The last few sentences fell into one of those pockets of silence you get sometimes in a café. The fella across from me at the next table, who hadn’t been letting his eyes stray my way for one single instant, as if my breasts and I existed in a Cone of Blessed Invisibility, swiveled his head and stared at me, as horrified as if I’d offered to show him the evidence. His friend stood up abruptly, and the two of them bolted like they had an urgent appointment with Anywhere But Here. The middle-aged woman on our other side, sitting next to Matiu, let out a choked laugh, quickly stifled it, and looked away.
“Whoops,” I said, determinedly patting Isobel, who didn’t need it anymore, since the air bubble was well and truly out, and knowing I was blushing. “Redhead rules. When in doubt, spit it out.”
Matiu was grinning. He had a very good grin. “Well,” he said, “that’s likely to be the most unexpected thing I’ll hear today, and I hear a fair few surprising confessions. Glad we got that out of the way. I’m trying to decide whether to tell you I’m not sleeping with Daisy.”
“Yet,” I muttered.
He grinned some more. “Yet. I can promise that I won’t, if you like. Even if she begs me.” He laughed at my outraged expression. “But that would be presuming, since, as we know, you aren’t available. Could be we’ll have to settle for being friends.”
“Which is what you wanted all along, of course,” I said, my cheeks still flaming at thermonuclear level. Why had I said that? Any of it? All of it?
“Well, no,” he said, his face serious again, his eyes more intense than surely they ought to be, under these circumstances. “Possibly not. Right now, though, I’m going to tell you that if you’re still bleeding that much, you should call your midwife. You had some hemorrhaging. As you’ve pointed out—I know, because I was there. I’m also going to ask you whether you kept my phone number. I’m on the evening shift just now, four to midnight, in case you need that information. For any reason.”
Matiu
Was it my smoothest coffee date ever? It was not. Isobel fell angelically asleep, though, and Poppy and I finished our breakfast. I walked my girls home, told myself they weren’t actually mine in any possible way, and didn’t listen. When we got to a house that had almost certainly featured in an architecture magazine, I stood for a second, caught in a moment of silence as Poppy looked at me and the color rose in her cheeks once more. After that, I kissed her cheek, the skin nearly as soft as Isobel’s, smelled the floral scent of her shampoo and the milky scent of her baby, swore I felt her catch her breath, told myself I had the worst case of wishful thinking a man could possibly contract, and said goodbye.
What else could I do?
10
Here for the Ride
Matiu
When my phone rang on the short drive back home, it wasn’t Poppy, telling me she’d decided we should ... what? Hold hands? Kiss passionately? Drink cocoa with her kids?
I didn’t have to sort out what sort of relationship I was wishing for, or what was reasonable—wait, I knew that. Nothing. At any rate, I didn’t have to go there, because it wasn’t her. It was my brother.
“Is it Koro?” I asked, the second I picked up.
“Nah, mate,” Tane said. “Well, maybe.”
“What are the symptoms?” I asked, snapping to attention. “Should I come up?”
“Well, yeh,” Tane said, “sometime here, you should. But you’ve only been there a few weeks, bro. Give yourself a chance to get settled first. And he’s OK. About the same, I’d say. And, geez, if just having me ring up makes you go to panic stations, could be I should ring up more often.”
“Nah,” I said. “We’re not used to it, that’s all.” Since I’d lived within thirty kilometers of my brother and my grandfather for over forty years. If Tane wanted to talk to me, he told me to come over and play some basketball and have dinner with him and June. If I wanted to talk to him, I ... went over and played some basketball, and probably stayed for dinner. We were missing our signal-passing mechanism.
Hmm. Was Koro feeling ill? He wouldn’t tell me if he was. He’d barely tell his doctor. He’d said, before I’d left, when I’d been making a case for exactly that, “I’m going to die sometime. Reckon I’ll let it surprise me.” He’d given that wheezing old-man chuckle. “More fun that way.”
“I’ll remind him that he can ring me,” I told Tane now anyway.
