Page 117 of Just Come Over
He waited until everybody had turned up to breakfast, then stood at the front of the room and said, “Right, then. Some of you will have seen the papers, and some won’t. Short version: I have a daughter, Casey. You met her at Family Day. Her mum was American, and she wasn’t my ex-wife. I’m also seeing my brother Dylan’s widow, Zora. Some of you played with Dylan. I expect you’ll be asked about him today, and about me. You can say whatever you like in response. I loved my brother, but he’s been gone for two years. Zora and I are planning on getting married, though I’d rather you didn’t mention that one to the press, as we’ve got a couple of kids to think about. Otherwise? Whatever you want to say—go on and say it. To whoever asks.”
About loyalty,he didn’t say.Or betrayal.
He’d slept with his teammate’s wife. Well, not “slept” with. Hooked up in the toilets with. Not his proudest moment.
In fact, his lowest moment. When his dad had been dying, and he’d gone well and truly off the rails. The bad year. The reason he’d left the NRL, and Australia. The reason he’d changed his life. How did you look your teammates in the eye after something like that? Worse—how did you look in the mirror?
With difficulty, that was how. With shame. And the knowledge that your life had to change, because you couldn’t stay where you were. The moment when you knew for sure that all you wanted to be from here on out was a man to be respected. A man with some mana.
Not, for example, a man who cheated on his fiancée. Or a man who betrayed both his wife and his brother in one go. Call that a twofer.
A scrape of a chair, and Hugh stood up. “I’ve got something to say now,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Rhys said, and braced for it.
Hugh looked around the room and let it build for a minute. A good skipper, and a family man. Like Finn. Rhys had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth.
“The answer’s the same, boys,” Hugh said, “no matter what question they ask you. ‘I stand behind the coach.’ And as far as I’m concerned, here in this room? Drago’s got a daughter, and he’s raising her. He’s in love with a woman, and he’s marrying her. That’s it. Full stop. If you haven’t done anything in your life that you regret—congratulations, I guess. I know I have. We’ve all got a story, and the history of it doesn’t matter. What matters is how we’re living the story now. They’ve put this out in Brisbane because this is where it hits Drago hardest, and they’ve done it today to distract us. They know where we are on the table, and that we need a win. That’s no secret. They’re trying to keep us from getting it by getting in our heads. It’s up to us whether they succeed. It’s what Drago says. You’re switched on, or you’re switched higher. We go out there today and switch on, and we go out there tomorrow and switch higher. We play the bloody best game we’ve got in us. We go out there and win, and we shut them up. End of story.”
It was early when Zora’s phone rang. She picked it up and said, “Hey. Aren’t you on your way to training?”
“Yeh,” Rhys said. “I have about ten minutes. Put the camera on and sit with the kids a minute, would you?”
“O... OK,” she said, and switched over.
Something was off. She saw it in his face right away. Something was wrong. He’d been nothing but sweet last night, despite the divorce, or because of it. What could have happened in nine hours?
He said, “Normally, I’d tell Zora first, and she’d think of some clever way to talk to the two of you about it. She’s good at explaining. We don’t have time for that, though, and you may have questions for me, so I’ll do my own explaining. There’s going to be a story in the newspaper today, and your friends could say something at school.”
“My friends don’t read the newspaper,” Isaiah said. “Well, my main friend is Ethan. He doesn’t read the newspaper, though.”
“My main friend is Esme,” Casey said. “I don’t think shecanread the newspaper. It has a lot of really big words.”
Rhys’s face had lost some of its rigidity. “All right. Your friends won’t read it in the newspaper, but they’ll hear about it, because it’ll be online.”
“Ethan’s mum doesn’t let him go online,” Isaiah said. “Except for a couple of games.”
“Esme doesn’t—” Casey started, but Zora said, “Wait, guys. Let’s hear what it’s about. It sounds like it could be gossip.”
“Gossip is where people say mean things,” Isaiah told Casey. “Sometimes they’re true and sometimes they’re not. It doesn’t matter, not really. Mostly, they’re just to be mean.”
“Right,” Rhys said. “This will be gossip, then. It’s going to say that Casey’s my daughter, and that Zora is my girlfriend, and probably that I’ve had lots of girlfriends.”
“Oh,” Isaiah said. He and Casey looked at each other. “Except Mumisyour girlfriend, because you kiss her all the time, and Caseyisyour daughter. So I don’t see how that’s mean.”
“Not everybody knows it now,” Rhys said. “And they could say there’s something wrong with your Mum being my girlfriend, because she was married to your Dad before.”
“It isn’t bad for your mum to be your uncle’s girlfriend, though,” Isaiah said, “if he’s not yourrealuncle, like your mum’s brother. Like elephants. You can’t mate if you’re the brother elephant, but if you came from a different elephant family, you can mate.”
“This isn’t about...” Rhys looked absolutely stumped. Zora should care about this—it sounded as if things were hitting the fan—but she had to laugh anyway.
“Uncle Rhys and I aren’t elephants,” she said, “and peoplecansometimes say mean things. I think Uncle Rhys is saying that if somebody asks you at school, you can just say, ‘Yes, my mum is Uncle Rhys’s girlfriend.’”
“And then we tell them he was a very famous All Black,” Isaiah said. “Being an All Black is better than anything else, but being a famous one is the best. Like, if he was in a comic book, he would be strength class 100.”
“It’s not actually better than anything else,” Rhys said. “It’s more important to be a good person.”
“But youarea good person,” Casey said. “And so is Auntie Zora. You’re both nice to animals and things. So I think if they say you’re bad, I should punch them very hard.”
