by Bowes, K T
Hana giggled. “I can’t spend all day in bed! It’s just wrong.” She escaped into the bathroom as she heard Logan calling, “What’s wrong about it?” at her retreating back.
She set the shower going to warm up and then ran back to the bedroom for her clothes, bolting back quickly and squealing as Logan pretended to chase after her.
They ate the stew for lunch. It simmered itself to a pulp on the stove and didn’t need blending. “We can’t tell Maihi we let it cook for so long,” Hana said, concern in her eyes. “I bet she checks up on us.”
“Yep, she definitely will,” Logan confirmed with a smirk. The stew was hearty and wholesome and contained a good variety of different vegetables including kumara and taro which made it flavourful. Logan polished off one bowlful and half of a second and there was still enough over to put into the fridge for later.
“Maybe we could try the Saturday markets next week?” Hana mused and Logan shook his head.
“Probably best not to at the moment. Not until those guys are caught. Why lead them right back here?”
“True.” Hana’s bubble of optimism burst and she quieted, the only sound being the scraping of bowls. “So how did she get onto the property?” She asked, a while later.
Logan shrugged and answered with his mouth full. “Not sure. She said something about an ancient path, but you would have to know where it is to find it. It would be good to know how to get to it, in case we need it…” he trailed off and Hana knew what he was thinking.
“I hope they catch those guys soon,” she said thoughtfully, “I’m sick of living my life looking over my shoulder. I think if nothing happens by the time you go back to work, I’m want to go back too and live a normal life.”
Logan looked at her with his eyebrows raised but said nothing. Hana seemed to veer between not caring if she was followed, to panicking over nothing and he doubted if she remembered what a normal life involved. While Hana went down to the garage to collect more wood for the fire in the big wicker basket, Logan nipped into the bathroom and phoned Bodie. It wasn’t him who answered though, but Amy.
“He’s taken Jas to the park,” she said, in answer to Logan’s enquiry. “So he could be back anytime, or not for hours. The other afternoon they were gone for six hours because it rained and they decided to go bowling and to McDonalds.” She didn’t sound like it distressed her overly much. She was able to fill Logan in on some of the details about Hana’s pursuers though. “Me and Bo have been using the Honda,” she stated, “and we’ve both been followed. Once it was a black BMW and the other time it was a beat-up Subaru, but neither had an Asian driver.”
“Hana’s starting to go stir-crazy,” Logan informed Amy, “so I hope this all gets sorted quickly. Can’t you arrest the guys who keep following you?”
“How?” retorted Amy, “Prove they’re following us. We know they are and they know they are but it’s technically not a crime worthy of arrest. We need them to ‘do’ something. I think Bodie’s planning to visit Mrs Bowman unofficially and see if he can meet this Mr Laval or at least get a photo. He’ll have to do it carefully though. He knows something but won’t tell me. I think his mate in Investigations told him something on the quiet. He’ll sort it out anyway.”
Amy had the confidence of someone who was followed only once and wasn’t hiding out in the bush. Although she was a cop, so maybe that made a difference too.
By the time Hana huffed to the top of the stairs with the wood basket, she found Logan on the phone to his father, explaining about the stay in hospital. She only heard the back end of the conversation as she put more logs onto the fire. “Na, you don’t need to come see me, I’m fine. Hana’s looking after me,” he smiled across at her and she shook her head. “Really Dad, it’s ok. Look if Tama shows up, send him away right, he’s Mike’s problem now. I don’t want to know anymore.”
The conversation didn’t last long after that, although from what Hana heard, her father-in-law agreed. Logan looked tired and a bit careworn but refused to go back to bed without her. In the end, she put a movie on for him and wasn’t surprised to find him asleep five minutes into the film. She turned the television down and covered him up with a furry throw, closing the curtains and dimming the lights.
In the kitchen, she set up her sewing machine again and started on the curtains for the other end of the living room, finishing them quicker than she expected. “I’m getting good at this, Tiger,” she told the cat happily.
