“You—we—could be too far away up here,” Poppy said. “From the kids. For now.” She leaned against the wide sill and looked out. “But it’s a good room all the same. You may want it for an office. Chance to escape. If we did it, I mean.”
“You wouldn’t want it for a studio?” I asked. “With all this natural light? Chance to see the sky, get inspired by the views and the storms coming in? And I don’t need an office. I leave my work at the hospital. I also don’t need to escape. I’ve spent my life escaping. I’m done.”
“Seems a bit selfish, though,” she said. “To have it as a studio, I mean. Prime position and so forth.”
“No,” I said. “Seems like nurturing the inner artist. The inner woman.”
“There’s a whole separate part of the house as well,” she said, still not looking at me. “Like I said. An annex. Opening onto the courtyard, but with a view over the hills. A lounge, a kitchen, and two bedrooms, all on one level, made out of the coziest whitewashed brick, with these rustic vaulted ceilings. Room to plant a rose garden, too. I thought, with both my grandparents over eighty-five now ... it may be good to have, sometime. A chance to be together, to help each other, but everybody still having their space.”
“It may,” I said.
“Nan doesn’t always love being too close to my dad, though she wouldn’t say it. I don’t think living there would work out, even though my parents have the space for it.”
“No,” I said. “I can see that.”
“Not making my case, am I,” she said, trying to laugh, “talking about moving my grandparents in. Three kids and a set of elderly grandparents? Reckon you’re ready to scream and run.”
“You forget,” I said, “that I’m Maori. The grandparents are a feature, not a bug. As they say.”
“Oh,” she said, and ran down again.
I went to find the realtor. She was out on the landing, giving us space. I could hear the kids on the floor below. Shouting to each other, running. I asked the woman, “Could you give us a couple minutes alone up here? And keep an eye on the kids? Too much to ask, and I’m asking it anyway.”
“No worries,” she said, with a smile that said, Oh, what a glorious commission, and then she was gone.
I came back in, and Poppy said, “Either this is very bad, or it’s very good. I may hyperventilate. Good thing you’re holding the baby.”
I said, “I need you to hold her, though,” and handed Isobel over. She protested a little, reaching back for me, and I tried to smile at her.
I was nervous. I was more than nervous. I was ... whatever “more than nervous” was.
It was the right place, though, and the right time. You couldn’t win if you didn’t play the game, and I was in this game for life.
I got down on one knee.
I tried to smile. I couldn’t. I said, “I know we can’t make it official for a while. But I want us both to know that we’ll be married. To each other, I mean. I’ll buy this house with you. It’s a great house. And if you want to ... if we want to ...” I had to stop and take a breath.
She was laughing. Her eyes were shining. And then she was dropping to her knees and putting her hand in mine.
“Matiu,” she said, “I do love you. So much.”
“Oh. Good. Because I want to marry you. As I mentioned.” I got myself more or less under control and pulled the box out of my pocket. I’d been carrying it all day. And then I opened the box and showed her what was inside, and hoped it was right. “You want to buy a house with me,” I said, “and I’m glad. I want to buy it with you, too. I want to make that commitment, but I want to do it with my ring on your finger.”
It was an emerald, as big as the jeweler could find, and the color of Poppy’s eyes. As deep and rich a green as the sea on a stormy day, its facets gleaming with light. Egg-shaped and perfect, in a setting unlike any other. The band was made of yellow gold rubbed to a mellow glow, formed into heart-shaped leaves with vines twining around them, cradling the emerald on either side. The leaves were studded with tiny nubs of gold, and the whole thing was as organic, as soft, and as beautiful as Poppy herself. It looked made for her, because it had been.
It had better be right. I couldn’t take it back.
She wasn’t saying anything, just staring at the ring, but suddenly, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was sure. I could have shouted this from the rooftops. I could have told the world. I said, “You’re all the joy and life and light in the world. You’re my sunny day, and I want to marry you. I want to get old with you. Well, older.” I smiled at her, and she tried to smile back. Still holding the baby. Speechless.
