"So, what's going on? One of these woman's monthly things?" were the first words from my brother's mouth.

"You didn't have to come ... just because I hung up on him..."

"Dad said if I didn't get my ass down here and report to him a.s.a.p. he'd..."

"He'd what?" I demanded. "He can't run our lives any more..."

"He'd never invite me back to Hawaii," Craig answered, then added, "and after that trip at Christmas..."

"What was so good about it," I asked, still angry that he'd been over to visit dad twice in the last fifteen months and I'd been too proud to go. My fault — I'd declined dad's repeated invitations.

"Surfing ... hot girls ... sex," he said with a big grin.

"You were staying with dad," I protested, pretty sure he couldn't have slept with any girls during his ten day sojourn in the islands. But even as I said it I knew better. It had taken me quite a while to figure out how attractive most girls, heck, not just girls, all women, found Craig O'Malley.

It wasn't that he was the handsomest guy in the world, it's just that he has something. People like him ... he's nice ... and has the cutest smile. At least that's what my high school girlfriends had convinced me of one night when we were having a sleepover our senior year. We'd been discussing our boyfriends, guys in our class, movie stars, and then somehow my sixteen year old brother's name had come up. And there had been immediate and unanimous agreement that Craig was hot.

"My brother?" I'd shrieked, completely mystified.

"I wish I was sixteen again," my best friend Ellie had insisted.

"He's almost as good looking as your dad," another chimed in. And then for the next twenty minutes six high school girls discussed the relative sexual attractiveness of my brother and father.

And Craig's grown out into a man since then. He has that easy casual strength a natural athlete has, a way of entering a room that attracts immediate attention. There is nothing artificial, gym fed about his body, instead he came by his attractiveness naturally — he'd inherited it from dad.

"So what's for dinner anyway?" he asked as he shook the snow from his coat, breaking into my jumbled thoughts.

"Dinner?"

"Well if there's no major catastrophic event that took place in Miss O'Malley's life today maybe she could take a few minutes and prepare something for her starving brother."

"I wasn't expecting anybody."

"Not even that weirdo you've been dating," he asked, his teasing tone so much like dads.

"It's your fault," I accused. "What did you tell dad anyway?" I demanded, my finger angrily pointing at him.

"I told him that his crazy daughter has buried herself in some godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere and only dates strange, bearded guys who smoke dope and wander around half the day on snowshoes, trapping and killing any little animal with fur they find," he answered grinning.

"I only went out with him once. Did you really tell dad about him?"

"Do they have a pizza parlor in this town?" he asked, ignoring my comment.

"We're in the middle of a bloody blizzard," I squawked.

"You should be living in New York City. Then at least they're be something to do when I came to visit you."

And the thing was he was right! I'd graduated the prior spring, then, after a couple of weeks at home with mom and Craig, had retreated to a small town in northern New Hampshire, having convinced myself that living alone in a raw, natural environment would somehow be cathartic in the development of my artistic vision.

Except it hadn't been. My small apartment at the edge of town, a town of only five hundred people, was a poorly furnished dump. And although I'd had a little money saved I'd soon found myself having to work as a barmaid four nights a week at 'NAKED BEARS', a place that catered to hunters and loggers, was decorated with stuffed animal heads and NRA posters, and which featured at least two donnybrooks every weekend. And had my ass pinched at every second table I served.

"I have some frozen dinners," I admitted as he opened the fridge and then the freezer. "But we better cook them quickly," I added with a grin, unable to be angry with this brother I loved.

"How come?"

"The power could go out anytime ... we lose it every time we get a storm ... like four times already this winter."

He cooked six of them ... my complete stock, claiming he was hungry and that if the power did go out we'd have something for breakfast. So we sat on the living room floor, drinking beers and talking as we ate. And, around eleven, pitiful little ole me realized it was the best evening I'd had since I'd been home at Christmas.

