New Du Rose Matriarch

by Bowes, K T

  Hana leaned on her elbow and stared into her husband’s face. “Loge,” she asked, her voice a whisper. “Could you stay home today? Please.”

  Logan lifted his head and stared at his wife. His hair was flat on one side and the crow’s feet around his stunning grey eyes were highlighted by the narrowing of them and the knitting of his brows. He tried hard to read her, but failed. “Why, babe? What’s wrong?” He ran a gentle finger down her cheek.

  Hana was stripped bare by his scrutiny and panicked. “Nothing, it’s fine. I’m just being silly.” She threw the covers back and grabbed her dressing gown, bolting to the bathroom for a shower. Logan knocked on the door to tell her he was leaving but she didn’t answer, afraid he would hear the misery in her voice.

  When she emerged dressed, Hana found Tama engrossed in daytime television. He watched Doctor Oz recommend some kind of fruit to stop spots and she figured he’d already said something about teeth, as Tama scrubbed his molars with the inside of an orange peel. The uneaten orange sat on the coffee table seeping acidic liquid. “Stop making a mess,” Hana said grumpily, picking up the orange and breaking it apart. She popped a segment between her lips. Tama smiled comically at her with peel trapped between his lips like a big orange grin. He took it out and a glob of dribble slipped onto his tee shirt. “You’re worse than a baby!” Hana complained, throwing herself on the sofa next to him and he budged over to make room.

  “Makes your teeth white,” he said, waving the dripping peel at her and Hana pulled a disgusted face. Tama threw the peel backwards, grinning broadly as he heard it plop into the sink. “So, are you gonna tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to guess?” He turned back to the television where someone lay on the floor of the studio, swaddled in pillows as a doctor showed them how to go to sleep. Hana reached forward and pressed the ‘off’ button on the remote, feeling jaded. It was all a load of rubbish.

  “You were right,” she said grudgingly, ignoring Tama’s look of confusion. “Laval came up to me when I went out walking with Amanda yesterday. He kissed me and was sleazy. She heard him and thinks I’m having an affair. She’ll probably tell everyone.”

  Tama swore and rubbed his hand over his face. “If Logan finds out about this, he’ll kill you and then when he’s finished, he’ll spread my body parts out for the moreporks.”

  Hana looked sad. “No, he won’t. He’ll walk away from me without a backward glance because of all the times Caroline cheated on him. If I’m lucky, he might leave me the baby, but I doubt it.”

  Tama put his arm around Hana as she cried silent tears of misery. “I told you we should tell him,” he said, his ignored wisdom sounding like an accusation. “What did Laval want?”

  Hana sighed an awful shuddering breath. “To meet me. Back at Day’s Landing at three o’clock today.”

  Tama sat up, his man-boy face suddenly far older than his years. “No way!” he said, “You’re not going.” He stood up and Hana sank into the centre of the sofa, filling the space he vacated. “I’m telling Uncle Logan now. This is serious, man!”

  Hana stood up also, not matching him for height but easily in courage and determination. “I’m going,” she said, meaning every syllable. “I love my husband and Laval’s not hurting him because of me. This was my battle even before I met Logan. Those men hid the documents under my car and came after me. They hurt me and broke my arm and burned out my car. Laval made me move house and go into hiding. I’ve had enough. Logan was dragged into this because of me. Odering won’t let me retract my statement, so I need to tell Laval that. It’s my problem. I’ll sort it!”

  “And if you can’t?” replied Tama, his voice high and frightened.

  “Then take care of Logan and Phoenix for me.” Hana’s face set in a look which Tama hadn’t seen since the night on the mountain, when she told him the baby was coming and she’d been right. He felt the same powerlessness. He loved Hana almost as much as he loved Logan. From beginnings of jealousy and hatred, they grew on each other. “Hana, you can’t do this,” he whispered. “If anything happened to you, it’d kill Logan as surely as taking a gun to his head.”

  “I don’t have a choice! Stop talking about it; it won’t change anything,” Hana snapped.