She tried twice to say something. Finally, she managed to do it. “Would you ... would you want more kids? We should talk about that. We should plan, probably.”
“You know?” I said. “I think maybe we shouldn’t plan. Because, yeh, I’d want more. I don’t need them, though, because the ones we’ve got are awesome. I’ve got all I need for a happy life right here in this house, but if you want to give me more? I’ll take that. I’ll take that, and gladly.”
“Then—yes,” she said. And laughed. “My life is chaos, eh. May as well have more chaos.”
“No,” I said. “Your life is an adventure.” I was still holding my box. Now, I took her hand and said the words. “I love you. I want to share your adventure and have you share mine. I want you to know that you have a safe place with me, a strong place, anytime the adventure gets too much. I want you to know you’re safe. I want you to know you’re home. So—Poppy. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, and she was crying. “Yes.”
I slid the ring onto her finger, and the emerald shone there, strong as the sea. I kissed her, over the baby I’d delivered on the cold green grass on that Friday the thirteenth, the day my life had changed, and I knew.
She wasn’t the only one who was home. We were both there.
We were all there.
53
A Thousand Years
Poppy
I got married on Friday the thirteenth.
What can I say? It seemed like a good omen. Also, my marriage to Max was finally officially dissolved, which meant we could do this. I’d have got married any old day of the week, though, as long as I was marrying Matiu. The past two years had been the best of my life, and they weren’t nearly enough.
I’d sold my jaguar and lioness story, and then I’d written more. Graphic novels, all of them, always with that edge of danger, the lure of forbidden fruit. About the perils you’d go through and the mountains you’d climb for love, because sharing all of yourself with somebody who wanted all of yourself was worth it. I still wrote Hazel the Hippo, and, yes, there was a TV program. But between those stories, I wrote my new ones. Telling girls that they could be strong and free and decide for themselves, and that a heroine deserved a hero.
That she deserved a jaguar.
I wrote them under a new name: Poppy MacGregor. I liked the sound of it. I always had. I liked the sound of Poppy Te Mana even better.
Mum said, “If you don’t hold still, darling, I can’t do your hair.” She laughed. “Sounds like you’re six. Exactly like you’re six, because this is exactly how you were.” She smiled at me, a bit tearily, in the mirror of my childhood bedroom.
Karen said, “You’re probably just feeling awkward, sick with the baby and all.”
Because, yes, I was pregnant once more. Only once more, Matiu and I had solemnly agreed. We’d probably even stick to that. This baby was due in five months. We didn’t know the sex, and we weren’t going to find out. Matiu had said he wanted to be surprised.
“Not that surprised, though,” he’d told me. “I’m not delivering this one. It was hard enough the first time. I’m driving you to hospital. I’m holding your hand. I’m rubbing your back. I’m doing all the dad things, and absolutely none of the doctor things. I’m saying that now, out loud, so it’s official. I may include it in the vows.”
Now, I told Karen, �
��I’m not awkward. Cheers for the vote of confidence. Geez. And I’m not sick. I’m past the sick stage, mostly.” I was laughing, though.
“Good news,” Karen said. “Because nothing says ‘happy honeymoon’ like running for the toilet. Although I’ll note that once again, you’ve got great boobs. Kind of like me.”
Mum was laughing, too, and we were giving up on my hair for the moment. Karen was nursing her six-month-old son, one Logan Jackson MacGregor, an extremely determined boy who was already crawling everywhere and had a look in his eye that told you he was planning on walking just as soon as he figured out how, and the world had better watch out. And, yes, Karen looked good.
My sister Heather stuck her head in the door and said, “Dad wants to know if you’re almost ready.”
“No,” Mum said. “Tell him to look at the clock. Fifteen minutes.”