Then the power went out just before midnight! And so the two of us ended up side by side, fully dressed, sleeping on my mattress which we'd taken from my bedroom and tossed on the floor in front of the fire. And the loser and pervert that I was I dreamed of how nice it would be if we were naked! Entwined. With me fully cocked! By my brother ... Sicko...

Saturday, February 9th New Hampshire

We each ate a cold Frozen Turkey Dinner for breakfast, the jellied cranberries and lumpy gravy washed down with orange juice. Yuck! Fortunately the storm had died out during the night and when we finally ventured outside around noon hour we were faced by a thick carpet of virgin snow that seemed to blanket the whole world.

"I don't think you'll be able to get back to school today," I said after we'd battled our way down the walk to the road. Craig's car, on my small driveway, was buried under a mound of snow.

"At least they've plowed," he answered as we surveyed the road. "Anyway, as long as we can get out tomorrow morning we'll be okay."

"We?"

"Uh huh," he said enigmatically, then, suddenly laughing, turned to me and quickly lifted me into his arms and tossed me into a four foot deep snowdrift which swallowed me completely.

"I'll kill you," I shrieked to his retreating back when I finally managed to pull my face free from the snow. It's not fair I thought to myself as I brushed off, heck, I'm five-nine, athletic and yet my little brother can lift me up and handle me like I'm a little girl.

But at least he had the fire blazing when I stumbled through the door five minutes later.

We took our first tentative steps to treating each other as adults that afternoon. Just casual talking ... but not as older sister and younger brother but as ... oh gosh, it's hard to describe ... but different. Was he going to be someone really important in my future life, a best friend ... or simply the brother (and uncle to my kids) who lived in Cleveland or Philly and who I saw once a year? That afternoon we started down the path to becoming adult friends. It was kinda nice.

"Can I paint you?" I suddenly asked Craig as we sipped our beers later that afternoon.

"Me? A model?" he asked with a small grimace.

"Yes, the handsome, young, college sophomore snowshoeing across the frozen tundra," I answered laughing, as a vision of Craig, clad in a three piece, pinstriped suit with a toque on his head flashed through my mind.

"I'm not going outside," he promised but then asked, "and according to dad you claim you can't even paint a vase of flowers these days."

"Flowers are tougher than dumb brothers," I teased back. And then, for the next couple of hours I was happy again, quickly sketching Craig from a variety of angles, somehow my artistic skill reborn. He talked easily as I worked, letting me have a glimpse inside his life as he described his school courses, his girlfriends, the music he liked, politics (something we'd never discussed), even some of his dreams.

And normally shy me tried to reciprocate, and ended up telling my little brother things I'd never told anyone.

"So where do you think we're going tomorrow," I asked when I finally remembered his comment from earlier about me accompanying him when he left the next morning.

"Boston. Hell, I better shovel the car out and make sure it starts before it gets too late," he said as he stood up.

"Boston? What's in Boston?" I asked even as my eyes roved across his stretched t-shirt, a t-shirt that did little more than highlight his muscled chest and flat stomach. Quickly flicking my eyes even lower I took in the bulge of maleness that seemed far too large for the blue jeans that held them. I quickly looked back up.

"Logan International Airport," he answered, his face all of a sudden sporting a smug grin.

"Are you going somewhere? Do you need a ride?" I asked, now completely at sea, my mind still contemplating, estimating his size.

"Why do you think dad called you yesterday? What do you think he didn't have time to tell you before you so rudely hung up on him?"

"I wasn't rude ... what didn't he say?"

"That being the wonderful father that he is, he has bought his daughter, the most important person in his life"

"Hah," I grumbled, interrupting him.

"Well after me ... and I guess after a couple of those sweet little Hawaiian girls he's been hanging out with lately," Craig added with a smirk and a wink. "Anyway, this kind father has bought his favorite daughter a plane ticket that will whisk her away to Maui, Hawaii where she will spend her twenty-first birthday, the day she finally becomes a woman, surfing with her loving father."

