Page 47 of Just Come Over
As she walked up staircase after staircase in Eden Park, holding Isaiah by one hand and Casey by the other, she thought that however hard her life sometimes felt now, it was so much better than the last time she’d taken these stairs. She didn’t have to pretend anything anymore, to anyone. She might have had to put a bucket in the corner of her bedroom last night when it had rained and the water had dripped through the roof, but she had heaps of buckets. Her van might be making a worrisome knocking noise, but she was going shopping for a new one in another month or two. Her life might not be one bit glamorous, and nobody would see her photo in the newspaper and envy her, but she was free to live her own life and not be lied to, and what could be more enviable than that?
Casey asked, when they were through the doors and headed down to their section, “Where is he?”
Zora didn’t ask who “he” was. She knew. There was some reason Casey didn’t call him “Dad,” or by his name, either. She was in in-between land, still. “Your dad?” she asked, keeping it calm. “He’s up in the coaching box.” She turned with Casey and pointed up to the glassed-in boxes above them.
“Oh,” Casey said. “But the Chicago Bears coach is always down there next to where they’re playing, because he has to yell at people.”
Zora laughed despite her tension. “Rugby’s a bit different. All the coach can do during the game is watch. If he has to yell, he has about ten minutes at halftime to do it. Otherwise, the players make the decisions themselves, while they’re out there.”
“Oh,” Casey said, and considered. “They must be very smart.”
“Uncle Rhys was,” Isaiah said, absolutely unexpectedly. “That’s why he was an All Black, and why he’s the coach. He had spectacular on-field vision. That’s what this one article said. That means he can tell what’s happening, and what he thinks is going to happen next, and he’s usually right. I read about it. My dad wasn’t as good as Uncle Rhys. He was good at running, but he made mistakes. Uncle Rhys didn’t make mistakes.”
Wow. Zora needed to address that. How, though? “This is us,” she said. At least she hoped it was. Three seats empty at the end of the row, and next to them, the one face she knew best, and the one she knew would be welcoming. Jenna Douglas, married to Rhys’s assistant coach, Finn, and still sitting with the wives and girlfriends, because they were still her friends.
Other than Jenna, though, this definitely felt awkward. Most of the wives had called, when they’d heard about Dylan’s illness, had asked her out to lunch, to see a movie, offered to watch Isaiah for an afternoon. Everybody had been kind. She’d wondered, at the time,Did you know? Did everybody know?Besides, she’d had a five-year-old whose world was changing too much, and a husband who was hurting and scared and so afraid she’d leave him alone. The world of rugby, of strong bodies and mending injuries and training as hard as you could to earn your starting place, had seemed far away, like she was looking at it through wavy glass.
Dylan hadn’t even wanted to watch the games on TV anymore, after a while. After he’d known this was it, and there was no coming back. Instead, he’d wanted her to read to him. Murder mysteries, and funny things. P.G. Wodehouse, humor from decades ago, and still funny. Oddly, those quiet moments had been the closest she’d felt to him in years, when she’d seen the man she’d fallen in love with once again, funny and sweet and needing her so much. She’d resented him, she’d felt sorry for him, and she’d loved him, in an exasperated, hopeless, pitying way that was nothing like anything she’d felt before.
None of which was necessary to think about now, except that maybe it was. She needed to remember the good parts, too. Bitterness got you nowhere. She was so tired of bitterness, of feeling cold. She needed sweetness and laughter and warmth andlife,and so did Isaiah.
Jenna’s face lit up on seeing her, and she jumped up, hugged her with one arm while she juggled a chubby-cheeked two-year-old in a Blues jersey in the other, and said, “Finn told me you’d be here. What a lovely surprise. I saved you seats at the end, by me. And you’re Isaiah. I haven’t seen you since you were a little fella. And Casey, too. Hi. I’m Jenna. My husband works with your dad. Is this your first rugby game?”
“Yes,” Casey said. “It’s supposed to be kind of like football, but it doesn’t look like football at all.”
Jenna said, “You’re American. Me, too. Never mind. If you sit by me, I’ll tell you what I know about it.”
“OK,” Casey said. She had on her stolid look again, and Zora put a hand on her shoulder.
“Isaiah,” Jenna said, “scoot on past and sit with Harry. Just don’t expect him to be too excited. He watches more closely than he used to, but he still isn’t impressed by rugby. How about you?”
“I like to play it best,” Isaiah said. He could be shy with strangers, but you couldn’t be shy with Jenna. It was something about her voice, maybe, or the way she remembered everybody’s name. “I don’t watch too much on TV, because Mum doesn’t like to. Come on, Casey. I’ll explain.”
Wonderful. Zora had been outed even before she’d sat down.
“Thanks,” Zora said, taking a seat at the end of the row, while Jenna scooted one over toward her. “I heard you’d had another baby. Congratulations, though I’m a bit late there. What’s his name?”
“Ethan.” Jenna joggled him, and he didn’t pay too much attention. He had a dump truck in one hand and a police cruiser in the other, and was engaged in running them into each other on his trouser leg and making them crash, and then laughing. “He’s a happy guy most of the time, and a good sleeper, fortunately, aren’t you, buddy? Good at taking your nap?”
Ethan said, “No nap,” forcefully enough that Zora laughed.
“Or not,” Jenna said. “What can I say? He’s two.”
“Time for another one, maybe?” Zora asked teasingly.
Jenna was the one laughing this time. “Two girls and two boys already. Some people love art. Some people love jewelry, or luxury travel, or expensive cars. That one, I’ll never understand. I love babies.”
Casey said, on Jenna’s other side, “He’s not exactly a baby, though, because he talks.”
“That’s true,” Jenna said. “There you are, then. Look out, Finn. I don’t have a baby anymore. Danger time.”
“How come they’re going inside?” Casey asked, scrutinizing the field. “Is it over? I thought there was going to be tackling.”
“They’ve been warming up,” Zora said. “They’ll be coming out again and playing soon.”
“They don’t have helmets on, either,” Casey said. “And they’re wearing shorts. Football players don’t wearshorts.”
“They’re too tough for that, is the idea,” Jenna said. “No helmets. No pads.”
