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1. swimming, age 9
Danno turned on her purple dolphin night light and sat on her bed to tuck her in.
"Did you have a good day, Monkey?"
Grace yawned a big yawn, which made her dad laugh.
"I guess that's a yes," he said. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Good night. Danno loves you."
"Love you, too," Grace mumbled. She was sleepy, but she had to stay awake a little bit longer. She had a question she had been wanting to ask all day. Just before Danno closed the door (he always stood in the doorway and watched her sleep a long time), Grace rolled over and asked, "Can we go swimming at Uncle Steve's tomorrow?"
Uncle Steve had his very own beach. It was Grace's favourite place to swim, but the beach wasn't the reason why. It was because Uncle Steve got in the water and swam with her.
Danno didn't like to swim. When he took her to the big beach with all the tourists, sometimes, if she begged and gave him the eyes, he would take off his shoes and roll up his pants and stand at the edge of the water, waving when she told him to watch her dive.
But Uncle Steve was a seal. Danno called him Super Seal. Grace thought it was the cutest superhero name ever. Being a seal meant Uncle Steve was the best swimmer. He taught Grace how to be better, too.
Once, he let Grace borrow his fancy watch, and she timed him when he went underwater. He stayed down there for almost 5 minutes! When it was Grace's turn, she could only hold her breath for 12 seconds, but Uncle Steve said he had been practicing for a long time.
"Are you sure that's what you want to do, Monkey?" Danno asked. "We only have one more day of our weekend left, and you want to spend it with your yahoo Uncle Steve?"
"Please, Danno?"
The light made his face purple, like the monster in that song.
"How about we call him in the morning and see what he says?" Danno promised.
Grace smiled into her pillow. She knew Uncle Steve would say yes. He always said yes, and she didn't even have to beg or give him the eyes.
2. running, age 14
"Grace? Can you take this outside?"
She sent the text she was writing, then slid her phone into her back pocket as she got up off the couch. Charlie was helping Dad with the salads, so Grace was just trying to stay out of the way of the mess.
"What?" she said, wandering into the kitchen.
Dad gave her a small pot with a wooden handle sticking out of it.
"Tell your Uncle Steve to keep his eye on it. If he burns it, he's washing the pot."
"Look at me, Gracie! I'm cooking!" Charlie was wearing an apron so long it covered his feet on the step stool. She rolled her eyes at him when Dad wasn't looking.
Outside, Uncle Steve was standing at the grill with his back to the door. She had helped him set up his phone with the new Bluetooth speaker he bought, and he was shaking his hips to The Beatles.
"Sauce, Uncle Steve!"
He turned to grin at her, a bottle of beer in one hand and tongs in the other.
"Gracie! Perfect timing. These steaks are almost ready." Uncle Steve's open arms pulled her in like he was a magnet and she was made of steel. "When did you get so tall?" he murmured, tucking her head under his chin.
"Mom says she can't keep the fridge full."
When Uncle Steve laughed, she could feel the sound rumble through her body. "My mom used to say the exact same thing."
Grace didn't know what to say, so she just wrapped her arms around his waist and cuddled closer. Uncle Steve almost never talked about his mom and dad when Grace was around. She hoped he talked to Danno, at least.
Once he had flipped all the steaks and rearranged the potatoes, he pointed his beer at the pot and said, "All right, slather them up."
Painting with the barbecue brush was the funnest part of grilling, and it made Grace feel special when Uncle Steve gave the job to her. It was the perfect time to ask the question she had been holding onto all day.
"So you know the President's Fitness Challenge, right?"
"Of course," Uncle Steve said, puffing up with pride. She remembered him telling her last year how he was the top boy of his age for the whole state of Hawaii.
"I really want to do well this year..."
Uncle Steve nodded and waited for her to continue.
"And you know how Danno is with physical activity." They both shared a laugh at her dad. "So I thought I could come running with you a few times a week. It would really help me win a medal."
