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blemish—in the morning, after she came home from school, and at bedtime. Rachel blanched at the smelly concoction and soon learned to hold her breath when it was time for an application; even as Sarah and the boys began to wonder how bad this cut could be if Mama were still treating it weeks later and coddling Rachel like a baby.
    At the end of five days, miraculously, the blemish disappeared and Dorothy thanked God for His goodness in saving her daughter. She sang joyously in church that Sunday; the tension in the household, which Rachel could detect but not understand, dissipated. After church Mama stopped at Love’s and bought Jenny Lind cake for everyone.
    Two weeks later, the blemish reappeared.
    Ua gave Dorothy another remedy, this one made from the yellow, milky sap of the Hawaiian poppy. She applied it twice a day, but not only did the blemish not go away, at the end of a week’s time Dorothy could see that along the edges of the pink skin a small reddish ring, like a crater of flesh, was beginning to form.
    Dorothy’s despair deepened; she spent each day in a state of frantic worry and helpless depression. She prayed to God for mercy for her child, but there was only one prayer he answered: at the end of October, Henry came home.
    After the initial shock and grief and disbelief, Henry knew exactly what had to be done.
    “We need ho'oponopono ,” he said, and Dorothy knew he was right.

    H
    o'oponopono meant “setting to right,” but it was more than a word, it was a process—part of family life in these islands for centuries. Hawaiians believed that physical problems were often the result of interpersonal relations that had gone wrong, and ho'oponopono was designed to expose the underlying causes. Sometimes a kahuna led these gatherings, sometimes a family elder; for reasons of discretion it was decided that Henry’s father, Maka, frail but clear-headed at seventy-two, would be the group leader.
    Rachel, Sarah, and their brothers understood little more than that Rachel was sick—though Rachel swore she didn’t feel sick—and that this was being done to help her. In addition to Rachel’s immediate family, the other participants included Margaret, Will, Florence and Eli. The family gathered in a rough circle on the floor of the Kalama home, and Grandpa Maka opened with a prayer:
    “Lord God Jehovah, creator of all things, listen to this humble, loving appeal from Your children. Spirits of our ancestors, join with us in finding the cause of Rachel’s illness and setting it to right.”
    Maka began by asking each of Rachel’s siblings if they were bearing any anger toward their sister. Kimo and Benjamin both looked startled and confused by the question; no, they each said, why should they?
    “And you, child?” Sarah squirmed under Grandpa Maka’s calm gaze. “She ruined my hat,” she said finally. “She’s always doing something.” Out came the litany of Rachel’s transgressions against Sarah. Maka listened patiently to them, then said, “Do you know what kala means?”
    Sarah frowned. “To forgive?”
    “More than that: to let go. And when you forgive your sister—when you let go of your anger—you forgive yourself as well.”
    “But my hat —”
    “Is the love you felt for this hat more important than your sister’s life? What if your anger is what’s sickening her? Do you still want to hold onto it so jealously?”
    Sarah thought about that, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not if . . .” She looked at Rachel. “I don’t want you to be sick, Rachel.”
    “So can you kala your sister?”
    With apparent sincerity she said, “Yes. I kala Rachel.”
    “Rachel, do you kala Sarah?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good.” Maka nodded. “It’s good that Sarah owned up to her anger, and that she was able to let go of it. But . . .” The grandfather’s steady gaze swept across them all. “I wonder that something so easily forgiven could be the cause of so grave a sickness. Does