by Bowes, K T
“Far out, Ma!” Tama scoffed, putting both hands against her back to help her. He gave a shove and Hana giggled but there was little heart in it.
“Just wait,” she asked her son, reaching into a drawer beneath the dining table. Hana pulled out an A4 sized envelope, handing it to him and biting her lip nervously. “I’ve sorted more photos out for you,” she said. “And up at the house I’ve got pictures in frames and an album each for you and Izzie. I’ll get yours to you soon.”
Bodie took it and scrutinised Hana’s face, searching for signs of rejection in favour of her shiny new life. He saw none. The only thing his mother’s face contained was what Amy already told him – a woman trying to get on with the job of living and struggling to dovetail her old life into her new.
He thanked her and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “I hope you feel better tomorrow. I’ll be on site for most of the day tidying up, so I’ll pop in if that’s ok.”
Hana nodded. “You’re always welcome, Bo,” she said. “Logan’s on duty Saturday night and Sunday and I’m not looking forward to dealing with the long hours alone.” She smiled gratefully at her son and closed the door after him. As Mark got to his feet, Hana remembered his shift at work and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Mark, your job, I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be daft, Hana. A colleague covered and he owed me anyway. I did his shifts when his kids caught chickenpox. I’m not leaving straight away. I wanted to check you out if you’ll let me. Something’s bothering me and I want to assuage my fears. Would you mind?” he said, turning towards Logan.
“What?” Logan fought his daughter, trying to stuff her wriggly body into the high chair. “Phoe! Please, you’re not getting your dinner until you stop squirming.” She grizzled and held her arms out to Hana. “Ooh, nice pumpkin,” Logan said, concentrating on the baby who sported a sad bottom lip. He wrinkled his nose at her. “You pout like your mother!” When he turned back, his wife and her brother had gone. He shrugged at Tama, a wasted action as the teenager ogled the television.
“Right, lie on the bed,” Mark said, plumping the pillows.
“Ooh, doctor,” Hana fawned. “My husband’s in the next room.”
“Idiot.” Mark frowned. He took her left wrist, trying to slot his fingers into the space over her artery to take her pulse.
“Ouch!” Hana complained at the pressure over her scar, pulling her hand instinctively away.
Mark turned her hand over, palm upwards so he could look carefully at the old wound. “Hmmn,” he said, sounding like an expensive plumber and making Hana smirk. “It shouldn’t hurt that much still. I wonder if there’s a shard of glass left in there. We felt sure we’d got it all, but it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility there was a tiny particle we missed. It’ll cause a sharp, gritty pain when pressed. Is that what it’s like?”
Hana nodded. “Yes. It takes me by surprise because if I leave it alone, it doesn’t hurt so I forget it’s there.”
“It may account for the infection afterwards as it’s a foreign body.” Mark turned her hand back over and laid it gently on the bed. “You were fortunate that night. An experienced paramedic got to you first, otherwise you could have bled out.”
Seeing Hana’s face drop and her mind stray back to that night, Mark distracted her, throwing his long body on the other side of the bed next to her. He took her right hand and repeated the exercise, getting no resistance this time. He pulled her arm across his stomach and pressed his fingers over the pulsing vein. “Your heart rate’s very low, Hana. Didn’t the doctor at the police station check you out?”
“Sort of. He didn’t check that kind of stuff. He was more interested in the bruises and making sure the biology teacher hadn’t...no, he didn’t check my pulse. It wasn’t a check-up like at the doctor’s.”
“Well, I want you to get one,” Mark said with authority. “Judith...Mum wasn’t much older than you when she died. This heart defect is hereditary so see your GP, please. I’ll come with you if you like, but they must do a proper check and I don’t have the right equipment here. It’s important.”
“Ok,” Hana said passively, yawning with no intention of playing hypochondriac for her brother’s benefit. “It’s just because I’m tired after today.”
“Don’t be a hero; your children need you,” Mark said, laying back against the pillows on Hana’s usual side of the bed. “Crikey, I could go to sleep now.”