Logan slept all afternoon and into a large part of the evening. Hana kept checking on him and he seemed ok. She hung the new curtains, giving the room a completed look and drew them against the darkness outside. She put more wood on the fire, realising as it hissed and spat that she mistakenly brought up the wet stuff. Never mind now, she thought to herself, there was no way she was going out in the dark for more.
Fortunately, there were curtain tracks over the front door and the windows that flanked it. The other rooms required track and fittings. Hana sorted through her fabric and picked out what she wanted to use in the hallway. She fingered the heavy navy material which would tie in the colours from the outside. Hana began with the easiest window, making both curtains in less than an hour. She was impressed with herself, but couldn’t hang them, as she still needed to paint. She made sure they fitted and then moved onto the door area, trying to decide whether to do one big curtain or two.
In the end, she decided on two, which would join in the centre of the door. She made them, fully lined and meeting perfectly in the middle. Her best yet. Hana shuffled a cute happy-dance in her socks and jiggled the reluctant cat around the hallway in her arms. He mewed and wriggled free, landing on the floorboards with a thud. “Sshhhh!” Hana put her finger up to her lips to silence him and he shimmied off, his tail kinked at the end in irritation. “You’ll wake Logan,” she told him and poked her head around the living room door.
Logan still slept on the sofa but had changed position. His complexion looked pink and overheated, a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face. Hana peeled the blanket off him, finding it damp to the touch. Her brow knitting in concern, she undid his dressing gown cord to expose Logan’s torso. Horror filled her green eyes at the dressings, covered in pink and red seepage. It leaked through the white gauze and covered his stomach. Hana hesitated, staring at the mess in front of her, her heart rate hiking as she panicked. Logan looked as though he slept peacefully, his breathing regular and steady. But his body was soaked in sweat, blood mingling and running into his dressing gown.
Hana Du Rose
Chapter 13
“Logan?” Hana shook his shoulder to wake him. “Sweetheart, you need to wake up. Logan?”
Her husband was groggy and disorientated, pushing weakly at Hana’s hands as she touched him. As she tried to bring him round, he clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sick!”
Hana ran and grabbed the washing up bowl and put it on the floor next to him, only just making it. He tried to sit and threw up, luckily into the bowl. He was heavy and reeling and Hana found it hard to move him easily. Instinct told her there was something wrong and she apologised profusely as she pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket. “I’m sorry, babe. I need help. You’re not well and I don’t know what to do.”
Logan retched again and then plunged face first onto the rug, landing with a grunt. Unable to hold onto him, Hana broke his fall only slightly as Logan descended into unconsciousness. He was unresponsive as Hana patted his cheeks and called his name, her breath coming in terrified hitches.
The ambulance arrived ahead of Bodie, who opened the gates for it with his remote. Both vehicles laboured up the steep driveway to the chaos at the house. Hana appeared from the front door almost hysterical. “I can’t wake him up,” she sobbed. He was sick and then he collapsed.”
The paramedics were competent and moved with practiced calm, asking logical questions and filtering Hana’s panicked answers. “Set up a blood bag,” the female officer said to her colleague after peering into the
washing up bowl. “Internal hemorrhaging.”
Hana followed the woman’s gaze into the bowl and her eyes bugged in horror at the blood spattered there. She put her hand up to her mouth and let out a wail of misery, feeling her son’s strong hands on her wrists as he turned her to face him. “He’ll be fine, Mum. Go with the medics and tell them whatever they want to know.” Bodie said, with force. Then he gave her a warning look. “Tell them everything. I’ll follow you down.”
“But Logan…”
“Everything, Mum. Tell them how it happened.”
Hana nodded, willing to betray Logan’s trust if it meant saving his life. She heaped fresh curses on Tama’s absent head as she climbed into the heavy vehicle and belted herself in.
Poor Jas, who spent most of the afternoon making a card for Logan, looked bewildered as his new grandfather was lifted into the ambulance on the metal bed, looking far too helpless for an Action Man. The child burst into tears as the engine started and Hana’s ashen face peered sightlessly through the tinted glass.
