Prints in the Sand: My Journey with Nanea

The doorbell jolts me awake, echoing through the house. For a moment I forget where I am. Mango’s already alert, clawing at Nanea’s bedroom door as though the house were on fire. Beside me, Nanea sits up and mumbles a question about the time. Neither of us has an answer, though we both know Mango wants to get out.

Half-asleep, we shuffle after him into the living room, where Nanea’s mother, Mrs. Mitchell, is waiting with a woman and her young son. The moment he catches sight of Mango, the boy hollers, “Niu!” and sprints toward him. Mango greets him with a flurry of doggie kisses that nearly pushes him over. Clearly these two have met before.

Apologizing for the early hour, the woman explains that Mrs. Santos thought Nanea’s family might be looking after her missing dog. He’d bolted during yesterday’s air-raid drill, and they’d been hunting for him nonstop since.

Curious, I ask Nanea what niu means, and she explains it translates to coconut. Picturing Mango under a different name feels odd—a reminder that Mango was never mine in the first place. And although I wish he was mine, I know it’s time for him to return to his real family, just like it’s almost time for me to go home, too.

After the boy and his mother walk Niu out the door, Nanea and I plop down on the front porch. We draw patterns in the red dirt with our bare feet. She thanks me for lending a hand in bringing Niu home, and I admit it was fun.

Helping Niu left me feeling good, too, in a way I can’t quite name. I ask what the word was that Auntie Rose used. Nanea asks if I mean kokua, and I nod. Nanea smiles and adds that helping Niu lifted her spirits as well. I tell Nanea that dogs truly are the best kind of medicine.

Leaning over, I scratch Mele behind her ear, thinking about how I don’t have a dog of my own waiting for me back home. Then again, maybe that’s not what I need. Perhaps all I need is to borrow one every once in a while, the way I borrowed Mango for one night. I could look around my own neighborhood for dogs whose owners need help walking them. Those walks might introduce me to new friends, other girls who care about dogs just as much as I do.

After all, a dog is what brought me to Nanea. Leaning sideways, I knock my shoulder gently against hers, realizing that friends are good medicine, too.