Page 89 of Just Say Christmas
“Fish don’t sleep, anyway,” Isaiah said.
“Nah, mate,” Rhys said. “They do. They sleep a bit like they’re daydreaming, with their eyes open. They . . . nap, I guess.”
“Do they have dreams?” Casey asked.
“They don’t havedreams,”Isaiah said. “Fish have tiny brains.”
“I don’t know,” Rhys said. “Good question. We could check out their brains after we catch them. Got to cut the head off anyway. May as well have a wee peek inside. And then we could look it up. About the dreams.”
It was pretty remarkable, the things that occurred to kids, the things you got to think about. The sorts of things he’d have wondered about himself as a kid, if his mind had been a bit more free to wander. Call that another second chance.
* * *
When they got home againa couple hours later, Zora was on the couch on the deck, a cup of tea in both hands. Still in her dressing gown. When had that last happened?
“Looks heavy,” she said when Rhys set the chilly bin down and leaned over to kiss her. “Success?”
“Well, success with kahawai,” he said. “No snapper out there today, but kahawai have some meat to them. They’ll be brilliant off the barbecue and with a curry sauce on top, and maybe some of that black rice you do. A couple limes off the tree, and enough for a crowd. Thai curry for Christmas. Why not?”
“Oh,” Zora said. “Well . . . OK.”
She didn’t look one bit excited about it. They’d decided to host the Christmas tea this time, her first time doing it, because it had felt important to Zora. Declaration of—not independence, but—call it parity, maybe. Also, she’d thought, better for Hayden.
That’s what she’d thought in October, anyway, before too many weddings and all that family drama. “If I make the sauce?” he asked. “Can’t be too hard. Coconut milk, probably, and curry paste, and herbs from the garden, thanks to you.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m being silly. It’s fine.”
“We dissected the fish, also,” Isaiah said. “Uncle Rhys made them bleed out first so the meat wouldn’t taste too strong, and then we cut their heads and their bellies open so we could see their brains and their organs. It was very interesting.”
Rhys said, “That’s probably enough about that, mate. Not sure your mum wants to talk about dissecting fish. Not before breakfast, anyway.”
“Not after breakfast, either.” Zora tried to smile. “Sorry, love.”
“A Dad job, you think?” Rhys asked. “Exploring the gross things?”
“Definitely a Dad job.”
She was trying to smile again. It wasn’t quite working, and she still looked fragile as tissue to him. He got a sudden twist in his gut and asked, “All right?”
“Just tired,” she said. “Letting myself be tired, probably.”
Wait, though.She’d been tired for too long, and she hadn’t been like this before, had she? When he’d first found her again, she’d been carrying her burdens alone, working too hard, worrying too much.Nowshe was this tired? He got the kind of sick feeling that tended to happen when both your dad and your brother had died too young of cancer, told himself he was being ridiculous, that she was probably just coming down with a cold, and thought it anyway.
Sometimes, your plot twist wrote itself. Sometimes, your luck was your luck.
“If you’re ill,” he said, “you should go back to bed. Rest.”
“I have a question, though,” Casey said.
“Wait a second,” Rhys said. “We’ll decorate in a bit, after I make breakfast. But Auntie Zora needs a rest first.”
“But I have aquestion,”Casey said.
“Notnow,”Rhys said. Possibly, he snapped it, because Casey recoiled. He softened his tone and said, “You can ask your question later. Not now.”
“But I need to know,” she said. “Because Lily asked how come you didn’t have to be my dad.”
* * *