Grace didn't know why she felt so shy asking Uncle Steve. He almost never said no when she or Charlie asked him for something, and when he did, he always had a good reason for saying no--like someone was robbing a bank or he was stuck in a hospital bed.
"I would love to help you, Gracie." He scooped her up off her feet in a great big bear hug, the kind her dad used to give her when she was smaller. "Thank you for asking me."
"Of course, Uncle Steve. Who else would I ask?"
"Well," he said as he turned back to the grill, fiddling with the steaks. Grace could see his ears were red, and she wondered how long he had been out here in the sun. "You know, your Auntie Kono used to be a champion athlete. I bet she knows lots about winning medals."
"Yeah," Grace said, wrapping both arms around his middle. Now it was her turn to cuddle him. "But if I go running with you, then I get to go swimming with you afterwards."
He smiled down at her.
"And maybe Danno will make us pancakes. Carbs are an important source of energy, you know."
"What are you two scheming about out here?" Danno asked, with an overloaded tray and Charlie on his heels.
Grace and Uncle Steve shared a secret smile. That only riled Dad up more, which made Charlie giggle, and then the whole family was laughing at the picnic table together.
3. driving, age 16
"You have to save me, Uncle Steve." Grace dropped her school bag on the floor and flopped backwards on the couch in his office. Through the glass walls, she could still hear Dad and Mr. Grover commiserating loudly over the tech table.
"He does the same thing when I'm driving, Gracie." Uncle Steve had his boots up on the desk, laces undone and hanging down. "Your father has control issues, but that's his problem, not ours."
Grace sighed towards the ceiling. "I can't drive with him. He makes me sooo nervous with all the noises he's trying to hold in."
"You gotta learn how to tune him out," Uncle Steve said. "It took me a few years, but now all I hear from the passenger seat is 'wah wah wah'." He mimed a talking mouth with one hand.
"Will you teach me?" Grace asked, sitting up on the couch. She put her hands together in a pleading prayer.
"Sure. I have lots of Danno tricks."
"No," she said. "I mean, will you teach me how to drive?"
When Uncle Steve sat up, his boots came down to the floor with a thunk.
"Did you talk to Danno about this?"
Grace shook her head. "He never listens to me. He's so busy working himself up into an angry tornado. I can't say anything about driving with him freaking out about it."
"What about your mom?"
"She says it's too hard to teach me because she learned how to drive on the other side of the road," Grace told him. "But she said it's OK if you teach me!" Mom hadn't actually used those words, but she did tell Grace to ask Uncle Steve about defensive driving.
He was quiet, but he was thinking about it.
"Please, Uncle Steve? If you ask Danno, you know he'll say yes. He trusts you. He loves you, Uncle Steve."
He was staring through the glass, and Grace didn't have to follow his gaze to know where it had landed. She had always known that Danno and Uncle Steve were partners and best friends, but something had changed over the last year. She didn't know if it was them, or if it was just because she was older now and understood more about what had always been between them. It was almost cute, the way they both though she hadn't noticed.
"I'll talk to him," Uncle Steve promised. Grace jumped up off the couch and tackled him with a hug that sent his chair gliding back into the wall. "But we have to accept whatever he decides. I won't go behind his back on this on, Gracie. You're too important."
"I know, Uncle Steve." She also knew Danno wouldn't say no.
The door opened behind them, and her dad was standing there. He squinted his eyes at them both.
"No," he said. Danno could always read her face, and now Grace knew that he could read Uncle Steve's, too.
"Danny, wait." Uncle Steve helped Grace off his lap, then ran after Dad, catching up quickly, his longer legs easily making up the space between them.
Grace stayed in the office where she could see them arguing over her dad's desk. He was waving his hands, which didn't always mean he was mad, but his face was red, which usually did.
Uncle Steve, though, was still, calm like the water in a tide pool, everything hidden underneath.
Grace watched him reach out and take Danno's hands in his own, making them still, too. Then he made Danno smile. Grace pumped her fist; that drivers license was already hers.