"I can't go," I spat out. "I won't," I insisted as my suddenly silent brother looked on bemusedly. "I have my art ... my job ... stop smiling like that," I ordered as he continued to say nothing. "You're not funny!"

"Here, I printed out your ticket and boarding pass before I left school," he answered as he pulled a folded envelope out of his back pocked. "And dad expects you to bring a very nice present for him."

"I didn't get him anything," I answered, then quickly reddened in embarrassment when he gave me a disapproving look. It had always been the biggest week of the year in our family- my birthday the 13th, Valentines Day the 14th, then dad's birthday the 15th. Three days of family celebration that had provided all of us with our warmest memories, a panorama of love that stretched back twenty years.

"You can give him the picture you just painted of me," Craig said smiling, interrupting my thoughts of happier family days.

"Why would he want a picture of you?" I muttered.

For five minutes he let me ramble on with reasons why I couldn't possibly go and it was only when I finally stopped talking, that he said quietly, "Listen sis, I am going to get you to Gate 27 at Logan by noon hour tomorrow and that's that. If you don't want to get on the plane that's your decision. Break your father's heart if you have to."

"You can't make me go," I said even as I knew with one hundred percent certainty that Craig was going to deliver me to the airport no matter what I said or did. "Why are you doing what he says? Why are you always on daddy's side?"

"We're both worried about you," he answered simply.

"You are? Why?"

"Because we both love you."

"But..."

"I don't know why ... you're a real pain in the rear end most of the time ... But this is crap," he added as his hands indicated the room in general but also in a way that made me understand he was talking about the way I was living my life.

"I am not a pain," I insisted as I slipped into his embrace and let my tears of both joy and sadness be soaked up by his t-shirt.

He gave me my birthday present after dinner that night, and then insisted I open it then and there. "You'll need it in Hawaii," he said as I contemplated the gift wrapped package.

"It's not a very big gift," I mock complained as I suspiciously shook the small package.

"That's for sure," he agreed with a grinning smirk as I started to open the package.

"No way ... NO ... NO ... WAAAAY little brother," I promised as I held up the two pieces, the top in my left hand, the bottoms in my right. Craig laughed, insisted I try it on, told me if I wanted anyone to notice me I'd better get with it, that Hawaii was the swimming suit big leagues.

I was finally convinced to at least try it on. Here we were in the middle of February in snow covered New Hampshire and I'm dressing myself in two little pieces of cloth that didn't have a total of one square foot of material. It wasn't a thong exactly, the panties were more a Brazilian boy short, cut so high that half of my cheeks were spilling out. In front the thin, yellow cloth barely covered my pubic triangle. The bra, two triangles just managed to barely cover my full, round breasts.

After minutes of watching myself in the mirror, trying to see what I looked like from every angle, I finally heard Craig's order to get back out there and let him see if it was okay.

I didn't want to and yet of course wanted to. I was nervous ... and excited. It's just your brother, can't hurt, I tried to convince myself when I finally opened the bedroom door.

His eyes as they opened in surprise combined with the gasped out, "Whaaat the" told me all I had to know about what he thought.

"It's not me ... it's too ... too," I stammered, loving the effect I was producing even while pretending the opposite.

"Look out Hawaii," he finally blurted, "shit Kate, I hope dad has a gun, he'll going to need it to fight off all the surfer dudes who'll be chasing after you."

"You think its okay?"

"If you weren't my sister," he threatened with a wolfish leer. Joking yes, but I couldn't help but notice that I'd given my little brother a hard-on. Except, at least according to any I'd ever seen before, it seemed way too big. What the hell did he have in there I wondered.

With the power back on that night I slept in my bedroom — alone. While Craig slept on my sofa. I'm not sure what might have happened if we'd have slept together that night. But looking back I'm pretty sure I never would have got on the plane to Hawaii.

