Page 4 of Just Come Over
“Why you didn’t like Uncle Rhys,” Isaiah said. “And you said you liked him fine. But then he must not likeus.Because he never comes to see us, not like Uncle Hayden.”
“Uncle Hayden lives here in Auckland. Rhys was coaching in Japan when Dad fell ill, remember? But he came back to see Dad every chance he could.”
“I remember a bit. So that means he liked Dad,” Isaiah said with all his relentless logic. “But he’s only come two times since Dad died, so I think he must not likeus.”
They were home. She pulled into the driveway, and Rhys pulled in behind her. Boxing her in. The thought made her breath come faster, even though it was the only place to park, and he’d be leaving once dinner was over.
She needed to see some men besides her brother. Preferably ones she could breathe around.
A couple weeks ago, Hayden had asked, after he’d finished mowing the lawns at her house and wiping the sweat off with the hem of his T-shirt, “So when are you going to be getting out there? You’ve got some fit blokes driving by and taking a peek. Why isn’t one of them here mowing the grass instead of me?”
“If they’re looking at you,” she said, “they’re not going to be spending time with me.”
He sighed. “Would you kindly trust the gaydar? Who was out here with me, weeding the borders in her cute little skirt?”
“Skort,” she said. “And they were not. Looking.”
“Oh, yeh,” he said. “They were. Theyare.You’re still bloody adorable, even as old as you are, and you have to know it.”
“I am fourteen months older than you. We’re practically twins.”
“Except that you’re older. But no...” He waggled his fingers. “Sparks? No pixie dust settling over the two of you when you meet Sophie or Caleb or Anthony’s gorgeous single dad at the school pickup?”
“First,” she said, “you’re vastly overestimating the number of gorgeous single dads out there. Second—I think my pixie dust left me a good while back.” She tried to make it a joke, but it didn’t come off. Something about the lump in her throat.
Hayden put an arm around her, and she rested her head on her brother’s shoulder and thought about how good that felt, and how completely inadequate. He said quietly, “It’s been nearly two years.”
“And three since he fell ill.”
“Three since you decided to leave him, too,” Hayden said with that bluntness that could only come from a brother. “You stayed instead, because hedidfall ill. You did the right thing, I guess, though I don’t think I could have, but what did it do to you? Killed something inside, maybe.”
“Nah,” she said, and tried to smile. “Stunned it, more like. I notice now, a bit, if somebody’s good-looking. Sometimes I even notice if they’re being flirty. I just don’t want them, is all.”
“Not your type.”
“I don’t think I have a type anymore.”
It wasn’t true. If she hadn’t known then, she’d just been reminded. When Rhys had got into the van, and all the air had left.
The truth? The last time she’d felt sparks? It had been at her husband’s tangi, at the marae in Atawhai, outside of Nelson. One more gorgeous day at the serenely beautiful north end of the South Island. A gorgeous day for something other than a funeral, anyway. Dylan’s home, and not hers. His family, too, and not hers.
Her mum and dad had come for the last bit only. “A funeral’s hard enough,” her mum had said. “Why do they drag it out so long? I can’t imagine.”
At least Hayden had stayed for all of it. “If you have to do it,” he’d said, “I have to do it. Case closed.” Thank God for Hayden.
Worst of all, the sparks had come at the end of those three days, after all the songs and speeches and endless hours of sitting beside Dylan’s body, taking turns with the aunties and uncles and cousins, because there was no grandma and no mum to sit there anymore. Days when she’d waited until the marae’s flag had been lowered at the end of the day to eat, and when the food had turned to chalk in her mouth, her throat closing around her attempts to swallow despite the long fast.
And then, on the third day, the final haka had been performed, the crowd following after the hearse and through the red gates of the marae, sending her husband on his way. When Dylan had been put in the ground and the earth had closed over his casket, she’d dipped her hands in water outside the cemetery, flicked the moisture from her fingers, coached Isaiah to do the same, and walked, her arm around his skinny six-year-old shoulders, toward the car. The whanau had held the feast, the hangi that had been roasting in the ground for hours, there’d been singing and more speeches, and she had eaten barely a bite and felt as old and tired as she ever had in her life. More than all the time in hospital, more even than at the end.
She was twenty-eight. She felt eighty.
She’d been waving away a group of cousins in their cars when she’d become aware of Rhys beside her. He stood there, filling the night with his solidity and his size, and asked quietly, “All right?”
No,she’d wanted to say. She’d wanted to scream it.No, I’m not all right. All I’ve done for the past year is this, and now I don’t even have this to do, and I don’t know how I’m going to do all the things that will come next. All the things I can’t shut out, because they’re there, and there’s only me to deal with them. I’ve spent a year trying to keep my son going and my husband alive. I’ve been watching the money going out and not coming in, and I haven’t been able to do anything about it, and now, I have to. I weigh forty-five Kg’s, and my black dress is too big, even though I waited to buy it until three weeks ago, because I didn’t want to jinx him, like I’m afraid I already did. I was planning to leave him, and it seems like I’ll feel guilty about that for the rest of my life.
Extremely helpful thoughts to share. “Yeh,” she said instead. “I’m good.” She was an expert, now, at holding back, even though there would have been no shame in letting go. You were meant to express your emotions at a tangi. Dylan’s whanau probably thought she was cold, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe it was that she wasn’t Maori, or maybe it was just that, if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
A sigh from him, felt rather than heard. “I don’t reckon you are.” He put an arm around her, and that arm felt solid. She turned into him, and his other arm came out to grasp her. Her head was on his chest, and that was a secure place to be, acres wide, fathoms deep, and strong enough for anything. His hand stroked over her hair, and he said, “It’ll be better. Sometime.”
