Just Come Over

by James, Rosalind

  “Mm.” She was trying so hard not to laugh. “Five hundred dollars. D’you want a flower subscription, by the way? My Supreme package is twenty percent off if you pay annually.”

  “I’m opening the door for you,” he said, doing just that, and watching her hop up into his passenger seat with a pretty spectacular flash of thigh, “because I enjoy being a gentleman. Not because I enjoy being teased.”

  “No?” She fluttered her lashes at him. “And yet I could swear you do. Four rabbits, Rhys. Four fluffy little bunnies, with an indoor and an outdoor home. What happens when I share that with Jenna? What happens when Finn finds out?”

  “I may have four rabbits,” he said. “But he has four kids.” And considered the argument won. Or quit while he was behind. One or the other.

  “So,” Zora’s mother asked that night, over a dinner of chicken, rice, and vegetables that wasn’t exactly gourmet, but that Zora hadn’t had to cook, at least, “what kinds of new and exciting things are happening in your life, darling?”

  Hayden looked at her with the usual glint in his eye. Their mum never asked him that. She was of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” mindset when it came to Hayden’s much more interesting life. Anyway, Zora’s presence here with Isaiah, and the arrangement of hydrangeas, zinnias, and spray roses spilling out of a sterling-and-ceramic vase in the center of her mother’s starched white linen tablecloth, looking perfectly feminine and just bloody fine in shades of blush and pale green, represented everything about her life she wanted to share. She had a son, and he was awesome. She did flowers, and she was good at it. She was organized enough to bring one of those floral arrangements to dinner. Boom. Done.

  She thought about saying, I kissed my brother-in-law, or possibly, I found out that every man in the world apparently cheats, including the one I thought had mana. I can’t figure out why I can’t stay angrier about that, or why I’m wishing I was cooking dinner with him tonight, that I was looking at him and he was looking at me with all that heat and humor, and that we were both wondering what would happen once we put the kids to bed. Why do I keep conveniently mislaying my grip on the truth, when the evidence is right there in thoroughly lovable six-year-old form, and nobody’s even trying to deny it? Why is my body always so much more persuasive than my mind? What is wrong with me? Or maybe she should say, I could be having sex tonight, for the first time in almost three years, with the only man in the world who burns me down, and who doesn’t seem any more able to resist me than I’m able to resist him. I’ll bet he knows exactly how to do it. I’ll bet he’d hold me down and make me come until my legs shook. I’ll bet he’d make me scream. But I can’t do any of that, for reasons listed above.

  This was why flowers worked so well for her. Flowers were pure, like children. Adults, though? Adults were complicated. Also twisty, deceptive, and confusing. And once you added sex to the mix? That was when she got herself into real trouble. Every single time, like she’d never learned a thing.

  She’d waited too long to answer, because Isaiah said, “I got a new cousin. That’s new and exciting. Her name is Casey Moana Hawk, which sounds very cool. Her name’s going to get changed so it’s the same as ours, though, and we’ll all be Fletcher then. I think it’s better to have your names the same. That way, you know which family you belong to. I kind of wish my name could be Hawk, though. Also, Mum’s earning more than a hundred and fifty extra dollars a week, and maybe even two hundred dollars, so we can probably buy her new van sooner. That’s very exciting.”

  “Taking your points in order,” Hayden said, the mischief all but shining out of him, “there is the sad reality that having everybody’s name be the same generally means that one partner is giving up her name entirely. Unless their names are already the same, somehow, which would make everything so much easier. Is the price of inclusion too high, I wonder? What do you think, Zora? Although I agree. In fact, I think we should all change our name to Hawk. Much cooler. Hayden Hawk. I sound like a brand. Definitely an option.”

  “Oh.” Isaiah appeared to be considering that idea. “Is that how it happens? Does one person have to change?”

  “Yes,” Zora said. Another somewhat dull subject that she could think about logically. Yay. “Uncle Hayden and I are the same family, but we have different surnames.”

  “Because you got married to Dad.”