But we didn't sleep together and therefore at six a.m. on Sunday morning, Febuary 10th 2008, I followed my brother, who was carrying the bag I'd taken two hours to pack the night before, out my front door and down to his car, my first step towards the most beautiful place on Earth and my waiting father.

Which worked out just fine after all!

Sunday, February 10th, 3:30 p.m., Maui, Hawaii

I almost didn't recognize him standing in the terminal, a huge welcoming smile on his face. His hair was longer, lighter from the sun and salt than I remembered, and he sported a new (at least for me who hadn't seen him in eighteen months) bushy mustache that hung Fu Manchu like from his upper lip. His skin which had always tanned easily in the summer (unlike my whiter skin) was now a glistening, rich golden color. He was wearing one of those outlandish Hawaiian shirts over a pair of white surfing shorts and a pair of rope sandals. He looked ridiculous. He was my father. I'd always loved him!

Which I guess is why I dropped my bags, raced over the ten yards that separated us and then hurtled myself at him. And was immediately enveloped in his strong arms and then lifted effortlessly in the air, he easily twirling me around as his lips kissed my cheek and lips. I had tears in my eyes when he finally set me back on my feet. Any trepidation either of us had at our reunion instantly gone.

"So I guess we missed each other a little bit," he offered shyly, a tentative grin on his face.

"Maybe," I admitted, then added as I touched the hairy growth on his lip, "and hey, where'd you get these ... these ... clothes?"

"Picking on your old man already are you kiddo?" he grumbled, but in a teasing, loving tone that I recognized so well and which sent a shiver down my spine. Stepping back he quickly ran his eyes up and down my body appraisingly, then asked, "Craig did tell you Hawaii and not Alaska didn't he?"

"Ha, ha daddy," I answered as I slipped my arms from the ski jacket that was good in temperatures down to minus 30 degrees and then handed it to him, then pulled my blue, vee necked cashmere sweater over my head and then shook out my hair. Then was suddenly shy.

Bra less, I could feel my breasts dancing under the light blue cotton tank top that was my only remaining covering. I saw approval in his eyes as he watched this sudden unplanned show and then couldn't stop the hardening of my nipples as he watched. I shoulda worn a bra I chastened myself even as I delighted in the attention.

"I don't usually wear a bra that often ... not when I'm around the house ... painting ... it's more comfortable ... I mean I ... I sorta didn't think," I blurted as I reddened, suddenly afraid what he'd think.

"That's nice," he answered maddeningly, still the man it was almost impossible to faze (and I'd pulled some pretty wild pranks during my teenage years), as he bent down and grabbed the bag he'd been carrying when I'd first seen him. And then he slowly put one, then a second, then a third string of beautiful flowers around my neck. Which fortunately hid the evidence of my nippled excitement from his eyes. Or was it fortunate?

"Now I don't want you telling everyone when you get home that you weren't 'Properly Lei'ed' when you came to Hawaii," he admonished with a grin as he adjusted the leis around my neck.

"You're so funny dad," I answered laughing, knowing I was going to pay for my inadvertent remark on the phone about my love life. Smiling he took one of my hands in his as he grabbed my bag with his other one, then led me out towards paradise.

It's a different world. Okay, yes, it is just another state, just one of fifty. But it only takes you maybe five minutes over here to realize that every minute of your life you've spent somewhere else was a pale imitation of what life should be. For an artist it was almost too much, the dazzling colors and tropical smells simply blasted into my brain, threatening a complete sensual overload. I was actually gasping as dad directed his topless jeep away from the airport.

I'd decided well before we pulled up in front of his house, a house that seemed only seconds away from being swallowed by the jungle like foliage that surrounded it, that Hawaii was my new home, that I'd never live anywhere else.