“Honestly,” Heather said, “he’s about to jump out of his skin. What is there to worry about? He’s a captain of industry, and it’s not as if it’s Poppy’s first wedding. How many times did he tell us, ‘Look confident, be confident’? He has to walk her down the stairs, job done. Unless he trips and falls, and what’s the chance of that?”
Ah, yes. Explaining emotion to my sister. I smiled at her in the mirror. I was smiling at everybody today. “Never mind,” I said. “Tell him to lift weights or something and work it off.”
My dad had begun going to the gym with Matiu about a year ago, much to everybody’s surprise and my mother’s delight. “You should see his muscles,” she’d told me. “Let’s just say it’s inspirational.” Which I didn’t exactly want to know, but oh, well, everybody got to be happy, right? And my dad probably was hot.
Nah, I wasn’t going there.
“The big question is,” Karen said, “how’s Matiu doing? Finger under the collar? Wiping his sweaty hands on his pants? General look of a horse about to bolt?”
“No,” Heather said stolidly. “He seems fine. He and his brother are looking after the kids. I wasn’t expecting there to be so many kids. I can hardly hear myself think out there.”
“You’re not supposed to hear yourself think,” I said. “Nobody has to think. It’s a wedding. Anyway, it’s not that many kids. It’s a small family wedding. Just ours, and Nikau and Vanessa’s, and Hope and Hemi’s.”
“That’s ten children,” Heather said. “In one house. The old people would have lost their minds by now if they didn’t have hearing loss.”
“Oh, well,” Mum said, inserting a white camellia into my pinned-up hair and standing back to look at the result. “Soon be over, darling, and you can get back to the Tang Dynasty. Let’s get you into this dress, Poppy.” She smiled at me in the mirror, so happy she glowed, and I suspected that a renewal of the vows might be in the cards for her and Dad. She said, “You are going to be the most beautiful bride, because you’re the happiest one I’ve ever seen.”
“Nice,” Karen said.
Mum laughed. “Except for you, of course, my darling. How could I forget you?”
Matiu
Tane said, “It’s time, bro,” and I took my eye off the kids playing on the elaborate structure and sandpit that Poppy’s parents had installed last year. Hemi was doing a good enough job of supervising, and the pool was fenced. Anyway, Hope and June had started to round everybody up to get them settled on the rows of white chairs on the terrace, and Karen already had all three of ours.
“Designated child-wrangler,” she’d told me cheerfully, and I’d said, “Well, everybody needs a job.”
She’d laughed, kissed me on the cheek, sighed, and said, “Still gorgeous. Ah, the dreams of yesteryear.”
I stopped on the way to the enormous arbor, with its layer upon layer of extravagant ivory and coral blooms, peonies and roses and hydrangea and ranunculus beyond measure, and put a hand on Koro’s shoulder. He was in the front row already, with Nikau beside him. I asked him, “All right?”
“Why shouldn’t I be all right,” he said, “with Hemi flying me down on his special plane and all, everybody acting like I could drop dead any minute from the shock? I can still walk, can’t I. Can still breathe on my own, too.”
“Yeh,” I said. “You can.”
“And here you thought you had to stay in Tauranga,” he said, “in case you had to run to my deathbed. Look what you would’ve missed, eh. I told you to go, and I was right.”
“True,” Tane said, with the laugh that came so easily to him. “You’re not dead yet, old man.”
“Too right,” Koro said. “I may die tomorrow, though, and that’s all right. Seen all my mokopuna married now, haven’t I. Even you, Matiu. Even you. Reckon my job’s done.”
“You’re not quite ready to shove off just yet, though,” I said. “Tell me you haven’t got a pocket full of lollies. Got to survive to hand them out, at least.”
Koro waved an age-spotted hand. “Cheeky bugger. Go on and get married.”
I would. In a minute. First, though, I leaned down and put my hand on his shoulder. He put his hand on mine, and we touched foreheads and noses, breathing together in one more hongi. One more blessing, because every day he was here was a blessing.
One day would be the last day, but it wasn’t this day. This day was for joy.