  Hana left in the Honda for a while, making Tama babysit the sleeping girl and returned from the shops carrying a steriliser unit and bottles. She set it up in the kitchen and he watched her, feeling paralysed. Hana went to the bedroom and changed the sheets, washing them and hanging them out in the sunshine to dry. Amanda was out there fetching cloth nappies off the line, but Hana didn’t even try to talk. There seemed little point anymore. Doom gripped her soul with the realisation she may not return from the meeting with Laval and she moved around in a fog. When the bottles were sterilised for the correct time, Hana disappeared to the bedroom with them.

  Tama fretted, fetching the baby when she cried an hour later and knocking on the bedroom door. “Hana, let me in. Phoe’s hungry.”

  Hana met him looking hot and bothered. She didn’t even look at the baby, handing him a bottle full of creamy white milk. “Change her and feed her this,” she said. “I’m expressing enough to last today. After that, there’s formula in the kitchen. She won’t like it much but...”

  “No, Hana no, don’t do this!” Tama growled but Hana slammed the door in his face and he heard a chair being put against it. “I’ll break it down!” he threatened, but Phoenix started to cry in earnest and he cuddled her into his chest, feeling helpless.

  Hana sobbed in the bedroom and expressed as much milk as she could. It was hard not feeding her baby, knowing Tama was doing it for her with the unfamiliar bottle. She heard the child screaming in the lounge as she refused the rubber teat and prayed she would take the bottle. She needed to; her mother had nothing left to give. Hana recoiled inside at yesterday’s selfishness, even having considered the act of feeding her child to be a chore when after today, she may never get to do it again. “Don’t be stupid!” she told herself. “I’ll tell him I can’t retract the statement and it’ll be over. He just wants to talk and then I’ll come home.” She pushed away the sense of foreboding and tidied the bedroom.

  At one thirty, Hana woke the baby and changed her nappy. Phoenix was exhausted and gave the little hitch hitch noise from crying herself out. Hana guiltily put her to the breast for a last suckle, using it to calm them both. Tama managed to get a whole bottle into the child, but Phoenix was fractious and upset the whole time, sicking most of it back up over him. She snuffed and fed greedily, falling asleep in her mother’s arms. “Mummy loves you so much, Phoenix Du Rose,” Hana sighed. “I’m doing this because I love you and daddy. I must try to talk reason into this stupid situation and make the nasty man realise I can’t change anything. Then maybe he’ll stop harassing me.”

  Tama hummed loudly in the shower getting rid of the sick. Hana heard his rendition of a popular blues tune through the adjoining wall as he washed his hair. She put her baby in the cot, kissed her soft little forehead and walked out to meet her fate. She took no keys but wore a tracksuit and training shoes, in case she needed to run away. Sick and numb, she hadn’t eaten after Tama’s orange. At the last minute she stuffed the new phone into her bra, pressing buttons to mute all noise and vibration. It lay in the padding inert and silent.

  By half past two, Hana was most of the way to her rendezvous. It was a decently long walk. She saw Amanda as she left, hanging out more washing with Millie playing in the grass next to her. Hana looked at the other woman and shook her head with sadness. The dead look in her eyes made Amanda stop in her tracks, recognising the sense of futility oozing from Hana. “That’s odd,” Amanda said to her daughter. The little girl chatted back with conversational nonsense. “She doesn’t have Phoenix with her and she looks...unwell.”

  Amanda had heard Phoenix breaking her tiny heart through the adjoining wall an hour previously and it was unusual. Something about the last few days jarred at her nerves and she reran the overheard conversa
tion, allowing it to take on a different perspective. “I think I might have made a mistake,” she mused to the child. “What if she’s suffering from post-natal depression? I had it after your father’s...well, I had it.” Amanda darted a nervous look towards the units. “What if she’s left the baby alone and is going to do something stupid?”

  She finished hanging out the washing and then played with her child for a while, reluctant to overreact and cause drama if she’d misunderstood the situation. Time passed and Millie grew fractious outside in the hot sunshine and Amanda finally obeyed the overwhelming instinct that something was wrong. She stuffed Millie into the washing basket and carried it to Hana’s unit, hovering at the bottom of the steps and twice talking herself out of interfering.

