Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  “She says she’ll go with me to the lawyer,” Frankie said, “so you can sleep later and won’t have to bother. It’d be better anyway to have her there.”

  I’d been feeling so good, driving here. The wind tossing the branches of trees, the glint of the sea, the growl of the Mustang’s engine. The memory of Gray’s face. Now, I sat down and said, treading carefully, “It would be good for me to be there, too, though, wouldn’t it? I could help with the questions, since I’ve been through all of it myself. Been married to Gilead, and divorced him, too. Left Mount Zion.”

  “But that’s why you’re not better,” Frankie said. “I have to say what he said about you, and the things he did. It’s embarrassing. I can’t …”

  She trailed off, and Honor said, “Could be hard for Frankie to say everything she needs to, wondering if she’s hurting you, if it’s too much for you to hear. I’m a bit more like that social worker, maybe. Heard it all, seen it all.”

  “But I’ve heard it all, too,” I said, uncomfortably aware of how that sounded. Jealous, was how, like I wasn’t special enough, like I wasn’t loving enough to be the support person. “I’m a nurse.”

  “You’re not a nurse to Frankie, though,” Honor said. “You’re her sister.”

  “I just want to get this done,” Frankie said. “And move on and have a regular life. If you’re with me, it’s not really moving on, because there are so many feelings. I’m tired of feelings. I just want to do things. Honor says she’ll help me, and that she’ll help me enroll in school, too, and go talk to them about it, find out where I fit, how I can catch up. So I can get started.”

  She wasn’t quite looking at me, and I couldn’t think of what to say. I was getting some kind of odd signals. Some kind of vibrations. Not pulling me into her. Pushing me away. I stood up and said, “I’ll just … I’ll go say hi to Obedience, I guess.”

  “Oriana,” Frankie said.

  “Right,” I said. “Oriana. Where is she?”

  “In the garden,” Frankie said. “With Iris. I’m going to be at Gray’s place today, by the way. Honor’s going to teach me how to use the computer. That way I can get a better job, not have to do cleaning like you did. I’ve done enough cleaning in my life. Dorian got to do a better job, because he knew how to do more valuable things. I want to do what he did. You need a computer for that, and for school, too, but Honor thinks I can get a used one. There’s a program that helps people who don’t have the money. They train you to use it as well. She knows all about it.”

  I said, “Sounds good. That’s awesome. I’ll go find Oriana, then,” and headed out again, a familiar feeling taking over my mind. Numbness, like I was looking down at myself from above. The emotions going away, because I couldn’t afford to have them. Too long a night. Too much death, and now this. No resting place where I could pull myself back together again.

  I was halfway down the track to the garden, beside the kowhai, when I heard my name. I stopped and waited, and Honor came up behind me.

  I didn’t want to talk. I had to be polite, though. She was Gray’s mum, and we were in Gray’s house.

  She said, “She doesn’t mean to be hurtful.”

  I said, “It’s fine,” and kept walking.

  “It’s not fine,” she said. “You feel like she’s rejecting you, and it hurts. Saying it’s fine doesn’t make it hurt less.”

  I said, “I can’t. Not now. Tired. Long night.”

  “Rubbish,” she said.

  That made me stop in my tracks. “Pardon?” I asked. “I’m not allowed to be tired?”

  “Of course you’re allowed to be tired,” she said. “But you’re not tired. You’re hurt and confused by how ungrateful she seems, maybe overwhelmed as well by all this change in your life, and trying to push it all away so you won’t be hurt anymore. Same way Frankie’s doing, come to that.”

  “If you know,” I said, “then tell me what’s going on. Tell me, because I don’t understand. I’ve tried …” I waved an arm, a little wildly. My emotions didn’t overwhelm me. It didn’t happen. I didn’t let it. But it was happening now. My throat was closing up, and my chest had started to ache. “I’ve tried …” I said again, my voice shaking. “To make them feel … better. To help them. Nobody helped me. Or they did, but … nobody who understood. Nobody who knew. And it was all on me. Dorian was scared, and half-reluctant anyway. He left for me, so that meant I had to do it all, don’t you see? So I cleaned, when it was all I had to offer, the only way I knew to make enough money to live. So what? How is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s not,” Honor said. “Of course it’s not. It’s a strong thing. It’s you doing everything you could, standing up alone, because there was nobody to help you stand up. Nobody to help you walk. Maybe Frankie’s afraid she doesn’t have that strength. Maybe she even resents you for having it.”