“Know the feeling,” Hana replied. “But my daughter will appear for a feed soon and I need to sleep when I’m sure I can get right through to the morning. Otherwise, I’ll have nightmares after today.”
“Well, I’m not prescribing pills until after you’ve seen that GP,” Mark said stiffly and Hana wrinkled her nose.
“Spoilsport! Do you realise in the last eighteen months I’ve been chased, attacked, moved house, married, got pregnant and given birth in the middle of the bush. I’ve coped with a baby at my age, witnessed a house fire that killed two people, moved house again, been kidnapped, gained an extra adult child and been attacked again. It kind of takes its toll on the older body, you know.”
Mark turned on his side and looked at Hana with a smile on his face. “Who’d have thought it, my kid sister a regular Nancy Drew? You were always such a wimpy child.”
Hana laughed. “Gosh, show your age or what! The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, I used to get so scared watching that. Remember that time you sneaked into my room and terrified me witless after an episode of that? Dad came flying up the stairs and clipped you round the ear, big as you were!”
“I was mean to you, wasn’t I? I was so jealous. Pathetic really.” Mark laid on his back and looked at the freshly painted ceiling. “Something you couldn’t have known was; the day you arrived home with your boyfriend, so obviously pregnant, you looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen you. You reminded me so much of Judith when she carried you, with your red hair and blushing cheeks, so fragile. It accentuated how much a part of them you were and how much I wasn’t. I think it’s what fuelled my anger. My marriage was imploding before my face and the little family unit I created – my very own family, was dissolving. And there you were, so pretty in your tight yellow dress, like a vision of beauty with hope and life in front of you. My temper ran so hot it was exhilarating. I actually felt in control for a change, even though I was far from it. I’m so sorry, Hana,” he sighed.
Hana took his hand, threading her sore fingers through his, the plasters catching on his skin. “How about we start all over again,” she whispered. “Hi, my name’s Hana and I’m your little sister.”
Mark giggled revealing a cute dimple in his cheek. He was so much like Elaine, Hana found it extraordinary she’d never noticed. Her brother sat up and put his feet on the floor, standing up and looking out of the window. “I should go,” he said, stretching his arms high above his head and almost touching the ceiling. Hana sat up too and flexed her sore wrist. Her long hair flopped forward on her face looking mussed and untidy, adding to her wild prettiness.
“How can I get this sorted?” she asked, fed up of the continual discomfort but worried in case the cure was as traumatic as the injury. Mark stood over her, eyeing the long, red scar on Hana’s wrist thoughtfully.
“You’d need an ultrasound or x-ray, although glass is notoriously difficult to see in certain sorts of scan. It’s radiopaque, so a radiographer needs to decide how to find it. By the time I got to open the wound up properly, a larger chunk of glass had gone straight into the artery and partially blocked it, ironically fortunate. I suspect there’s a tiny splinter inside the vein and I wouldn’t want to muck around with it without doing some research. It was a terrible enough job trying to isolate and seal it in the first place. It could be a needle in a haystack. I’m not sure what to suggest because it won’t break down over time. Hopefully, it won’t move either.”
“You’re not making me feel any better,” Hana said, pulling her sleeve over the scar. “You must be a rubbish doctor. First you m
ake a right mess of my wrist and then you fill me with doom and gloom. You’re a real shocker!” She laughed up at him and he shrugged.
“Sue me!”
When they emerged from the bedroom, Phoenix put her little head on one side and pulled a smiley, shy face with her mouth full of pudding. Tama was nowhere to be seen. “I sent him down the road for take-away food,” Logan said. “Stay Mark, he’ll get enough for everyone.”
Hana watched her husband spooning food into Phoenix’s face. She smiled as he opened and shut his own mouth in concentration and swallowed when she did. His tactic was business-like and calm and the child responded likewise. She didn’t mess around like she did with Tama although his status as a big kid didn’t help.
Mark accepted the extended hospitality and while Hana breast fed her daughter and picked at a plate of chips by her seat, the men sat at the dining table and scoffed a veritable feast. Logan watched his wife with an intensity almost painful to bear but ate little as Tama predicted. Mark wiped his mouth on a tissue and eyed the dark skinned man with respect. Logan left him in no doubt how much he adored Hana and their child with naked sincerity. It forced Mark to realise something; if he’d felt half as powerfully for his own wife all those years ago, things might have turned out differently.
