Page 103 of Kiwi Sin
Three weeks of being close, and nowhere close enough.
So far, my dad hadn’t said anything more about not working for Gray, though he’d started to invite his sons and their families to dinner on Sundaynights, and it wasn’t optional. On the plus side, that was three nights a week I wasn’t eating sausages. On the minus side, Patience was always there, pretty and lively and smiling and asking me admiring questions about my work and my flat and my life, and I was always sat next to her and feeling bad that she seemed to like me so much, and also not bad, because—did she evenknowme? Why exactly did she want me, then?
Because I had a future, maybe, though I wasn’t sure how excited she really was about building. More likely because I was that thing people said. Beautiful.
Patience was beautiful, too, but how much did “beautiful” really matter when the years passed and you were sitting on the couch together, waking up next to her in the morning, picking your baby up out of its cot and bringing it to her to feed? Didn’t it matter more how you felt doing all that? Or more like—didn’t it matter more that those things were enough for both of you?
Uriel and Glory were always there, too, of course, though they didn’t say much. The first dinner felt like we were all sitting on a block of ammonium nitrate and somebody was about to add the fuel oil, and the third dinner didn’t feel much different. If it was meant to be a family-bonding exercise, it wasn’t working. We weren’t like most people, who’ve grown up eating dinner with their family and having family conversation. We’d grown up eating dinner with our community and listening to the Prophet talk, and all this felt was—awkward.
Oriana, of course, was back at school now. As for me, I went to work every morning on Gray’s new job, which was building a shopping center. To my surprise, Gray put me in charge of one of the crews and coached me on what to do, patient as you can imagine. It hadn’t just been about the house, then. He’d meant it. I was on the road.
My dad was still the foreman on the entire dormitory project, which was nearing completion now. Raphael was still working with him, but Gray moved my cousins and Uriel to the shopping center with me. The week that happened, my dad’s face was stern and set at our family dinner, and my mum’s lips were tight, but neither of them said anything about it, and the rest of us knew better than to bring it up. Besides, if there was one thing people at Mount Zion knew how to do, it was to follow orders.
I worked, and I finished my project over at Drew’s and played basketball on Sundays with Jack and didn’t give Oriana her gift yet, because, somehow, the time didn’t feel right. I missed seeing her out the window in the mornings, coming up the hill with her basket over her arm, full of some delicious thing she wanted to offer to Daisy and Gray. I missed her when I woke up, and I missed her most of all when I went to bed and tried to sleep.
We could fit together, my wife and I,I’d told her once. She hadn’t known I’d meant her, but I’d always meant her.
Always.
* * *
Oriana
My life had never been busier or more full of joy, and still, the weeks dragged.
My first day back at school, Aisha was waiting for me at lunchtime. Her eyes widened at seeing Priya’s hair, which Priya had cut even shorter and spiked, for this occasion, so parts of it stood straight up in an almost-accidental manner. A teacher would tell her to wash it out later that afternoon, because she’d see that Priya was testing the limits on her very first day. Priya was wearing earrings, too, because she’d got her ears pierced with some more of her holiday earnings, and was now busily collecting things to put in them. When Aisha commented, Priya said, “You can only wear plain studs to school, though. I have some that are skulls, and some that are angel wings. Or bird wings, but I think they look more like angels, all snow-white and feathery. They’ll drive my aunt and uncle mad when they see them. Sacrilege, eh. I can’t wait. I have some that look like ribbons, and heaps more besides, but I can hardlywearthem.”
Aisha said, “I wish my mum would let me wear things like that.”
“That’s the good part about your mum not being there,” Priya said, and I thought,How can you say that?and didn’t respond.
“So did anything else exciting happen over your holidays, Oriana?” Aisha asked. “Wait, nothing exciting had happened when we talked, full stop. Did anything even mildly thrilling happen since, other than that you both stopped working at last? When, yesterday?”
“Friday,” Priya said.
“We’re still working, actually,” I said. “On the weekend days until the middle of the month, because Laila—my boss—her assistant isn’t back until then.”
“With the babies,” Aisha said.
“Yes,” I said. “Priya’s going to be minding her kids.” That was all, because … what else could I say? “How about you?” I decided on.
“Excuse me,” Priya said. “Nothing exciting happened? Other than that you and Gabriel told Daisy and Gray that you want to get married, and they shot you down, but you’re still kissing Gabriel every chance you get, and he’s practically taking off yourclothes,and I had to leave the caravan so I wouldn’t have to watch?Oh, and that his family and our family are nearly at war, except that everybody’s unfortunately still working for Gray? It’s likeRomeo and Juliet—which I know about, by the way, because we have to read it for English, and I got a head start, as I’ve never read anything like that. School’s sointeresting,Outside, and I’ve just started.”
Aisha had a palm up, and Priya stopped talking. “Excuse me?” Aisha said. “That youwhat?”
My hands stilled on my knitting. I was still working on Gabriel’s jumper, because, well … I was. It made me feel closer to him, handling the silky-soft wool that I’d dyed myself to be the color of his eyes, and seeing the jumper take shape,hisshape, because I’d measured him.
I’d measured him, and he’d had to kiss me.
I said, “That we’re getting married.”
Aisha said, “You’reseventeen.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why we’re not already married.” Oh. My yarn was running out. I pulled out the next ball and prepared to switch over.
“Don’t you want to finish school and go to university?” Aisha asked. “And where’s your ring, if you’re—what, engaged?”
“What does any of that have to do with being married?” I asked.