  “But why?” I said. “All I’ve done is try to help. When Uncle Aaron texted me, I drove there that night. I was in the river, and I almost died, but I got out so I could help them! I was so scared, and I’d lost my car, but I … I… and the fence, and my dad, and Gilead, and … and I did it anyway! I did, and she doesn’t … she doesn’t even see. She doesn’t even care.”

  Somehow, Honor had her arms around me. “Shh,” she said, when I struggled to get away, to run and hide, the way I always did when it got too much. The way I didn’t want anybody to see. “Shh, now,” Honor said again. “You did. You were brave. You fought so hard. You did it all, and it’s been so hard since. Here you are, forced out of your flat, lost your car, your evil ex coming after all of you, making you go through all of it again, remember everything again. Everything he did to Frankie, and everything he did to you. It’s all got out of control, when you thought you were only doing a good thing. When you thought the hard part was over, and instead, it’s just beginning.”

  I jerked my head against her shoulder in a nod, because like Gray, she was so much taller than me. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. I was shaking instead.

  “Yeh,” Honor said, and held me tighter, rocking back and forth. “It hurts. Go on and let it hurt. Go on and cry.”

  I didn’t, or not much. All right, I did some. I couldn’t help it. I managed to say, though, “At least I’m not … crying on … Gray again.”

  “Nah,” Honor said, her hand stroking over my back. “You can cry on him, too. That’s what he’s there for. You’ll be helping him if you let him help you. It’s all he wants to do.”

  I knew that wasn’t true. Who wanted a needy woman? I didn’t have the strength to argue, though. I was too busy not crying.

  Finally, I pulled away. Honor said, “Come on,” and sat down on a log, pulling me down with her. She said, after a minute, “She’s jealous, you know. Frankie.”

  “What, of me?” I sniffed, pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, wiped my face on my shirt, and gestured around me. “No car, no insurance to buy a new one, so there go my savings again, terrible flat that I can’t even go to, weeping on a log? Yeh, I’ve got it all.”

  Honor laughed. “Yeh, you have. You’ve done it all, haven’t you. Pulled yourself all the way up. Got a good education. A good job. A place to live that’s all your own. Got your life together.” She paused, then said, “Got a good man, too.”

  Everything in me stilled. I said, “I don’t—”

  “Yeh, love,” Honor said. “I think you do. And I’m guessing Frankie wishes he was hers.”

  I couldn’t say anything at all for long seconds. Finally, I said, “Oh, no.”

  “Yeh,” Honor said. “Course, he’s the wrong one for her, and she’s not one bit ready to be with anybody anyway. Not ready to do anything except build herself back up again, one brick at a time, but that’s never stopped a woman from trying to take that shortcut. Escaping into a man, eh. Some man, and if he’s got a pretty house and is making a good wage, and isn’t too bad-looking, either? That’s a tempting escape. And then there’s you. Married to her husband first
, weren’t you. You were the black sheep of the family, everybody said. She wanted to be like you, maybe, and maybe she also wanted to do better than you. She may have thought that she’d manage her marriage better, and that didn’t work, either. She had to run instead, and now she’s going to come second again.”

  “Why would she think her shortcut was Gray, though?” I asked. “Because he … but he wouldn’t. He didn’t.”

  “Too right he wouldn’t,” Honor said. “Gray with a seventeen-year-old girl? No. He’s so sweet to her, she says. Of course he is. She’s hurting, and she’s young. Not always sweet to you, though, is he?”

  “No,” I said. “Or yes, mostly, but not always.”

