Anahera Taringa

Anahera, age 3

Anahera is a bright-eyed three-year-old with the warm brown skin and rich dark features of her Vaitafe heritage, already fully expressed in a way that promises the striking adult she will become. Her hair has grown into a thick, heavy mane of dark brown curls that tumbles well past her shoulders and halfway down her back. No matter how carefully Aroha combs it in the morning, it is tangled with salt and sand by midday, and no one who loves her particularly minds. Her eyes are a deep, warm brown, wide and calm, and they still carry the watchful attentiveness she has had since infancy, but they now crinkle easily into a wide, delighted grin whenever something catches her interest, which near the water is often. Tiny gold studs sit in her ears, and around her neck, on a simple black cord, hangs the jade hei matau she has worn for nearly her whole life.

She wears traditional Vaitafe clothing most days: small woven dresses patterned in cream, black, and rust, with fringed hems that swish when she runs and that, as her mother long ago accepted, will always end up wet. She is most often found sitting cross-legged in the sand with grains stuck to her knees, or pointing out past the breakers at something only she seems to have spotted.

The stillness that marked her as a baby is still there, but it has changed shape. On land, Anahera is a watcher. She can sit with her hands in her lap and simply observe for long stretches, clearly thinking, clearly present, and in no hurry at all to share what is on her mind. When she does speak, she tends to say one thing and mean it exactly. Put her in the water, though, and she becomes a different child entirely. She kicks, dives, laughs, surfaces with her curls plastered across her face, and goes straight back under. Adults who have only ever seen her quiet side are often startled by how loud she can be in the shallows.

She swims better than most children twice her age, and she seems to have been born knowing how. Nobody remembers teaching her to hold her breath or to float; she simply did both the first time she was allowed in past her knees. Water still responds to her in small, unexplained ways: a wave that curls gently around her instead of knocking her over, a current that seems to nudge her back toward shore whenever she drifts too far. Aroha watches these moments with quiet attention and no alarm. Anahera does not seem to notice them at all. To her, the ocean is simply a friend that always plays fair. On land, she still reaches for her jade pendant when she is thinking, a habit she developed before she had the words to explain why.