Page 112 of Just Come Over
“True,” Zora said. She was about to say, “Well! Bedtime!” But Casey’s head had gone up, her entire body had gone still, and then she was running to the kitchen in her bare feet, flinging the door open.
A car engine turning off, the slam of a car door. And Rhys’s deep voice.
Elephants “heard” things through their feet that their ears couldn’t, and that was how Zora felt. Rhys’s voice seemed to come all the way through the soles of her feet and up her legs to lodge inside her. Belly deep.
She was standing up when he came into the lounge. He had Casey wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder, and he looked...
Exhausted.
She’d never seen him look like that. It tilted her world on its axis, and she was having trouble catching her breath.
“Hey,” she said softly, then went to him, wrapped her arms around him and Casey, and pressed her lips to the spot at the base of his throat where his pulse beat.
He bent his head, kissed her mouth, and said, “Good to be back. Thanks for taking her.”
He was wet. His trousers were damp, and so was his shirt. The skin of his arms, which was normally turned up a degree or two hotter than hers, felt cool under her hands. She said, “I think Casey should sleep here tonight.”
“No,” Casey protested. “Because we need to shut up the bunnies.”
“I’ll shut up the bunnies,” Rhys said. “Could be that Auntie Zora’s right. It’s late. I’ll come early in the morning, so you and Isaiah don’t have to wake up in the dark, how’s that? I’ll cook the brekkie, and bring you your uniform.”
“But—” Casey started to say.
“Your dad’s very tired, I think,” Zora said, keeping it calm. Nothing wrong with kids realizing that their parents had feelings, too. “Everybody needs to go to bed early tonight, including me, because Idohave that five o’clock start tomorrow.”
“I can get up and help you,” Isaiah said. “I always get up. I’m used to it.”
She was about to say,No, love, sleep in this time.But there was too much intensity in his face. She wasn’t the only one who had too many emotions today. It was practically hanging in the air. She said, “You need some Mum time, maybe.”
“Yes,” Isaiah said. “And I’m good at picking out flowers.”
“You are. All right. Rhys can come over to stay with Casey, but you and I will go to the flower market.” She was going to have to carve out more one-on-one time with him, somehow. Another thing to juggle, but it had to be done, or they were going to have explosions.
Surely, though, explosions were better than resentments held inside. You could move on from explosions, once you’d picked up the pieces. Resentments were like poison in the water supply. She was too tired to deal with this one tonight, but in the morning, they’d work something out.
“Sounds like a plan,” Rhys said. “There’s one thing I need to do before bedtime, though.” He sat on the couch like he needed to, set Casey down beside him, and told Isaiah, “Come over here, mate.”
Isaiah had been hovering slightly out of frame, like he wasn’t sure what his part was. Now, he came over to the couch and hesitated.
“Come sit by me,” Rhys said. “You too, Zora. I’ve got something I need to say. Something I need to do.”
She said, “Rhys. Maybe tomorrow.”
“No,” he said. “It needs to be tonight.” He might be more tired than she’d ever seen him, but his eyes were steady. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Another flax kete, but this time, he was pressing it into Isaiah’s hand. “I went to see your dad’s grave today,” he told him. “In Nelson, at Seaview Cemetery. Near the place he grew up, the place he went to school. It was peaceful. You can’t really see the sea, but you can see the grass and the trees and the sky, and you can feel how close the sea is. Your dad loved Nelson. His favorite place.”
“I remember the cemetery,” Isaiah said. “We went last year, after they made his tombstone.”
“That’s right,” Rhys said. “We both did. D’you remember what his tombstone has on it?”
“A bird,” Isaiah said.
“An albatross.” Another reach into his pocket, and Rhys was thumbing his phone, showing Isaiah the photo, and Zora, too. An image that still made her heart twist and the tears rise. The path of stones, and the white albatross spreading his wings. “A sea bird.”
“I know,” Isaiah said. “It has the largest wingspan of any bird. It’s so big that it can fly for hours without even flapping its wings, and it hardly ever has to land.”
“That’s right,” Rhys said. “I thought about that, about that bird flying forever, and about your dad, and then I went and found your pendant. Made of greenstone from Tasman Bay, like his was. Open it and see.”
Isaiah worked the ties, and Zora helped him until he was tipping the thing into his hands.