4. hosting, age 19
"Steve!" Grace raised her arm above the crowd in the waiting area to catch his attention from where he was schmoozing table 11.
Her Uncle Steve was really good at schmoozing. Dad said it was because the Navy had taught him to be whatever he needed to be in any situation, but Grace knew that wasn't the whole story. Steve just wanted everyone to like him.
It was annoying sometimes, like when she just wanted to go for shave ice and Steve had to stop and talk with anyone who said hi to them on the beach. But it was also why he was so good in the restaurant.
Lots of people in Hawaii knew Steve McGarrett (lots of people in Hawaii had been rescued by Steve McGarrett), but luckily, he had the right people who loved him.
When Grace finally caught his eyes, she shouted, "We need an 8-top!"
He gave her a shaka to say 'OK,' dropped a hand to the customer's shoulder, then moved through the crowd like he moved through the waves.
Grace turned back to the family waiting for a table. "We're just putting something together for you," she said.
Steve lifted chairs out of the way, then pushed tables together. When he turned and reached out a hand, Grace was ready with a tablecloth, and Steve did his secret folding trick to make the corners look nice. (She heard her father's voice in her head: "Leave him be, Monkey. I've spent years trying to drag the Navy out of that man.")
Kiki set the place with napkins and cutlery, and Grace grabbed menus, leading another family in for dinner at Cinquanta.
For a long time, Grace's life kept changing. New bedrooms, new schools, new parents. She didn't know how to stop worrying that her mother would never be happy or that one day, her father might just not be there to pick her up after school.
Since Dad and Steve opened the restaurant, though, Grace's life changed one more time, and then it stopped. This was her life: Steve helping her make people comfortable and Dad's voice in the kitchen.
Once the 8-top had their drinks, Steve came back to the podium, draping his arm around her shoulders.
"You gotta stop growing, Gracie."
"Just as soon as you stop going grey, Stevie."
He gave her a playful punch on the arm, and he didn't have to duck very far to kiss her cheek.
'Stevie' was their new joke. Once Dad and Steve made everything official, once Grace and Charlie had their own rooms in Steve's house, 'Uncle' didn't mean the same thing. Besides, it was easier to tell her friends that Steve was her stepfather (more true, too).
At the restaurant, Steve called the staff "squids" (it was a SEAL thing), but she was still "Gracie." She had always been "Gracie," from the beginning, even before Steve was officially her family.
"I'm going to check on Danno," Steve said. He didn't look back, not even when she called after him, "Make sure you guys lock the bathroom door this time!"
Grace liked being the first person to greet their guests, even though she wasn't good at schmoozing like Steve was. She was too much like her father to care what other people thought of her. And she was never willing to lie (but she knew when to stay quiet to spare feelings).
Watching her mother navigate the life of cops and firefighters back in Jersey, then the country clubs here in Hawaii, Grace had picked up a few things about how to please people.
The rest, she learned from Steve. It was amazing to watch him work the room. Dad said it was the same way Steve used to work suspects, except his smiles were genuine now.
He was happy at the restaurant, rested and relaxed. Steve kept his hair short because it was almost completely grey now, but his eyes were brighter.
In addition to her job at Cinquanta, Grace was taking a few classes at UH, not yet ready to leave the island. When she turned 18, she asked her mom if she could live with Danno and Steve, and even though they both cried when she left, Mom said yes. Charlie comes to stay two weekends a month and every Wednesday after school.
But it was at the restaurant where Grace really felt at home now. It was where she got an idea of what being a cop and a SEAL was like for Danno and Steve. It was where she got to make people's lives better.
Just like the restaurant had made her life the best it had ever been.
5. taking care of Danno, always
Before Dad moved into Steve's house, they would celebrate two Father's Days. In the morning, at Danno's house, Charlie would jump on her bed to wake her up (too early!). Then Grace would cook eggs, while Charlie poured juice. When he got too loud (too excited!), she sent him outside to find some flowers to make their breakfast tray look pretty.