“He won’t, I’m guessing,” Tane said. “Respecting your space, isn’t he. Something like that. Or shoving you out of the nest, maybe.” He laughed, as full a sound as always, and as merry. “His ways are devious. Got Hemi married well, didn’t he. Still not sure how he did it, but if you ask me, his fingerprints were all over that. He’d have thought that was the toughest, but you could be even more of a challenge. Everybody’s got a bucket list, eh. The things on his could be pretty close to home.”
I wanted to say, I’m fine as I am. Also, What in the world would I know about being married, and why in the world would anyone think I’d be any good at it? Of course, you could have said that about my cousin for most of his life, and anybody who wasn’t actually in a mental ward would have said you were right, because Hemi scared most normal humans rigid. David had killed Goliath with a slingshot, though, and tiny, fragile-looking Hope had some special powers of her own. They were expecting their fourth child in a few weeks, and if I knew my cousin, he’d have every single aspect of that handled as well as it could possibly be handled, and he wouldn’t take an easy breath anyway until both Hope and the baby were safe on the other side.
I realized that I almost knew how he felt. There was a thought to knock you off your pins. I didn’t share that, but settled for saying, “Hard to push somebody if you’re hundreds of kilometers away.”
“Nah,” Tane said. “That’s the part that makes it devious. Seriously, though. Everything going OK? Sharpening the medical skills? Meeting the mother of Koro’s great-grandchildren?”
He said it as if it were a joke, and it probably was. I’d mentioned the whole mad idea of the move to Koro a couple months ago strictly as a conversational topic, and still wasn’t quite sure how I’d got here.
It had been during one of those low points you got occasionally, no matter how successfully you compartmentalized. A day when I hadn’t won, when two of the hundred or so fatal drownings New Zealand saw every year, most of them absolutely and heartbreakingly avoidable, had passed through my hands, and I’d been helpless once again. Drownings were always the worst, and drownings of kids were the worst of all.
I’d gone to visit my Koro afterwards, as so many of his whanau did when trouble struck or heartache came. I’d sat in the old man’s warm, shabby little kitchen, turned my mug of tea in my hands, and said, “Dunno. Maybe I should take the post down in Dunedin, leave the drownings behind. Trade stupidity around the water for stupid Uni alcohol poisoning. Work in a tertiary care hospital, too, make the jump to the big leagues.”
“Maybe you should,” Koro said. “They’re bound to be looking for a Fellow, big place like that.” The highest level of practitioner, which I was.
I laughed. “Just joking. Been in Tauranga for sixteen years, haven’t I, and in Katikati for most of my life before that. Dunedin’s not Auckland or Wellington, but it’d still be too big for me.”
“Time to shake things up, maybe,” Koro said. “And Dunedin’s no bigger than Tauranga now, surely. Different, maybe, but not bigger.”
“Ah. This is about me not being married.” I exchanged a glance with my almost-niece, Vanessa, who was married. She and my nephew, Nikau, looked after Koro and kept him company, along with their baby, and the new one that was on the way. In other words, they lived like most every self-respecting Maori—family style. I said, “Could be that I’m not cut out for marriage.”
Vanessa said, saucy as always, “Because you’d have to specialize, and quit doing all that general practice.” That was a good one, and I smiled. I didn’t do so well with long-term relationships, it was true. The
job wasn’t the best for that, or maybe it was me.
“Could be you’re not cut out for it, yeh,” Koro said, putting his gnarled finger straight onto the heart of the matter, as usual. “Or could be that you’re running from it. Are you happy, my son?”
“Well, not tonight, I’m not,” I said, trying to keep some lightness in my tone and failing. “I need to go to the gym, that’s all. Do some training, have a swim, get the brain chemicals fizzing round properly again.”
“Instead,” Koro said, “you came here to be with your whanau. Not too exciting, dinner with your old grandad, so there must be another reason. Maybe this does something for your brain chemicals as well, eh.”
That was hard to argue with, since I was feeding my great-nephew his tea at the moment, while his mum worked on dinner for the rest of us. “Which doesn’t do much for your argument,” I pointed out, “since my whanau’s up here, not in Dunedin.”
