I feel her sneakers tread my lumber.
The people of Kauaʻi came together just a few years earlier to renovate me.
Originally built at the turn of the 20th century to help fieldworkers get to and from home and work over the gulch cut into landscape by Kapaʻia stream, I was gray and weakened by the 21st.
How I shuttered and swayed when the old planks were removed.
How I worried that I’d fall, crashing into the river below when civil engineers removed and replaced my cable suspension.
But these good people put me back together. I’m not surprised. With both their Buddhist and Catholic churches nearby, I’d always felt doubly blessed.
And now she is here, this woman I’ve never seen before. Though it is the first time she has walked across my back, her soft features and dark skin are familiar to me.
I think back to all the feet that have crossed this bridge, mostly Japanese and Portuguese feet, the feet of immigrant fieldworkers. Back and forth they went, every day of the week.
No one had sneakers back then. Work boots, flip flops, sandals, yes. Trainers no. She is a descendant, I conclude, but she sees and walks differently.
She is alone. No co-workers or family. And she is drinking it all in. Her eyes rest on me. Her eyes rest on the river. Her eyes reach out into the distant horizon, where sugar cane once met the sky.
What is she looking for? An apparition? A voice from the past? Who her people once were? Who she should be?
There’s no way for me to know. I feel her feet leave me on the far side of the bridge. I miss her already. I wish for her return.
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