Logan was sick twice more en route to the Waikato Hospital and the tension of the action caused the wound to leak more violently. Blood seemed to spray from inside and outside of him with liberal abandon, until the paramedic resembled someone clearing up after an axe murder. Hana felt desperate, staying out of the way while the competent paramedic dealt with each of the situations with clinical precision, inserting pipes, tubes and needles into her husband. He took Logan’s pulse and temperature, commenting to the driver, “He’s burning up.”
Hana began to believe it was her fault. “I had him too covered up,” she started, fear evident in her voice, “and the wood was wet by mistake, not dry, so I think I caused this.” Her eyes were huge and frightened, like saucers in her pretty face and the paramedic took pity on her.
“You couldn’t have caused this,” he reassured her, “it’s common after spleen removals. He’s got a sepsis infection. Wasn’t he given antibiotics to take after the op?”
“Yes,” answered Hana, as her mind did cartwheels with the information. Didn’t people die of septicemia? “He’s been taking them. I don’t understand…”
But the paramedic wasn’t listening to her. He took Logan’s blood pressure on his machine and leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Put the lights on, Bob, please! Blood pressure’s dropping. There’s a bleed. I’ll try and get him stabilised.”
As the driver pressed a button on the dashboard, Hana saw the red glow spinning around her, reflecting off the water and the windows of the houses at the start of Ngaruawahia. It felt surreal. The part of her mind which remained dormant since just after the policewoman knocked on her door nearly nine years ago, began to comfort her once again with its familiar, repeated mantra, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.
Reaching the hospital reminded Hana of the game of Monopoly she used to play with Bodie and Izzie. Collect two hundred pounds and do not pass ‘GO,’ was the favoured card, which meant they could miss out everyone else’s hotels and skip to safety. That was what it was like, missing out the crowded waiting room, as the bed spun through the doors to Resuscitation without touching the sides. Faces stared through the glass impassively, nursing broken bones, cuts and headaches. Logan was quickly surrounded by nursing staff and Hana found herself squeezed out to the fringes, a frantic bystander as her husband was poked and prodded and asked questions which he didn’t answer. Hana watched the medics ask, nodding knowingly as though Logan answered. “What’s his name?” someone asked but before Hana could reply, another doctor began tapping the back of Logan’s hand.
“Logan, can you hear me? Logan…”
Hana couldn’t bear to leave and yet it was equally difficult to stay. She found a little stool by a desk and sank down onto it, putting her head between her knees as the heat in the room, coupled with her own fear made her feel sick to her stomach. The bile rose into her throat and she tried to take deep breaths. That was what her mother always told her - deep breaths, deep breaths. She could hear her mum’s voice trying to say it to her. Jude’s voice never sounded like other mothers. She hadn’t been able to form words she never heard. How was it she could forget the faces of the dead, but conjure up their voices in an instant? Why was that?
The memory soothed Hana and she began to feel better. Abruptly she felt a hand on her back and sat up slowly, so as not to disturb her fragile equilibrium. “Mrs Du Rose?” The name sounded odd as the doctor addressed her kindly, like it couldn’t possibly belong to her, even though it now did. She looked up and saw the gentle face of Dr Singh, who was so nice to her on the ward and she knew he understood the terror projected from her eyes. “Your husband is very sick,” he said and Hana knew she blanched even though she tried not to. “We’ll put him in intensive care overnight once we’ve assessed him down here. I suggest you get a family member to sit with you.”
He rubbed her shoulder caringly and then moved away to deal with Logan. Hana sat in disbelief at the awful turn of events. The day went fine; he seemed better than he had all week, until he went to sleep. Sleep was meant to be good, not like this. Nothing but questions rattled around Hana’s head, questions without answer and statements that meant nothing.
As her husband lay flat on the bed while monitors were fixed to every part of his body and numerous lines were sent to pierce his veins, Hana stood to her feet and asked to use a telephone book and a phone line. She was pointed towards a reception area, hearing as she left the room a calm voice saying, “Real careful as you put lines in. Somebody get some Factor 8 going too. That might help.”
