Page 35 of Just Come Over
“What size is the bed?” she asked.
“Normal.”
She sighed, looking exactly like Casey. Rhys looked at Isaiah, who shrugged again. Somebody here was on his wavelength, anyway. Pity he was eight.
Zora said, too patiently, “Listen carefully. Twin size—single bed. Full size—not as big as a queen. Queen size—most common. King size—big. Probably what you have in all those hotel room. Which is it?”
“I have a king size.”
“Surprising nobody,” she muttered, which made him smile.
“The other two bedrooms have something smaller. I had a woman who bought extra furniture for me, since the house is bigger than I’ve had, but I haven’t paid much attention yet.”
“I have an extra set of queen sheets,” she said. “Even if it’s a full, queen sheets will work. Just tuck more of them in.”
“Good. Fine. We’ll go home, then,” he told Casey, “and make the best of things. We’ll be camping out a bit for now, because it’s a new house for me—for us—but we can make it more, uh, cozy. Eventually.”
“OK,” she said, and focused on stabbing a dried cherry. “If it has a rabbit house, it will be more cozy. Because rabbits are—”
“Yeh,” he said. “Soft. I got it. For now, we’ll get sheets on your bed. One step at a time.”
Zora popped her head into Isaiah’s room an hour later, holding a laundry basket, to find him on the floor, working on his jigsaw puzzle in his PJ’s, which were navy and gray and absolutely plain. Last year, he’d rejected anything with a design, evenStar Wars,as “babyish.” She missed the Ninja Turtles and superheroes and rocket ships. She was proud of who he was growing up to be, but she still missed her baby.
“Do you want me to read to you tonight?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m reading a very interesting book about a teacher who taught somebody who was blind and deaf, in the olden days. She had to think how to help her to communicate. She finally figured out how, though, by putting her hand in some water and spelling the word for ‘water’ in sign language into her hand at the same time. That’s very interesting, because if you couldn’t hear anythingandyou couldn’t see anything, you wouldn’t even know that things had names. You wouldn’t know how to think about them, or what was happening at all. You wouldn’t have any words in your head, or any sentences. So I think that teacher was very smart. Except she was poor. When she was a kid, she was in an orphanage with her brother, and her brother died. She never had a home or a family or anything until she taught that girl. Then she got famous, but the girl got more famous, because she was the one who was blind and deaf. I think the teacher should have got more famous.”
“I think the girl was Helen Keller,” Zora said.
“The teacher’s name was Annie,” Isaiah said. “They were American, like Casey. It would be weird to be American.”
“And to come to New Zealand, too.” Zora decided to sit down on the floor. “You could help me fold this laundry.”
Isaiah did, carefully picking out his own clothes. He’d told her that touching “girl underwear” was “weird.” Apparently, even his mum’s counted.
Zora said, after a minute, “It’s a sudden thing for everybody, having Casey here.”
Isaiah didn’t look up, just continued folding his T-shirts in the way he liked, which consisted of putting a shirt flat on the floor and then folding it into a tiny rectangle, the way absolutely nobody else would have. He said it was neater. Now, he said, “Yeh.”
She said, “I guess you know how she feels. Her mum died, just like your dad.”
“I didn’t have to go anywhere, though,” he said, “because I was already here.”
“That’s right.” She wondered, as always, how much to say. Isaiah was so grown up in some ways, so relentlessly logical, and still a little boy in others. She settled on, “And I was already here, too, with you. I knew how to be a mum. Uncle Rhys doesn’t know how to be a dad. They both need some help, and they’re our whanau.”
“I know,” Isaiah said. “I thought he didn’t like us, but now he acts like he does.”
“It’s all pretty confusing. And it could be especially confusing,” she decided to say, “because it’s been just you and me for a long time now. And you could think, if I’m caring for Casey as well, that I don’t love you as much. It could be odd to have to share your mum like that. Uncle Rhys is paying me thirty dollars a day, so it’s a job, but it’s more than that. Casey’s my niece, and I’m going to love her, too. I feel like I’ve already started.”
Isaiah shrugged. Boy shrugs usually meant,You’re getting close,so she went ahead. “Here’s the thing, though. I don’t think love works like that. I don’t think it’s subtraction. It’s more like addition, or multiplication, even. I think people have lots of different rooms in their hearts. You only see the room you’re in, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more. Or maybe love is like seeds, just waiting to grow into flowers. Maybe love is potential, and you always have more potential. That’s how a mum can have lots of kids, and love every one of them with her whole heart. You wouldn’t think that was possible, but it is.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Isaiah said.
“I don’t think hearts always make sense. Or maybe we just don’t understand the sense they make.”
“It could be like space,” Isaiah said. “Like there are more things that we don’t know yet, but scientists can learn them.”
She smiled and put her hand on his head, smoothing his dark hair. “It could be exactly like that. But there’s one thing I do know for sure. I know that when they put you in my arms after you were born, I put my hand on your head just like this, and I thought—where did this love come from? How did I not know this existed? I knew that nothing could ever make that love any less, because that flower bloomed whole and bright and perfect just as it was. I knew who you were from the beginning, too. I couldseeyou being clever and thoughtful and serious, even when you were a baby. I’m glad I have you to help me with Casey, and that you’ve got such a caring heart. Even though you may be sad sometimes, if I’m not paying enough attention to you. If that happens, though, I guess you’ll tell me. You can say, ‘Mum, I need your attention now,’ and I’ll listen.”