“Your big whanau is,” Koro said, and then didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. I’d noticed that I didn’t have a small whanau of my own. I’d meant to, I just hadn’t got around to it. I was busy, or maybe Vanessa was right, and it was that I liked variety. That wasn’t a crime, as long as you weren’t lying or cheating, and I didn’t do either. Just ... kept my distance.
“I could try it,” I found myself saying. “The move, not the marriage. I could try the job, and the place, for a year or so. Shake up the patterns, see what develops.”
“You could,” Koro said.
“But ...” I said, and stopped. Ari banged his spoon down on the tray of his highchair and said the word that had been his first and was still his favorite—“More”—and I spooned some more spaghetti onto his plate. He had a fork, but the effort was pretty hit-and-miss, until he decided to grab the spaghetti by the fistful. Much more efficient, except when the fist wouldn’t actually fit into his mouth. I had to smile. Ari was one of those babies who grabbed life with both hands.
“There’s you,” I finally went on, not looking at Koro.
“Ah,” Koro said. “That I could die, you mean.”
“Well, yeh.”
He grinned, showing off some missing teeth. “Got news for you. I’m going to die whether you go to Dunedin or not. I’m ninety-six. Course, I’m not a doctor, but I still know that I’m coming to the end of the road. I’d be happier to close my eyes knowing you’ve found your place in the world, even if it means you’re not at my bedside when I go. Never mind. There’ll be enough of a crowd there. It’s not about me anymore anyway, is it. You’ll come see me sometimes, tell me how you’re going, same way you do now, and I’ll know you’re out there leading the life you were born to live, not the one you think is all you can get, or all you can handle. You can handle more than this, my son, and you can give more than this, too.”
We were at what you’d call “home truths,” then. The kind you didn’t have an answer for. The kind that made your throat close like an allergic reaction.
He hadn’t said any more about it after that night, but somehow, a week later, I’d found myself making a call, and after that, things had happened very quickly indeed. Tauranga was a desirable post, two and a half reasonably cosmopolitan hours from Auckland, still relatively affordable, and on the sunny, fertile Bay of Plenty, with some of the best surf beaches in New Zealand. All of that meant that my replacement had been found with astonishing speed. If I’d thought I was irreplaceable, I’d been put right. The new doc was even renting my house.
And me? I was renting a tiny furnished place five hundred meters from the hospital, perched halfway up one of Dunedin’s many hills. I could see the hospital building, in fact, from the deck of my apartment, which possibly wasn’t ideal, work/life-balance-wise, but was certainly convenient. The bonus was that the deck overlooked the hills beyond, too, and showed you the sky. Heaps of green and blue to see. A better outlook than my house in Tauranga, if I were honest, but with the same casual feeling to the air. Views to make the heart soar all over the shop here, although colder sea temperatures, which meant you’d be surfing in the thickest wettie you could find, and even then, you’d only be doing it in summer.
All in all? It was good. Maybe. Confusing, though. Or impossible. But I was on the train now, and it wasn’t slowing down. It seemed I was here for the ride.
11
Unwelcome Information
Poppy
When I got home, Nan looked at me brightly and asked, “Have a nice time, darling?” And then, while I worked out how to answer that, she smiled and said, “Never mind, I’m sure you did.” And after a bit, she and Grandad left, and I rang my sister-in-law.
To refresh your memory: Karen was my brother Jax’s wife and Hemi Te Mana’s sister-in-law, and Hemi was Matiu’s cousin. So you see—family. Sort of. The Maori version, as extended as you please. Karen and Jax were living some hours north in Christchurch, but planning a move to the North Island. To Auckland during the week, since Jax had asked the Defence Force for a transfer, and on the weekends, to Katikati, on the Bay of Plenty.
When you were Maori, you tended to want to live close to your family, your whanau. But Karen wasn’t Maori, Hemi had moved to the States twenty years ago, and now Matiu had moved down here, so maybe ... not.