It took a mere twenty-five minutes for Pastor Allen to blast into the room where Hana sat waiting with Bodie, who followed the ambulance but then needed to find a parking space. The pastor’s tawny hair stuck up on end and his dog collar was inside out, stuffed half in and half out of the old pullover in which he was painting the shelves in his study. His tea sat on the dining table where his wife set it before answering the phone and he left skid marks on his own driveway as he rushed out. The dog collar was not for Hana’s benefit, but for easy access to the restricted areas to which he would otherwise be denied.
“Hello, my darling.” Pastor Allen gathered a shaking Hana into a firm embrace. She was grateful to see him and his presence was reassuring, filling her with hope. He wasn’t bothered Hana had been absent from church, or why. He responded to her sense of need with genuine compassion. He rocked her like a small child in his raggedy pullover, telling her, “It’s ok, Hana. God knows. He has it all in hand.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Hana wept and the pastor kept a sturdy arm around her shoulders and winked at Bodie.
“Logan invited us to your surprise birthday party, but it clashed with a deacon’s meeting. I gather it was a bit more than just a celebration of your advancing years?” Allen sounded wistful, feeling guilty for not prioritising and chasing Hana up afterwards. His perceptive wife insisted something was wrong and he brushed her concerns aside until it was too late. “I called round at your house but the man who answered said you’d shifted and he wasn’t sure where to.”
“Yes, sorry. I should have said.” Hana sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Allen gallantly fetched a coffee for them all from goodness knows where, as Hana couldn’t see a machine or a kitchen anywhere and he found a wad of tissues in his pocket when she needed them. Bodie wandered off feeling a little awkward as his mother cried unrelentingly.
The pastor listened unconditionally to Hana’s worries and woes and the general confusion of the life into which she had been thrust over the last few months with the Du Roses. She was careful not to mention the men following her. Bodie gave her a look of warning and so she didn’t, but she also waited until he wandered off to confess her anxiety about her marriage. “I probably should have spoken to you before I got married,” she conceded to Allen, sniffing horribly. “But it just felt so right and I guess I didn’t really want anyone to put me off. Now,
I’m going to lose him when I only just found him.”
Pastor Allen was intent as he looked at Hana. She wept prolifically, using his wad of tissues to stem the flow, jumping to her feet each time someone came out of the room into which they took her husband of only a few weeks and he felt miserable for her. Yet he was also mature enough to recognise there was little he could do physically to help her. “They didn’t care!” Hana kept repeating. “This teenage boy hit him from behind with a crow bar and they wouldn’t let me call the cops or get help!”
As Hana jumped up once again as another doctor emerged from the room, Pastor Allen took hold of her hand, pulling her down gently but firmly onto her seat and began to do the one thing he could. He prayed quietly, confidently, with belief and assurance. Hana felt the overwhelming peace which surpassed all human understanding and with it, the belief that Logan would live to fight another day.
Bodie returned and paced awkwardly while the pastor prayed with Hana. From the moment his father departed this mortal coil, Bodie believed either God didn’t exist or that he hated him personally. But some muscle memory wanted him to join in, to agree and as the clergyman finished his whispered plea to the Almighty, Bodie’s dormant spirit uttered a veiled Amen.
Logan went into surgery after midnight. His infected wound needed to be cleaned under anaesthetic. Whilst he was there, the surgeon discovered another bleed which evaded the first operation, causing undetected internal problems ever since. The infection was dealt with and another, more long-term deadly problem temporarily stabilised. From surgery, he went into intensive care for the night on ten-minute observations. Hana was not asked to leave this time and Pastor Allen remained with her until the early hours of Sunday morning.
Bodie left, going back to Amy and Jas with a heavy but grateful heart. Hana remained in a chair just outside Logan’s bay, watching through the huge glass window. She was free to come and go as much as she liked but needed to allow nursing staff to check on him as often as required. A tired Dr Singh informed her the surgery went well. “Once again, I’m surprised Logan didn’t complain about his pain levels.”