Charlie bounced to Danno's room, holding his card and dropping glitter on the carpet. Grace carried the tray to where Dad was awake, grinning, waiting.
"Happy Danno Day!" Charlie shouted. He did summersaults from the end of the bed until he landed in Dad's lap.
"Thank you, babies."
Grace waited until Charlie was settled before she put the tray on the bed, then climbed up for a kiss. Then Dad would drink his coffee, while Grace ate all the toast, and Charlie told them how he had to make his card twice because the teacher didn't know how to spell 'Danno.'
"Did you like the flowers?" Charlie asked. "I picked them myself."
"I love them, bud." Dad cuddled him extra close. Grace was almost too big for those kinds of cuddles.
"Do you think Uncle Steve wants some flowers, too?"
"I think," Danno said, "I would love to watch Uncle Steve's face when you give him some flowers."
Charlie wrestled free and jumped off the bed, shouting "YAY!" as he shot out of the room.
"Don't tease him, Danno," Grace said as she scooted up to sit next to him.
"I'm not teasing. Watching Charlie give your Uncle Steve a bouquet of colourful weeds he stole from the neighbour's garden is the best Father's Day present I can imagine."
He gave her a one-armed cuddle, and she wasn't too big after all.
Their first Father's Day in Hawaii was sad. Grace wished she didn't remember the look on her dad's face when Mom and Stan came to pick her up before dinner.
But the next year, he had 5-O and Uncle Steve, and that's how their double Father's Day tradition began. They would do breakfast in bed at home, then go swimming at Steve's beach, and then there would be a barbecue with all of Dad's new friends.
So once Charlie had been washed and dressed, they gathered up his flowers and card for Uncle Steve, put their beach bags in the car, and drove to Steve's house.
"Happy Uncle Steve Day!" Charlie shouted through the open window. Steve and Eddie were waiting for them on the doorstep. When Steve let Eddie go, the dog climbed up to lick Charlie's face.
"Your dog is a menace, McGarrett!" Dad yelled.
Steve loped over to Dad's side of the car to lick his face, too.
"Ew, gross, guys." Grace cowered in the passenger seat.
Steve pointed a finger at her. "Weren't you the one who ordered me, all those years ago, to kiss your dad already?"
"When I told you to get a room, I had hoped it would be farther away from my room."
It only got worse after Dad moved into Steve's house. They had waited until the lease on their place came up, even though Dad was at Steve's most nights and every weekend when Grace and Charlie came to stay.
They weren't like a regular couple, one who met, flirted, then dated before getting married. Danno and Steve had spent most of Grace's life on the flirting part, so they just skipped the dating and went straight to being married. (They hadn't made it official official yet. Grace didn't know what they were waiting for.)
When Grace reached back to help Charlie unhook himself from his car seat, she could see Dad and Steve sneaking a few real kisses through the open window.
She smacked her dad's arm and said, "Get a room!"
Charlie laughed, because he loved everything Grace did these days. He raised his arms and shouted, "I want a room, too!"
Danno and Grace's first Father's Day in Hawaii had been a sad one, but that hadn't been true for a long time now. Now, Danno and Steve shared a bed, a room, a house, and a restaurant. They also had to share Father's Day, but Grace and Charlie made them each their own breakfast tray. (The first year, they had tried one tray, but Steve made a mess of the sheets when he tried to steal the last piece of bacon off Danno's fork.)
Charlie made two cards with too much glitter and collected two bouquets of flowers from the garden that grew wild in the backyard.
Grace made scrambled eggs because it was easier to share and a whole package of bacon because she knew her dads. The coffee was left black, so they could both make their cup just the way they wanted. There was pineapple juice for Steve, and orange mango for Dad, who had learned to love a few things on their island.
"Just a few things?" Grace asked. She sat between them because she wasn't too big yet, and Charlie was almost asleep again on Danno's lap.
"Maybe three things," Danno said.
Grace rested against Steve's shoulder, ducking down to give the two of them enough space to kiss above her head.