You see how confusing it all was. Meanwhile, here I was, living in Dunedin my entire life. On the other hand, I liked Dunedin. Anyway—Karen. I held the phone, pacing the floor to get Isobel to sleep in her sling, while Olivia took her much-protested nap and Hamish, I hoped, survived his first day of school.
When Karen answered, she spent about thirty seconds on chitchat before she asked me, “So why are you really calling me?” Karen wasn’t what you’d call the indirect sort. She continued, “It’s not for baby stuff, I’ll bet, because I’ve realized I know scarily little about it, except being an aunt, which isn’t really the same. You still have pictures of the kids on your desk, but you get to give the baby back. If jerky Max isn’t around enough, though, I could come help out with the older kids. And sorry if I’m not supposed to say that, the jerk thing, or admit that I know what’s going on, in case you’re getting back together. I’m going to think he’s a jerk anyway, though, whatever happens next. You should probably know that. My bridges are burned.”
“No,” I said. “That’s all right. Or—yes, he did do something, but I’ve got it. Or I haven’t got it, exactly, but, you know, it’s just clearing the hurdles. And no. I have my grandparents and my mum, and besides, you’re busy, and you’d miss Jax. Honeymoon period and all that.”
“Well, yeah,” Karen said, “that’s all true, but I’d come for you. Sister-love’s a thing.”
Brilliant. I had a lump in my throat again. “Sister in law,” I said.
“Close enough,” Karen said. “Family’s the people who matter, not just the ones who share your blood. So—what? By the way—if it’s really that bad, you’re probably feeling stupid. I know, because I spent too many years with the wrong guy, and that’s how I felt. So incredibly stupid. Right, you were stupid. So what? You aren’t being stupid anymore.”
“You didn’t marry him, though,” I said. “Or have three kids with him.”
“Are you kidding? Only because he didn’t actually want to, whatever he said. I’d have done all that in a heartbeat. Instead, I waited for that ring until he’d betrayed me in every possible way, and only then, when he’d taken everything away from me and he’d practically written ‘Loser’ in Sharpie across my forehead, did I bail. After which I met Jax and found out exactly what I’d been missing, so there you go. All kinds of wonderful experiences to look forward to. Boy, was I surprised.”
“Don’t share,” I begged. “Please. He’s my brother.” But I was laughing, and so was Karen.
“So,” she said. “What can I help you with? You probably haven’t had time to find Mr. Right yet, so it’s Life Stuff, huh? Wanting to stick your head in the oven, but you can’t, because kids? You need my expertise in lying on the bathroom floor wishing
you were dead? I’ve got it. Surprise!”
“Ah ...” I said, trying to think how to begin. “More the ... first thing. Mr., uh ...”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “Of course, you have much bigger boobs than me, which always helps, but still. Really?”
“Here’s the question,” I said, laughing again. “Do you actually say what everybody else is thinking, or are your thoughts horrifying but unique to you? I’m breastfeeding. Of course I have bigger boobs than you now. I shudder to think what they’ll look like when I’m done with all this.”
“Plastic surgery,” she said cheerfully. “Or not. Whichever. You can lose sensation in your nipples, right? No, thanks. I like sensation in my nipples. Jax is just going to have to put up with it. So who is this guy?”
I paused, possibly to get my bearings, and she said, “Oh, wait. It’s going to be somebody totally embarrassing. You’re wondering if you’re being incredibly impulsive and illogical. Well, yeah, probably, but so what? Same thing I thought when I fell in love with an amputee with scars on his face who lived fourteen thousand kilometers away during my two-week so-called vacation, but he was hot, and then he was, of course, Jax, so that was all right. Who is it? The DHL delivery guy? The ... I can’t think. Who do you actually see? The handyman? Your neighbor’s husband? Who?”
“I don’t have a handyman. I’m also not involved with anybody,” I hastened to say. “Of course not. I had a baby three weeks ago. I’m barely legally separated.”
Stone Cold Kiwi (New Zealand Ever After Book 2) Page 8