  “Yeh,” she said. “That’s how you know you’ve got the real man. He’s fighting himself to do the right thing with you. Trying to keep from pushing you to do what he thinks is best. Trying not to go too fast. Trying to listen instead. Not always doing so well with that, maybe.”

  It took me a second, but all of that was true, so maybe the part about my sister was true, too. “So what do I do about Fruit— about Frankie?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Honor said. “You let me help her for a while instead. She needs a guide? I’m a guide, and no baggage along with it. You let her keep her distance for a while, find out who she wants to be in the world. How she wants to be in the world, because it’s all new. You tell yourself that you’ve got enough on your plate, and letting somebody else lend a hand doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You tell yourself that you don’t have to be everything to be enough. Not to Frankie, not to Oriana, and not to Gray. You just have to be Daisy.”

  “Bitchy,” I said. “Bossy. Too tough. I know. It’s been mentioned.”

  “Strong,” she said. “Tough, yeh, and there’s nothing in the world wrong with a woman being tough, but loving, too. Loving doesn’t mean hearts and flowers and pretty words and never losing your temper. Loving’s a thing you do, even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts. You got yourself out of that car in the middle of the river to go get those girls, and then you stood up to everything that scared you most. Moved in here even when it made you feel off-balance. You let Gray help, because your sisters needed it, and maybe he did, too.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Because you are here, even though you didn’t want to be. Because I know people. And because I know my son.”

  And then there was Oriana.

  When I went farther down the track, after wandering around for a wee while, getting myself under control and feeling extremely tired, and found her? She was wearing overalls with the legs rolled up, on her knees in the dirt, weeding merrily away while Iris forked straw around the trunks of the fruit trees.

  “Hi,” Oriana said when she saw me. “This garden is awesome. Iris is going to show me how to set up a new beehive, too. She thinks the bees are getting ready to swarm, and we need to keep them here, so we need to give them someplace new to go. I’m going to go to the farmer’s market with her tomorrow morning, early, and help her sell. Veggies and herbs and eggs and jam, but no honey yet, not until December.”

  “Good,” I said, because what else was I going to say? “I’ll take you to the farmer’s market to sell?” Clearly not. Everybody needed a mentor, it seemed, and whatever I’d thought, none of those mentors was me. So instead, I said, “Hi, Iris.”

  In answer, she nodded. She didn’t snort, though, which I guessed was progress.

  I went on, “Just to let you know, Oriana—Honor’s helping Frankie at the lawyer’s today, since I have to work again tonight. Maybe you could make dinner, as I don’t know how late they’ll be, and it’ll be tiring. There’s some mince in the fridge and onions and garlic and pasta in the pantry, and I bought some canned tomatoes. Spag bol, maybe?” When she looked blank, I said, “Spaghetti with meat sauce.”

  Iris said, “Spag bol. That’s the best you can do?”

  “Without doing another shop?” I said. “Yeh, it is.”

  I was going to ask, What, do you have a better idea? She got there before I could.

  “Vegetable risotto with roasted chicken,” she said. “Bound to have rice up there, and we’ve got everything else here. Asparagus. Leeks. Peas. Fava beans. Chanterelles. And chicken, because I culled a couple of my poor layers last week. Parmesan, too, because I traded it for veggies.”

  “I don’t know how to make anything like that,” Obedience said doubtfully. “I only know how to make regular things.”

  “I do,” Iris said. “Never tell me you can’t roast a chicken, and risotto takes some stirring, that’s all.”

  “You’re invited to dinner, of course,” I said. Belatedly.

  Iris snorted. “Not interested, thanks. I like my own company.”

  “Well, that’s told me,” I said.

  “Oh, please,” Oriana said. Not to me. To Iris. “Tell me how to make that. Or even better—would you show me? It sounds so good. Much better than spaghetti.”

  “I’ll show you,” Iris said. “But I won’t stay.” She scowled some more, and I pondered inviting her again, then gave it up. Oriana would invite her. Gray, I was absolutely certain, would invite her.