  Her knocking on the door became more frantic as she got no answer and panic made her shout too, convinced Phoenix was alone in the house. The door flung open and Tama stood in front of her in all his male glory. His hair was wet and shone in the sunshine and he wore only a towel. Half way through shaving, his face sported a foaming white beard. A short tempered demeanour added to his incredible good looks and fantastic physique, creating a smouldering image. “What?” he asked rudely, razor in hand. His grey eyes stared at Amanda, the colour of stone and she was momentarily wrong-footed.

  “I was worried about Hana,” she stumbled out, falling over her words.

  “Why?” he bit crossly and shrugged. “Her life’s already crap. She told me what you said; you wanna wreck her marriage as well?”

  Amanda paled and looked distressed. “She looked so...I’m sorry, I don’t care what she’s up to. I’m worried about her. I don’t want her to do something stupid and me not...you know, not to have realised...” Amanda trailed to a halt and gave a sigh.

  As she turned to go, Tama reached out with an olive skinned hand and grabbed her shoulder. “Wait, what do you mean, something stupid. She’s here, in her room. I’ve been in the...” Comprehension dawned on his face like a crashing wave and he swore.

  Amanda walked up the steps and in through the front door as she heard Tama running through the little house calling Hana’s name. When he didn’t find her, he swore heartily, at Hana but mainly himself. “Why, why why? You bloody stupid, independent woman! How could you be so dumb? I should have checked on her again. It’s my fault. Logan’s gonna kill me!”

  Amanda stood in the lounge, shocked as the young man ripped off the towel and scratched in a bag for clothing. As he stood up, Amanda found it hard to look away. He was gorgeous. She ogled unashamedly as he pushed his feet into ripped faded jeans without bothering with underwear. Her lower jaw hung slackly at the image of what was underneath the denim fabric.

  Tama pulled trainers onto bare feet and then flung a tee shirt over his muscular torso. As an afterthought, he grabbed a baseball cap and threw it onto his head. It was as though Amanda was invisible. She felt like that most of the time. Tama seized a baby bottle from the fridge and flung it into a change bag near the pram. “Call the cops,” he bit at Amanda over his shoulder. “Do it now!”

  He ran down the hallway still doing up the zipper of his jeans and emerged carrying a sleeping Phoenix. He pulled the change bag over his shoulder and ran, leaving the front door wide open and Amanda standing in the lounge with her daughter in the washing basket and her eyes wide in shock. “I never knew men didn’t wear pants,” she remarked to her daughter. Millie laughed.

  Tama ran to the main building of the school, the baby’s head jiggling against his chest. He tried not to disturb her, dreading a repeat of the awful crying. “Where is he?” Tama hissed, running through the earlier conversation with his uncle and playing over Logan’s timetable in his head. Tama remembered the familiar smell of the buildings and jogged to Logan’s English classroom. He shifted the baby’s weight in his arms and hammered on the door, unable to work the handle and hold the baby and change bag. He didn’t particularly want to drop either. A Year 12 boy opened the door and peered out at him.

  “Move!” Tama said rudely, shoving the boy aside with his hip. He strode into the classroom and saw a surprised Logan staring at him, along with the other thirty occupants of the class. The teacher stood with his left leg bent, the foot resting on the seat of a chair and his forearm resting on his thigh. He was explaining something and his other arm remained in the air. Tama saw the lack of comprehension as the teenager dropped the change bag on the floor and ran over, dumping the sleeping bundle into her father’s arms.

  “What the...?” Logan took Phoenix with a what-the-heck look on his face, but Tama didn’t have time to explain. He rushed out, faster without his delicate bundle and sprinted to catch up with Hana. She had a decent head start on him. He thrust his car key into the ute’s ignition and tried to turn the engine over. Nothing happened.

  “I’ve called the cops!” Amanda called from her doorway and he nodded in acknowledgement. The engine groaned but the ignition remained dead.

  “Damn!” Tama thumped the steering wheel and abandoned the vehicle with its driver’s door open. He eyed the Honda, suspecting Hana had the keys with her.

  Tama nearly killed himself getting onto River Road. It was a quarter to three and he still had miles to go. He dropped into a steady jog, his long legs covering the ground and his body fatigued with the extreme heat. After another ten minutes he reached the brow of a hill and saw Hana on the horizon, still a distance ahead. She walked briskly and the teenager dived into a driveway, instinctively sensing she was about to turn. He watched her peer behind as he peeked out from the bushes in someone’s front garden.