A northeasterner, a mainlander like me, has no vocabulary to adequately describe a house in Hawaii or the grounds that surround it. You're faced with asking a thousand questions, 'what do you call that tree?', or bird, or flower or fish. Within days you know what a 'lanai' is, what a hundred different new words are, but at first you simply follow open mouthed as your father leads you through his house and grounds.

And you end up at the back of his house, beyond the lush garden that surrounds the pool and the 'lanai', and you find yourself looking down upon a view that simply takes your breath away, a view you know you could paint for the next fifty years and still not get bored. You watch the lowering sun as it dances across the white tipped waves and want to cry. You've found your home!

Hawaii, Monday, February 11th

Just before nine that first night I'd abruptly hid a wall, the time change and the emotional excitement of having seen daddy again after so long suddenly knocking me out. I was in bed by nine - we'd been talking almost nonstop since the second I'd deplaned. The anger I'd secretly harbored against him since the divorce had completely dissipated.

So, my body still on New Hampshire time, I was up early the next morning, popping out of bed before five a.m. fully refreshed after eight hours sleep. And then, with a glass of orange juice in one hand and my painting supplies (easel, sketchbook and paints) precariously held in my other, I wandered out across the lanai and back down to the edge of dad's property and the view that had so mesmerized me the night before.

The little crescent of what I learned later was called Molokini was below and across the water, the more ominous shadow of Kahoolawe farther beyond. The beaches of Wailea, small sandy arcs at the edge of the foaming sea, were below and to my right while the western Maui Mountains loomed across the ocean. And at my back Haleakala, a now quiet volcano that held dad's house on its lower slopes.

Engrossed in my work, I only just heard the sound of a glass door sliding open at just after seven. Looking up and peering between the plants I saw dad as he emerged through the doors that led directly from his bedroom to the pool deck. He wore just a towel around his waist. Curious, I swallowed the friendly 'good morning' that was on the tip of my tongue and watched silently.

I saw him look up quickly at the house (checking for any life from me?), then stunned, I gasped softly when he let the towel drop and walked over to the outdoor shower that stood at the edge of the lanai. Embarrassed, but spellbound, I simply watched, watched as he ran a bar of soap over his chest, then down across his stomach and down between his legs.

I found myself with goose bumps when seconds later he stepped out from the cascade of water and then headed directly towards me. Panicky, unsure what I could possibly say, I only breathed again when he turned and jumped into the pool. He swam for twenty minutes, back and forth, lap after lap, and my eyes never left his tanned butt as he glided through the water. But it was what I'd seen swinging between his legs as he'd walked toward the pool that had burned itself deep into my brain. Heck, no wonder Craig had looked so big under his jeans I thought, he inherited something else from dad.

And when I looked down at my sketchpad I found I'd somehow drawn an incredibly detailed picture of my father's penis. Okay, okay, it's just a penis I tried to convince myself as I walked across he lawn back towards the house. Yeah sure!

Unfortunately dad, now dressed, was sitting at the kitchen table when I slipped inside the kitchen five minutes later. I could see the surprise, the question in his eyes before he finally welcomed me, "Hey, you're up ... I thought you were still sleeping. What can I make you for breakfast?" he added, his curiosity never leaving his eyes.

"I woke early ... still on New Hampshire time I guess ... I saw the sunrise ... I was trying to draw," I stammered.

"Can I see?" he asked as he moved towards me with open hand.

"No ... I mean they're just sketches ... they're not finished," I started, but then looked at dad and admitted, "I was at the end of the yard ... I saw you..."

"Swimming?"

"Naked," I said with a look that was part grimace and part embarrassment.

"I shouldn't have ... I thought you were still," he started to explain.

"I shoulda said something ... but then you dropped your towel," I said before tailing off.

"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," dad promised.

"Do you always swim nude?" I asked as I remembered his tanned butt, the lack of tan lines anywhere.

"Well, my morning swim, or when I'm alone," he explained, clearly a little embarrassed himself.

"Or when those Hawaiian girls Craig was talking about come over?" I asked grinning.