Page 81 of Just Come Over
“Yeh. I got some modern ones as well, so she could dress like you. Now you can change her clothes and play with her on your special rug, with your bunnies.”
“And there can be magic.”
“There can definitely be magic.”
She had her arms around his neck again, and he was picking her up, smoothing back her hair, kissing her cheek, saying, “I’m glad to be home.” And meaning it.
“And you came back.”
“I told you. I’ll always come back.”
When he set her down again, Zora wasn’t there, but Hayden was.
“Uncle Hayden!” Isaiah said. “Uncle Rhys bought me LEGO Boost! It’s almost three hundred dollars.” Casey didn’t say anything. She was sitting in her sleeping bag, changing Moana’s clothes.
“Raising the bar,” Hayden told Rhys, and he shrugged and said, “Yeh, nah. Can’t be helped.”
Hayden raised his brows in the direction Zora had gone and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Dunno.” Rhys stepped away from the kids. “I was hoping you could tell me. She wouldn’t take my roof. Paid for it herself and told me afterwards.”
That seemed to take Hayden as much by surprise as it had Rhys. “She wouldn’t?”
Zora came out of the back of the house, looked from one of them to the other, and said, “If you’re ready, Rhys, let’s go,” with all the excited anticipation of a woman on the way to her colonoscopy.
Hayden said, “Oh... kay,” and Rhys thought,You could say that, mate,and did his level best to stay focused, to stay right here.
Whatever it was, he could make it better. That was his job.
Rhys changed into a track suit and trainers out of his bag in Zora’s bathroom and thought about how she hadn’t worn any makeup to come meet him, and about the shadows under her eyes. And this time, he drove.
It was less than ten minutes to the Arataki Visitor Centre. When they got there, she said, “I’m still not running,” sounding a whole lot more narky than fearful, and climbed out of the car.
She wasn’t ill. She was furious. She wasfilthy.He tried to think what he’d done, and couldn’t come up with anything. “I never said you were running,” he said, and led the way to the track that started behind the building. “Good to be out in the open, though. That way, you can yell as loud as you like, and say anything you need to. Go on. Fire away.”
“You say that like you want to hear it,” she said.
“Because I do.” He headed down the track. “I’ve got a thick skin, and I get up from the tackle every time. So go on. Give me the bad news. I can handle it.”
Silence, and finally, from behind him, “How much did you know? And when? Did you two...” Her voice trembled.“Laughat me? Was it all a joke, then? Was it a deal you made? I’d stay with Dylan, take care of him, and you’d handle the rest of it? Except that the plan went wrong, didn’t it? And youstilldidn’t tell me. All this time. All theseyears.”
“Wait.” His feet slowed on the packed earth. “What? Explain.”
“I thought you said you could take it.”
He turned around. Whose stupid idea had it been to take a walk? He needed to see her face. “I can take it. I just have to know what it is. Are you all right, then? Not ill?”
“What? Me?” She stared at him, then laughed, an angry huff, and shoved her hair back from her face. “I’m never ill. Don’t you get it? It’s never me.” Her voice trembled. “I never get to...” Her hands rose, then fell. “To fall apart. I... I can’t do this, though. Ican’t.I’ve been waiting, because I couldn’t fly to Japan like I wanted to, not with two kids, and fourteen deliveries, and a wedding, and I’ve just had to wait, and...”
He had his arms around her, but there was nowhere to sit. He said, “Hang on. This was a stupid idea. We’re going back.”
By the time they were on a bench, with the few visitors around at five-thirty on a March evening giving them a wide berth, because clearly, they looked like two people on the verge of an explosion, Zora had a hand over her nose and mouth, either trying to breathe, or trying to hold back. He kept an arm around her, wished she was in his lap, because he needed to hold her more, and better, and completely, and said, “First—no. I didn’t know. Whatever you found out—I didn’t know, other than that Dylan cheated and lied about it. That, I knew. But you knew it, too.”
She looked at him, then. Finally. “Is that true? Even though he was using your name?”
“I’m a rubbish liar.”
Her face twisted. “I don’t know what to... believe anymore. Everything’s just a...” She waved a helpless arm. “A lie, you know? Everything’s alie.”