  “That’s right. It’s a debate you could have, or you could decide that everybody gets to choose for themselves. You can hyphenate your kids’ names, so your name would be Isaiah Allen-Fletcher, and my name would still be Zora Allen. Or you can choose just the dad’s surname, or the mum’s. Casey has her mum’s surname. Some people even give the boys the mum’s name and the girls the dad’s, or the other way around, but then the kids have different surnames.”

  “That would be weird,” Isaiah said. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Zora’s mother said. “All this chopping and changing. If a tradition has been good enough for everybody for hundreds of years, it’s good enough now. Isaiah’s right. You’re one family, and a family has a surname.”

  Hayden murmured on Isaiah’s other side, “Shot down once more, kid. Keep thinking it through, though. Much more attractive to the ladies.” He glanced at Zora, and she read the thought in his eyes perfectly. I need wine. There was never wine on offer, or coffee, either, at their parents’ house. Sometimes, it felt like a cruel deprivation. Orthopedic surgeons needed steady hands, though, and in this house, her dad’s needs ruled.

  Their mother continued, “What cousin is this, Isaiah? A real cousin, or a Maori cousin?”

  “Maori cousins are real cousins,” Zora said, for approximately the seventy-third time. “Different definition, that’s all.”

  “She’s both kinds of cousin,” Isaiah said. “She’s Maori, like me, and Uncle Rhys is her dad. He was my dad’s brother, and that makes her my cousin. I didn’t know she was, and Casey didn’t know he was her dad, either, but then her mum died and Uncle Rhys came, and she found out. Now she comes to our house every day, and I have to help her with school and things.” He shrugged and stabbed another piece of chicken, then, at a look from Zora, picked up his knife and cut it properly. “I guess I have to, though, like Uncle Rhys says. He says a good heart matters, so you have to be kind. But Casey has rabbits now and likes to watch movies, so I don’t mind.”

  “Dylan’s brother suddenly has a secret daughter?” Her mum’s brown eyes had sharpened. “I thought he was divorced.”

  “Getting there,” Zora said. “He and Victoria are in the waiting period for the divorce. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  “That didn’t take him long,” her dad said. “No grass growing under his feet. No surprise there.”

  “Casey’s six.” Zora kept her voice level. This was the first of many times she’d be explaining this. You could call it a test.

  Her mother looked up, and her dad did, too. Her dad laughed, in fact, and said, “That’s not what you’d call careful. Who’d have thought Rhys Fletcher would be that reckless? Rugby players aren’t always known for their self-discipline, though, I guess.”

  “Rugby players are exactly known for their self-discipline,” Zora said. Well, not Dylan, maybe, but Rhys? Also, her dad wasn’t saying, “Maori aren’t known for their self-discipline,” but that was what he meant. Isaiah was Maori. She’d pointed that out to her parents, and still, they did it.

  “Casey came from Chicago,” Isaiah said. “Which is in the United States, but Uncle Rhys brought her home to live with him. Mum and I are living at Uncle Rhys’s house starting on Tuesday, and Casey got rabbits today, so she needs help to take care of them, because Uncle Rhys is about to leave for Australia.”

  “Excuse me?” Zora’s mum said.

  “We’ll be there caring for Casey,” Zora said, “while Rhys is in Australia, like Isaiah said. Rhys is coaching the Blues now, and he’s bought a place in Titirangi, so it’s convenient for all of us. Extra money for Isaiah an
d me, and Casey’s a darling.”

  “You’re a child-minder now?” her mum asked.

  “No. I’m helping out with my niece, which is no hardship at all, and Rhys is paying me for it, which is a wonderful bonus.”

  “In other news,” Hayden had to put in, “Zora had a date recently. With a doctor. Not just a doctor. A surgeon. Absolute parental approval territory. Life returns, eh.”

  Both her parents sprang into hyper-alertness. “What kind of surgeon?” her dad asked.

  “Plastic,” Hayden said, while Zora shot daggers at him. “Alistair something. Plaid shorts. It didn’t work out, though. One and done. You have to kiss a lot of frogs, I guess, but at least she’s begun the kissing.”

  “Alastair Corcoran, by any chance?” her dad asked, and at Zora’s reluctant nod, said, “Good surgeon. Does very well for himself indeed, only ten years or so in, and not a bad fella. Well done, Zora.”