As if reading his mind, Hana asked, “Do you see much of Carrie and the boys?”
Mark snorted with disdain and then regretted it as Logan shot him a dangerous look. “No. Sadly not. She remarried quickly enough to make me think she was already half way through the door before I noticed her dissatisfaction with me as a father and husband. I’ve no idea where she is and in the agony which followed our messy divorce, I also lost contact with my sons.” Mark’s brow furrowed and he pushed his plate away. “For years, money left my bank account and went into hers until the boys reached eighteen; then it ceased and with it, my last form of investment in their lives.” He sighed. “The boys will both be in their thirties now. I’ve often wondered what they decided to do with their lives. Meeting you again and managing to put things right has given me the confidence to contemplate trying to find them. I’d like them to know dad before...” He trailed off, not wanting to upset Hana and engrossed himself in his cold coffee.
Logan excused himself and made a pot of tea, taking a cup to Hana on the sofa. “Hey,” he said, sitting carefully next to her. His nosy daughter pushed up Hana’s tee shirt to give him an upside down smile. He laughed and stroked her forehead and Phoenix giggled. Hana sat her up so she could see her daddy, patting her on the back to release the air bubbles. Phoenix put her fists up to her eyes and rubbed, betraying her tiredness.
“Come here, kōtiro.” Logan held out his hands and she tipped forwards into them. Lying over his shoulder, Phoenix closed her eyes and began to fall asleep. “Hang on, baby,” he whispered. “Nappy change and cot and then you can go to the land of Nod.”
Hana watched her husband’s strong frame bear the fragile child down the hallway, oozing adoration from every pore.
“He really loves you guys, doesn’t he?” Mark commented, his voice low.
“Yup,” Tama interrupted. “There’s been a lot of people wished Logan Du Rose felt like that about them.”
“Were you one of them?” Mark asked and Hana winced, dreading the teenager’s reply.
“Hell yeah!” Tama wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’d do anything for that man’s approval but I never got it.”
“You never got it?” Mark’s eyes widened and he darted a glance towards Hana as she sipped her tea. She opened her mouth to defend her husband but Tama finished his point.
“No, I didn’t get it because I was trying to earn it and when that didn’t work, I did dumb stuff instead to get a reaction. Then Hana came along and just loved me for myself and when I realised what that felt like, I knew Logan always loved me, he just didn’t say the words. Uncle doesn’t give love easy, but when he does it’s worth it. I had it all the time but was too dumb to see.”
Mark’s nod was slow and heavy with understanding. “Then that’s what I need to do with my boys when I find them,” he said. “I must love them, whether they feel like receiving it or not.”
Mark left around nine o’clock and Hana crawled into bed shortly after, ignoring his good advice and taking a hefty sleeping tablet she found in the back of the bathroom cupboard. She peered at herself in the bathroom mirror, horrified by her white complexion and swallowed the tablet. “I don’t think it’s mine,” she told her reflection. “I think it’s a left-over from the previous occupant. Logan will have a fit.” She crawled into bed and slept, the white tablet doing its work.
Her husband checked the little pot at the back of the bathroom cupboard as he got ready for bed, counting the contents and smirking. It had belonged to the previous resident, but he played the long game, replacing the real sleeping tablets with ordinary painkillers earlier that evening. It was underhand but Hana possessed a worrying affinity with out-of-date prescriptions and other people’s medication, born of a complete lack of respect for drugs or chemicals. Logan hadn’t yet worked out whether it was ignorance, or a blatant disregard for consequences. He still hadn’t gotten over the time she’d taken ancient, dusty sleeping pills after a nasty scare before they were married. She greeted him bleary eyed the next day, getting half way to work before realising she still had her slippers on.
That night, Hana slept soundly under the influence of placebo painkillers and the firm belief she was successfully drugged.
