Page 110 of Just Come Over
“No worries. You don’t have to tell anybody, because I didn’t.”
Rhys nodded.
“You’re wondering why he used your name in the first place,” Te Rangi said. “Because of Zora, of course, even though you were about to be married yourself. I mentioned that, and he said, ‘It’s not going to come out. He’s never going to know.’ Hard to see how that could be true. I pointed that out. All the kid had to do was to look her dad’s name up, then lookyouup, and, bang, you’d know, and so would Victoria. What hedidn’tsay was that if you found out, you’d handle it, like you’ve handled everything else. Downside to being so bloody good at life, eh.” His face changed. “Hang on. What about Victoria?”
“I saw her today,” Rhys said. “I told her.”
Te Rangi laughed, and it was so unexpected, Rhys jumped. “Nah, cuz. It’s just—what a shit day, eh. You lose the game last night, and you’ve got to come down the next day in the pissing rain and tell your wife that you’ve got a kid you never mentioned? From a hookup youalsonever mentioned? Yeh, that’s a shit day.” He lifted the burger and saluted Rhys with it. “At least the kai’s good.”
Some of the tension inside loosened, and Rhys had to laugh himself. It was the first time he’d done that today, for sure. “That wasn’t all I said. I also told her I was planning to marry Zora. That went over well.”
The rain eased up some on the drive back to Nelson, at least.
Rhys had always had an engine that wouldn’t quit. Now, though, it was sputtering. His arms and legs felt heavy, and his eyes strained against the grayness of the day.
Back to the airport. An hour and a half to Auckland, and another half an hour’s drive when he got there. A few more hours, and nothing hard to do. Get home, that was all. Home to Zora’s, first, and then taking Casey home and putting her to bed. Reading the dinosaur book.
Doing the job right.
Nearly there, now. Past the school again, and the shops, and the businesses. The left turn onto Quarantine Road was barely a kilometer ahead when he took a right instead, onto Songer Street.
It’ll take a few minutes,he thought, taking the quick left onto Seaview Road. His heart was beating faster now, his hands tensing on the wheel again, and he relaxed them with an effort.You can do a few minutes. One step at a time.
The walk across the grass was wet, and the rain dampened his hair and ran in streaks down his face. He walked along a row and found the spot. Funny, he’d thought as a kid, that you had an address here. That you had neighbors.
Three headstones in a row.
Manaia Louise Fletcher
Rest in peace
His Nan. Gone too soon, probably from the stress of raising three kids, then four of her mokopuna as well. Not enough money, and not enough time. Nothing but doing her best. It hadn’t been as much as they’d all needed, maybe. It had still been her best.
He crouched down and ran his hand over the rough edge at the top of the polished granite stone, barely big enough for her name and the dates. He rubbed it gently and remembered the gentle kiss of the sun, the sparkle on the wave tips and the vibrant green of the grass on the day they’d laid her here. Like the earth and sea were welcoming her home.
He’d been eighteen that day, newly contracted to the Brisbane Broncos, thrown off whatever balance he’d had at the time by more money than he’d ever realized you could make. Drinking too much after every game, trying to run away from the gripping fear that all of this would vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, that he wouldn’t be enough after all, that he would fail.
The next one, no bigger.
Tane Hau Fletcher
Do not go gentle into that good night
Six years later, back here again, burying his dad. Flying with his body from Brisbane, his heart no lighter than the coffin. Bringing his father home to the whanau.
Tane had brushed off the persistent cough with a “Nah, I’m fine,” until his back had begun to ache. Until the day when he’d fallen at work, his legs refusing to hold him up anymore. Even then, he’d fought, refusing to go down until the bitter end.
He hadn’t been the best dad, and he hadn’t been a gentle one. But he’d been the hardest worker Rhys had ever seen.
After the third day of his dad’s tangi, when the final haka had been performed and the sun had set, he’d gone to Mapua Wharf with Dylan and Te Rangi and some of the other cousins. They’d sat on the end of the pier, looking out over the dark water, and he’d tried to feel something. Anything. And hadn’t managed it. His dad was the one who’d died, but Rhys was the one whose soul seemed to be sputtering out, unable to find a resting place. A sea bird who had flown too long, whose wings were battered by the storm, whose muscles ached with the effort of holding himself up, with no land in sight. Nothing out there but towering swells and angry troughs of gray water that wanted to pull you down into the depths and drown you.
“Never thought a tough old bugger like that could die that fast,” Te Rangi finally said.
“Yeh,” Rhys said, and drank down half of his third beer at a go.
“Good thing we don’t smoke, eh, Drago,” Dylan said. “Else we’d be worried. Course, nothing bad ever happens to you anyway. Probably be me. A charmed life, that’s you. Getting lucky in the lucky country.”
There’d been a feverish quality to his brother that night. Nineteen, moving up himself, but laughing too loud, drinking too much, with not enough to hold onto, like a rice-paper kite that had caught fire, going too high.