  “Except that it didn’t work out,” Zora said, doing her best to keep it light. “Maybe Hayden went out this week. We could ask him about it. Bound to be more entertaining than hearing about my life, unless you want to talk about flowers. So few people ever want to talk about flowers.”

  “Well, I think getting out there is a wonderful idea,” her mum said firmly. “Past time, I’d say, kissing or not.”

  Isaiah said, “Mum is kissing, though. She kissed Uncle Rhys today, in the bathroom. Casey and I saw.”

  The clock on the wall turned over the seconds. Tick, tick, tick. In the silence, four pairs of eyes swiveled toward Zora. Her father looked startled. Her mum looked disapproving. Hayden looked amused and expectant. Isaiah looked apprehensive, like he shouldn’t have said it.

  Zora smiled—at least she thought she was smiling, because her face felt frozen—and said, “Family’s different, Isaiah. Your Nana and Uncle Hayden are talking about a different kind of kissing.”

  “Oh,” Isaiah said, and looked doubtful. She didn’t lie to him, except that she just had. What else could she have said, though? It was one time. One slip. It was over.

  Rhys hadn’t mentioned it again, but then, it wasn’t the sort of thing you discussed amongst the play rugs at Bunnings Hardware, when Casey was deciding between the town and the castle, because Rhys had noticed that she needed a carpet, and, in typical Rhys fashion, had taken steps to fix that.

  How would she have brought it up? Sorry I projected my sexual frustration onto you. Please excuse the orgasm topic. I’ll try much harder in future not to imagine your hands slowly pushing my legs apart and your mouth moving up my inner thigh, and I’ll also stop wondering whether you can actually be as big as you felt against me, because I don’t need to know. But since we’re talking, can you possibly be as absolutely physical and completely sexual a man, or as determined to work at pleasing a woman until she loses all her strength, as I’ve been imagining? Just tell me once, and then I’ll drop the subject.

  Obviously, he was that sexual, or he wouldn’t have responded the way he had. Also obviously, he’d thought better of it once he’d had a chance to think it through, whatever he’d said at the time, or he’d have addressed it himself. Rhys wasn’t exactly the retiring, tactful sort.

  It was such a good thing that he was leaving.

  She thought the subject was closed here, too. When she and her mum were doing the washing-up, though, just the two of them, her mum returned to the topic. She started out with the oblique approach. “I’m glad to hear you’re dating again. Dylan was a lovely man, but two years is long enough.”

  “My mandated mourning period’s over, is it?” Zora asked.

  “Don’t be silly. You’re the one who mentioned dating. And really, darling, your life is so precarious. That can’t be pleasant, worrying about the bills every month. Isaiah needs a father, too.”

  Zora took a breath. Why hadn’t she said this before, as much as she’d been thinking about it? She always stayed in her lane with her parents, but she was thirty years old, and a mother herself. Maybe it was time to change lanes. She said, “Dylan cheated on me, you know.” There the words were, right out there. “Often, I think. I suspected it for a long time, and around the time he got ill, I found some old text messages. I wasn’t even looking for them. I didn’t want to know, and I found out. Anyway, there’s no such thing as not letting yourself know. You always know. I stayed anyway, all the way until he died, but I’m all done with that kind of loyalty. I’m not putting myself into that position again.”

  She was so tired of dragging this around, and wondering whether it had been her own failing that’d had Dylan looking elsewhere. She needed to put it where it belonged and move on, and to do that, she needed to say it. The day she’d found those texts had been a terrible one, the kind of day when the sun turned red in the sky, when time froze and all the blood drained from your head, and you’d forever remember standing in the kitchen, your hand gripping the phone until your knuckles turned white, as you stared down at the screen and every last damning piece slipped into place, and you realized your entire life had been built on a lie.

  It had been a bad day, but there’d been so many bad days, and it was over.

  Her mum stopped scrubbing at the roasting pan. “Oh. Well,” she added after a minute, “it happens.”

  “It happens?” Not the reaction Zora had expected. Where was the outrage? Where was the mother-daughter bonding?