  Bending forward and holding his knees, Tama tried to catch his breath whilst contemplating how he could get closer without her seeing him on the straight, undulating road. He set off again and half jogged, half walked for the next kilometre. He passed two tradesmen chatting next to a white van pulled up on the grass outside an expensive house and walked as he passed them. They wore dirty tee shirts and the uniform boots and stubby shorts of a tradie. “Ah bro,” a stocky, bald man laughed, “your plastering’s shite. I’ve seen it!”

  The teenager hid behind a tree as Hana looked back again. He wondered if she could sense someone following. Her nervousness was evident even from a distance and Tama tried not to think about Logan’s face as he dumped the baby in his arms.

  His uncle had known something was wrong and asked Tama about it in the gym early that morning. “What’s the story with Hana?” he asked, eyeing his nephew like a human lie detector.

  “Dunno,” Tama grunted. Logan spotted weights for the young man, increasing the kilogrammes until Tama was at his limit. The teenager realised he’d had enough of lying on his back with a heavily laden bar above his head, supported by a man who possessed a sixth sense for deception. “I’m done now,” Tama puffed.

  Logan took the metal bar in his strong arms, his muscles bulging and the shape of his chest straining under the tee shirt. But he didn’t settle the laden bar in its cradle. To Tama’s horror, he held it over the boy’s head for a fraction of a second too long. Then he asked him again, “What’s going on with my wife?” Logan’s neck muscles bulged as he bore the weight and his eyes were dark and filled with danger.

  Tama shook his head, his eyes watching the bar as it curved in the middle from the strain. His silence gave away enough. Logan seated the laden bar safely on the rack. “I’m watching!” he hissed and Tama made an excuse and fled back to the house while Logan finished his workout.

  Tama jogged after Hana, closing the distance but diving out of sight when she checked behind her. He counted the times he’d let Logan down, wishing he could start over and do better. Hana trusted his unreliable ass and it fostered affection in the emotionally repressed teenager. Apart from his lapse with Anka, he had an unblemished record with the new Du Rose matriarch. He increased his pace despite the exhaustion of his body and closed the distance. He loved how Hana made him feel and refused to fail her. “I’m coming, Hana,” he muttered under his breath. “I won’t l
et you down.”

  Hana walked into the park by Day’s Landing and Tama followed at a safe distance. He watched her stand by the toilets even though both cubicles displayed a green light and were empty. She dragged her hand across her forehead and wiped it on her track pants, before sitting on the curb. Her shoulders slumped in resignation and Tama’s heart melted. He couldn’t stand by and watch while this punk pushed her around; it was too hard. “Screw this!” he hissed. He squared his shoulders and pressed his way out of the bushes, his eyes fixed on the lonely woman in the distance.

  “Get down on the ground! Now!” The voice grated on Tama’s nerves as one of the tradesmen held his hand out to stop him. The teenager felt a flush of irritation.

  “I’m not doing anything. Get out of my way!” Tama gave him a shove, his head jerking sideways to check Hana, but the man didn’t move.

  “On the ground!” he repeated. The guy wore carrot-orange hair and reached into his tool belt as Tama gritted his teeth and prepared to charge him. “Stand still!”

  Tama saw a dark Mercedes SUV sweep through the car park entrance and instinctively knew. He’d come for her. “Don’t get in that car, don’t get in that car!” Tama yelled, but the distance between him and Hana dismissed his warning, dispersing it on the gentle breeze. “No!” he bellowed as Hana stood.

  Tama looked at the ginger guy and knew he could take him. He was a scraggly thing and Tama drew his strength into his torso, willing his body to remember rugby first fifteen training. As his weight dipped forward, his whole body experienced a peculiar sensation and Tama shot backwards into the bushes. Nothing mattered but the fizzing in his nerve endings like he’d touched a live wire and the burning in his chest wall. His eyeballs rolled back into his head as the ginger cop switched the Taser off.

  “You didn’t stay ‘Stop Police’ you damned idiot!” the older tradesman yelled as he jogged up. “Can’t you get anything right?”