Page 75 of Just Come Over
“We’re getting a much better roof than Mum planned,” Isaiah informed him. “It costs almost two times as much, but it lasts more than two times as long, so that’s less expensive, really, if you live in your house for fifty years. It’s made out of metal.”
“I see,” Hayden said. “Where are we eating?”
“Lounge,” Zora said. “Coffee table.” Which meant, “On top of a different sheet of plastic.”
“How did this happen, then?” Hayden asked Zora, when they were sitting on the floor and he’d begun tackling his lamb kebab. “I thought you couldn’t afford to do your roof yet. Now you’re doing a metal one? Business that good?”
She wished she hadn’t shared quite so much with him. “No,” she said. “Rhys is doing it, as Casey’s here all the time. And Isaiah, of course.”
“Wait,” Hayden said, arrested in the midst of lamb pursuit. “Rhys is buying you a new roof?”
“Yes,” Isaiah said. “Because he probably makes about five times as much as my mum does. Maybe ten times. She makes about fifty thousand dollars a year, once you take out how much she spends on the van and flowers and things. I don’t know how much Uncle Rhys makes, but it’s probably heaps more.”
“Which isn’t our business,” Zora hurried to say. “And doesn’t obligate Uncle Rhys to buy us anything, much less a roof. That isn’t how money works. Also, love, we don’t talk about how much money people make, remember?”
“Except hewantedto buy us a roof,” Isaiah said. “He said so. You can do it if youwantto. It was a present. Presents are OK. And it’s Uncle Hayden. You can talk about how much money in yourfamily.”
“Not in your family, either,” Zora said. She wasn’t looking at Hayden. She couldn’t. She got up and went back to the kitchen to get her mail instead. Two days’ worth, since she hadn’t come inside yesterday at all, and had only come over to do her spa flowers. Rhys’s house was just so comfortable.
When she came back, Hayden said, “That’s a pretty good present. I thought men usually sent flowers.”
She wasn’t listening. She’d ripped open the envelope from BNZ, and now, she was looking at the letter inside, unable to make sense of it. She’d never had an account there. This was a mistake, surely. Had she been hacked?
She couldn’t get her breath. She needed to check her accountsnow,but she couldn’t. Her computer was at Rhys’s. Oh. She could check on her phone. She stared at the few lines of text and fought the lightheadedness, the sudden panic.
“What is it?” Hayden asked. He picked up the ripped envelope where she’d set it on the coffee table. “BNZ. Addressed to Dylan. Is that still bothering you?”
“Is what bothering you, Mum?” Isaiah asked.
“Sometimes,” Hayden told him, “seeing the name of somebody you’ve lost takes you by surprise.”
“Oh,” Isaiah said, exchanging a dubious glance with Casey. “But you heard their name all the time when they were still alive, so why would it be different if they’re dead? Plus, Dad’s name is the same as Mum’s name.”
“I don’t know,” Hayden said. “Hard to say.”
“No,” Zora said. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” She folded the paper up again, avoiding Hayden’s eye, and stuffed it back into the envelope. “Surprise, that’s all. Like you say.”
“Casey and me both have dead parents,” Isaiah announced. “That’s called being a half orphan. I read it in a book.”
“It is?” Casey asked. “A norphan is if you don’t have parents, though. Besides, I don’t think you can be half of something. You’re not half of aperson.”
“You’re right,” Hayden said, when Zora didn’t answer. “There’s no such thing. You’re an orphan, or you’re not. You each have a parent who’s alive. Nobody here is an orphan.”
She didn’t have time for this, she thought the next morning. She had more than a day’s worth of accumulated paperwork and bookkeeping to do, and only today to do it. Tomorrow was residential deliveries, then that wedding on Saturday, and then, on Sunday afternoon, Rhys was coming home. Paperwork was her least favorite thing, and if she didn’t schedule it, it didn’t happen. You couldn’t run a business like that.
She was standing in front of the BNZ branch anyway, clutching a manila envelope and shifting from foot to foot. Five minutes to nine, and everybody was at their desk or behind the counter inside, so why couldn’t they open up?
Finally, a thirtyish woman in a black pantsuit came forward, unlocked a padlock, then unwound a chain between the handles before she pushed the door open and told Zora, “Come in.”
Zora said, “I need to talk to somebody in, ah... customer service. A banker. Not a teller.”
The woman said, “What is this about?” She was eyeing Zora a bit askance. She probably looked wild-eyed. Possibly like a bank robber. It couldn’t be her clothes. She’d dressed in her most businesslike attire for this, which happened to be the blue dress she’d worn to go out with Rhys. She was short on businesslike attire. Also date attire. She was short, in fact, on everything but “Arrange flowers attire,” which trended distinctly in the shorts and yoga-pants direction.
Never mind. She sat in a visitor’s chair, handed over the letter, and waited some more.
The woman scrutinized the letter, then handed it back and said, “I’m afraid the account holder would have to come in himself.”
“He can’t exactly do that,” Zora said, “as he’s been dead for two years. I’m his widow. I’m also his sole beneficiary.”