Then I headed to the arbor and stood to one side of it with Tane. The piano started up with the intro to A Thousand Years, and the cello took up the sweet, haunting melody.
A thousand years sounded just about right.
The kids were still scrambling into their seats. I straightened the lapels of my jacket, took a breath, and waited for my bride.
Karen came first. My sister-in-law smiled at me radiantly, then smiled at Jax and waved her bouquet at him. Logan let out a cry and reached for her, and she blew him a kiss and kept on going. When she got to me, she smiled some more and said, “This is an awesome day. Also, I’m glad you didn’t ever want me. So awkward, otherwise.”
After that, Hamish. Seven years old, hair trimmed short and neat, freckled face serious. Carrying the cushion with the rings on it like it was his one job. Well, except for holding Buddy’s leash, because he was doing that, too. Buddy had a new collar and leash for the occasion, with the All Blacks logo and silver fern on it, because, Hamish had told me, “Boys wear black and white for weddings. Buddy is already black and white, but this way, he’ll match.”
He got to me, and I put a hand on his head and told him, “Well done, mate.”
His entire face lit up with his smile. He had two teeth missing now. “I practiced,” he told me. “Walking slow and holding the cushion straight.”
“I could tell,” I said. “Give the rings to Tane, and you can go sit by your Nana and Grandad. Keep an eye on me, see that I do this thing right.”
“OK,” he said, “but Mum’s pretty nervous, I think.”
That was all right. She could be nervous. I was right here
Olivia and Isobel next. Strawberry blonde waves and auburn curls, in matching cream dresses with full skirts and petticoats edged in lace, and headbands with rosebuds on them. Olivia had wanted to sleep in her dress. I wasn’t prepared to swear that she hadn’t done it. Now, she marched down the aisle like the Big Kid she was sure she was, two-year-old Isobel did her best to keep up, and everybody smiled.
Halfway down, Olivia stopped. Saying something to her sister, probably instruction, because she shoved a hand into her basket and flung the petals like she was throwing a grenade. They hit my normally grim cousin in the head, and Hemi brushed them from his jacket and laughed.
Isobel did her best to fling, and Olivia nodded and said something else, then marched off again. Isobel stood motionless a second, then turned her basket upside down, dumped the petals out, and ran to me.
I picked her up and tucked her into my arm, and I was laughing. Everybody was laughing. Everybody but Olivia, who came behind, scattering petals with determination until the last, and said with a sigh, “I told her how, but she’s just little.”
“
Never mind,” I said. Megan stood up and took Isobel from me, and Olivia went to sit beside Hamish, fluffing her skirts around her as she did it. Everybody was behaving pretty well, which was good, because they were staying with Megan and Alistair for the honeymoon. Which was in Fiji, and Poppy didn’t have a bikini to wear this time around. She had two. I wanted to see that little belly.
Then everybody stood up and turned around, and they were there.
Alistair in the red and green MacGregor tartan, tall and proud in his kilt and black jacket with its silver buttons, and Poppy on his arm, wearing a dress of ivory lace that clung to her curves, a flower in her shining hair.
She wasn’t looking down, and there was no possible way she was looking away. She was looking at me. And when she got to me, she took my face in her two hands and kissed me.
“I know we’re supposed to wait,” she said. “But I can’t.”
The emerald pendant I’d given her the night before shone against her skin, but it didn’t shine brighter than her eyes, and it didn’t shine brighter than her smile.
It took me forty-five long years to get married, and when I slid the emerald-encrusted gold band onto my bride’s finger, felt her hand shake in mine, and had to hold it an extra minute to let her know I was here, and I had her safe? I knew why. I’d had to wait for the right woman. The only woman. My lioness.
My job from now until forever was to stand between her and the world, anytime she needed me. My job was to be her jaguar, and I knew how to do my job.
She said the words back to me, her voice low and trembling, and the gold band slid onto my finger like it was meant to be there.
Because it was.
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