  “Of course it does. You’re not a baby. He didn’t marry any of those other girls, did he? Didn’t ask for a divorce, either, unless I’m very much mistaken, and I don’t think I am, because he loved you, and he wanted to be married to you. That was plain to see. I may not have approved at the time, but you had a lovely life together, until the last bit, and everybody admired what you did for him. You say you don’t want to be loyal anymore, but that’s what marriage is. It’s not loyalty to somebody perfect, it’s loyalty to somebody who isn’t. He didn’t buy enough life insurance, of course, and that’s a pity, but then, you didn’t see to it that he did. And there are two sides to every story.”

  Zora’s mouth was trembling so hard, it was difficult to form the words. “No. There are not two sides. We took vows. He broke his. How is that two sides?” She’d been wiping crystal glasses with a tea towel. She stopped, because otherwise, she was going to break something. Her hands were shaking. “Did Dad cheat, is that what you’re saying? Does Dad cheat?”

  Yes, she’d said it. Talk about getting out of your lane.

  “If he does,” her mother said, her voice tightening, but her hands never stopping, “I don’t worry about it. I take care to keep myself looking my best, and thirty-four years after we met, he’s still coming home to me.” She shot a glance at Zora’s shorts and blue shirt, which she hadn’t bothered to change. For rebellious reasons, maybe. “A doctor’s always going to notice that. What am I saying? Any man’s going to notice that. You may want to pay more attention to your diet, darling. You’re getting a wee bit bigger in the derrière, I’ve noticed. We both tend to be bottom-heavy, if we don’t watch it, because you have my face and figure, for better or worse. I’ve found measuring to be very helpful. Weigh yourself every morning, and measure your waist and hips once a week. It’s so much easier to lose one Kg than it is ten, and to shift those wee fat deposits when they are wee.”

  “Why would I care?” Zora asked. “If he’s going to cheat anyway, what’s the point in my perfection?” She was furious, but she was also fascinated. Had she been raised by dinosaurs? Apparently so. No wonder she kept having trouble with her attitude toward Rhys, and remembering exactly what Casey’s presence in his life meant. It was subliminal messaging, that was what. She was going to share this with Hayden as soon as they got back to her place. With wine. If he thought cheating was OK, too, or that it was her fault, because she wasn’t hot enough, she was . . . she was going to throw him out and drink the whole bottle by herself, and to hell with her five o’clock start tomorrow morning. Everybody in the world could think it was OK. She still wasn�
�t going to, even if she was alone forever.

  “You don’t want to be alone forever, surely,” her mother said, and there was Zora’s problem, right there. She was absolutely transparent. “You adored Dylan. So did I. So did everybody. He wasn’t perfect, but he had so many fine qualities, and your life was so much easier than it is now. You weren’t meant to go through the world without somebody to help you. I can hear you now, thinking, ‘You and Dad should help me more, then,’ but your dad did help, with advice that, I’ll point out, you haven’t taken, because you sold that beautiful house anyway. If we helped you financially, we’d be passing the problem down, wouldn’t we? Next thing you know, Isaiah would be looking for a handout.”

  “My life is fine.” Zora was going to explode. Physically explode. They’d be picking bits of her off the walls. “I’ve been lucky. I was well off, and then I was less well off, but come on, Mum. I own a home. I own a business. I have a wonderful son with a brilliant mind and a kind heart. People would kill for my life. And I’ve never asked you for a handout. Never once. Also, a man who lies to me isn’t somebody I’m going to adore, not anymore. How would my life possibly be better with another man like that? I paid attention, with Dylan. I paid all the attention that got paid. I made all the decisions about our life, about our house, and about Isaiah. I didn’t gain weight, either, whatever you say. Not that it would be any excuse, because I would’ve gained it having his baby. I didn’t cheat. Why is it OK if Dylan did? Why is it OK that he worked at rugby, and nothing else? And not always even that? Why is it OK that he didn’t work at me?”

  It was so wrong, she’d thought, to feel contempt for your husband. She’d always run from it, had shoved it down and stamped on top of it. Now, she faced it. “He wasn’t a grownup,” she said. “I was. And if I let myself see that, if I admit how angry I was about it, I don’t think I’m the one with a problem. I think that’s healthy. I do. I don’t want to go through my life angry, but I need to say it in order to let it go.”