  Also, how was I going to get any of that courting with this many people around? When Gray had said “courting,” I hadn’t realized he actually meant, “like in Victorian times, with the entire family there to chaperone, so I can’t see anything but your foot and have to imagine the garter, and we do nothing but gaze at each other longingly.” There was slow, and then there was slow. I wouldn’t even have any liquid courage, because I had to work tonight, so I couldn’t … do whatever one did. Sip on a glass of brandy and slip into something more comfortable? Go out to dinner, drink too much wine, and kiss in the car? Marginally less laughable than the negligee-clad seductress, anyway. It might take a fair amount of wine, though.

  Hmm. I didn’t have to work tomorrow night. Which meant I was off from Saturday morning at eight until Sunday night at midnight. A weekend. Just like normal people.

  That reminded me. I told Oriana, “By the way—Honor’s helping with the identity documents and so forth.”

  “I know,” she said, continuing with her weeding. “They told me.”

  “And Frankie asked her to help with registering for school,” I went on. “I’m happy to help you, of course, if you’d rather.”

  Oriana sat back on her heels. “Do I have to?” she asked.

  “Do you have to what?”

  “Go to school.”

  “Well—yeh,” I said. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought it was doing what we wanted.”

  I looked at Iris. She looked back at me and gave a shrug. I tried to come up with something to say. Something about being able to support yourself, knowing what an alien concept that would be. In Mount Zion, you didn’t earn money. You worked all day, all week, all your life, and in return, you were given food and clothing and lodging, such as they were. And you gave them babies, more souls to indoctrinate. How did you explain deferred gratification and vocational choice and upward mobility and taxes and rates and mortgages and holidays to somebody who’d never heard of any of them?

  My tired brain couldn’t do it. All I had was, “We’ll talk about it later. I’m going to sleep.”

  All right, maybe I did need Honor after all. And Gray. And possibly Dorian, who’d rung me last night while I’d been asleep, and whom I hadn’t rung back.

  For a woman who’d craved nothing more than an orderly, disciplined life, I was making some bizarre choices lately.

  Maybe Iris would like to switch houses. Wherever she lived. I could become a hermit. Sounded good.

  40

  Expectations

  Gray

  It was close to seven when I drove home after another day with too much to do. We weren’t falling behind any further, but we weren’t catching up, either. I thought again about promoting Robbie, the lead carpenter on the music studio building,
to the foreman job, and once again decided the answer was “no.” He was a very good carpenter. Good enough with the other blokes on his crew, too, though a bit too fond of his own way. He didn’t get on well with the other trades, though, no getting around that. I needed to take Angus, one of the electricians, on in that role instead, get him trained up for it slowly. He was only twenty-five or so, and the older fellas would resent it, but it was no different than a rugby captaincy. Sometimes the skipper was a younger fella. You listened to him anyway, if he was the right man for the job. Possibly with a boot up the arse from the coach to help you along, which I could supply.

  And, yes, I should’ve been grooming Angus sooner, a lesson I was learning the hard way. I had come up with the bright idea of offering a sizable bonus to anybody who brought in a mate who was hiring material and lasted three months, and that looked like it might relieve some of the immediate pressure. I’d also been in contact with the trades union in Auckland, and I was looking forward to hearing Hayden’s plans for that. Always a bit delicate, poaching on the other fella’s turf. Poaching in Aussie, now … that was an idea. Heaps of Maori and Islander boys working on the Gold Coast over there, across the Ditch, in the heat and humidity and missing the homeland. Maybe …

  There were cars in the drive, so I set the problems aside. My mum’s car, and another I didn’t recognize, an elderly Nissan sedan. Not the white ute Gilead had driven, so I didn’t get too fussed. I climbed out instead, let Xena out, and thought about my plan for the evening. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it was what I had to offer in the few hours between now and when Daisy would be heading back to work.

  I didn’t even bother with my house, because I could hear the noise from the yurt well before I knocked on the door. Music. Laughter. Chat. The door was opened to me by Iris, which was a bit of a surprise. I blinked and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she said. “I came to dinner. If you don’t like it, that’s your loss.”

  “Which part?” I asked. “The dinner, or that you came?”