Saturday dawned cold but bright and the soccer game between Waikato Presbyterian Old Boys and Staff and their counterparts in another local school, was not a fair fight. The opponents played dirty while the referee suffered a dreadful case of temporary blindness.
“This is ridiculous!” Bodie shouted as an opponent took his legs out from under him. “Are you bloody blind, ref?”
“It’s social soccer!” the man yelled back. “I’m doing my best. I’m not a FIFA referee!” He threw the whistle on the ground and stomped off the pitch in a temper.
Peter North limped around the sideline feigning a calf injury, hobbling backwards as his team thundered towards him. “Pete,” the goalkeeper cried, “referee the game, man. You don’t have to do any running.”
Logan shook his head and subbed himself off, standing next to Hana on the sidelines. “What kind of referee doesn’t have to run?” he demanded. “Idiots!”
“The Pete sort of referee?” Hana asked, pointing as Pete donned the second hand whistle and wiped it on his filthy tracksuit pants.
Logan groaned and heaved out a huge sigh. Pete was an even worse judge of fouls, standing in the middle of the centre circle with a pained look on his face, instead of blowing the whistle. At one point, he turned to the spectators with an oooh-that’s-gonna-hurt look on his face, while the players went crazy, screaming, “Ref, ref!” He blew the whistle with authority and made completely the wrong call.
When one of his own team yelled, “Why don’t you put on one of the opposition’s shirts, mate?” Pete threw his whistle down and followed the example of his predecessor.
“Oh what? Is he for real?” came the angry shouts behind him.
“I don’t really wanna go back on,” Logan grumbled as the coach performed frantic arm movements to get his attention.
“Well, why am I standing in the freezing cold like a fool then?” Hana protested. Her husband pulled a grouchy face and clomped over to the coach, running onto the pitch in a midfield position. He stuck his hand out at Hana and she wrinkled her nose.
Having stomped off the pitch, Pete headed home. By the time he reached his staff unit, the other team had reinstated the original referee, rendering Pete surplus to requirements. Hana was surprised to see him striding back towards the game with purpose and pushed the pram towards him. “Don’t take it to heart,” she said. “They step over that white line and become monsters.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” he said, looking cross. “I dropped my house k
ey somewhere on the pitch and need to look for it.”
“Aren’t you gonna wait until the end of the game?” Hana asked, watching as he ignored her and strode away. Every time there was a substitution or delay of any kind, he swooped onto the field and searched for the contents of his pocket.
“Aarrrrgggh!” he screamed, flattened by the technology teacher who powered down the left side of the pitch with a goal scoring opportunity. Bodie stood over the jumble of limbs waving his arms in fury. Pete sat up looking concussed and wobbly and was propped up against someone’s rucksack on the sideline. Not satisfied with the damage he’d already done, he crawled back onto the pitch.
Tama played striker and when Pete blundered in front of him for the third time, peering at the ground like a hen searching for worms, Tama picked him up bodily and tipped him off the pitch. Hana laughed so hard she nearly wet herself.
The coach moved Logan into a defence position where he dwarfed the opposition players who shied away from his height. They scuffed the ball hopelessly wide as he ran at them without fear. Hence the ball stayed largely in the centre of the pitch, going back and forth and nowhere else, wearing a trench into Larry Collin’s sacred earth.
Bodie switched into goalkeeper mode, clapping his huge gloves together in the cold and looking bored. He disappeared into the bushes for a pee and nobody noticed except Hana. Out of pity, she pushed the pram around to talk to him. “I don’t think Manchester United will call anytime soon,” she said, standing behind the goal.
Bodie looked round and sniggered. “Probably not.” He eyed his mother from beneath his lashes. “You’re looking very thin, Mum. And pale.”
“It’s just the stress of the last week,” Hana bluffed, hiding her offence. “Something to do with living in a crime scene and having your long-lost father and brother turn up unexpectedly.”
Bodie opened his mouth to speak but at that moment Pete, who was searching the back line for his key, took a hit straight to the face by a loose ball. He went down like a lead weight, landing with his arms and legs stretched out either side of him like road-kill. He looked unconscious.