Page 105 of Just Say (Hell) No
Ella moved through the first few days, once she’d been discharged from the hospital, in what seemed to Nyree like a sort of preternatural calm, or maybe suspended animation. Hormones and painful cramps, and the futility of young breasts filling with milk they didn’t need, made for babies they couldn’t feed. The cruelty of nature.
It was what Nyree had told Marko once upon a time. Your mind could make its rational decisions. It took your body longer to catch on.
On Friday night, six days after the birth, with her mum having finally, thankfully, gone home, Marko came into the lounge where Ella was lying on the couch beside Nyree watchingJurassic Worldwith two ice packs on her breasts, Cat on her stomach like a hot-water bottle, and her stockinged feet on the coffee table. Marko picked up the remote, paused the film just as a genetically-enhanced T. Rex was about to chomp down on an unfortunate security guard, and said, “Right. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to Piha. Pack your bags.”
“Excuse me?” Ella asked, twisting her head around to look at him. “Why?”
“For the sea,” Marko answered. “The sky. The stars. The wild. Seeing something bigger than yourself.”
“Therain,”Ella said.
“Could be. I don’t care. Pack a bag. We’re going.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Tom was in the recliner, because Ella had said, when he’d come in bearing cartons of takeaway Thai food and a bonus carton of chocolate ice cream, “I’m kind of disgusting. Leaking all over. You don’t want to sit with me.” Now, he sat up and said, “Sounds like a good plan. Am I invited to visit?”
“Yeh, mate,” Marko said. “You are. Come stay, if you like. Three bedrooms.”
But later on that night, when Nyree was lying beside him in the dark, he said, “I hope I’m right.”
She held him a little tighter, moved a little closer, and said, “You’re right.”
It did help, or maybe Ella’s body was starting to do that catching up. Or both. Her strength began to come back, and her spirit with it. Tom took her for endless walks along wild, windswept west coast beaches, nearly deserted in the winter chill, up the narrow, rocky track on Lion Rock as far as they could go, and down bush tracks to the sea and back up again. Ella came back, day by day, with her cheeks pinker, her eyes brighter, her voice steadier. Tom, Nyree had come to believe, was very good news.
Next week, Ella announced the night before the twelve-day mark, when she could sign the papers relinquishing the babies, she was going back to school. The winter term would end in a couple weeks, and after that, she was headed back to Tekapo. “Time to change again,” she said while the four of them were playing a desultory Saturday-night game of Monopoly at the dining table as the rain beat against the windows of the hillside bach. “Time to go.”
“School still hard, then?” Marko asked, rolling the dice. “Bugger.”
Ella interpreted that correctly. “Park Place. Five hundred dollars, please.” She waggled her fingers. “I’m so skunking you.”
Marko paid up, then said, “So. School.”
“No, you do not have to come back and scare everybody to death again. Because Tom. I don’t like to say it in front of him, give him a big head and all, but…” She sighed. “Oh, yeh. Every fella wants to be him, and every girl basically wishes she was me. Minus the pregnancy.”
Tom smiled, kissed her cheek, picked up the dice, and said, “Keep that in mind. December. Fiji. You and me. Don’t go falling in love with some other bloke in the meantime. I’m counting on you.”
Marko stared at him, and Tom stared right back and said, “Mate. Seventeen and nineteen works. She can stop loving me if she wants. You don’t get to tell her to do it.” And rolled the dice.
Ella sighed again, leaned her head against his shoulder, and said, “I like you so much. Also, give me all your money. I’ve got a hotel, and you’re out.”
The next morning, Nyree was in the Escape with Marko and Ella again, headed to Devonport. This time, though, Tom was with them, sitting in the back seat with Ella.
“No,” Ella had said when Marko had opened the front door for her. “I can ride in back. I’m doing way better.”
“Humor me,” Marko had answered.
“I’d rather…” she’d said, then broken off.
Nyree had opened the back door for her without a word, and Ella had climbed inside. Tom had held her hand, and Ella had looked out the window at clouds and sea, at an enormous car carrier making its ponderous way along the shipping channel and the tiny Stanley Point ferry surfing the chop. Seeing, Nyree guessed, not much, and the easy lightness of the night before diminishing with every kilometer Marko drove.
Hugh had said on the phone to Marko, “She doesn’t have to do this here unless she wants to. We’ll come there if she wants to see the boys, or she can do it with the lawyer and not see us at all.”
Marko had answered, “She wants to. It’ll help.” And here they were, parking next to that same sign painted on the side of the dairy. “Biggest Ice Creams in Auckland!” Ella climbed out of the car, tugging down the loose blue dress she was wearing over black tights, her young girl’s body already working hard to regain its former shape, tucked her hair behind her ear, and then, instead of running her thumbs over her fingernails, took Tom’s hand.
This time, they didn’t ring the doorbell. Instead, the door swung open, and there was Josie. Red top, skinny jeans, glamour, and gorgeousness, except for the white nappy over her shoulder.
