Page 80 of Kiwi Sin
“What if what made you happy was being horrible, though?” Priya asked. “Like Valor?”
“Oh.” I had to think about it, though I didn’t want to. I didn’t ever want to think about Valor again. “I don’t know. That’s the Devil, maybe.” Not a satisfactory answer, and there was a reason that it was easier to be in Mount Zion. You never had to try to sort out these things. The Prophet told you, and that was that.
I was seventeen years old. I was a girl. I’d had to work hard just to pass Year 11 maths. How did I know the answers?
That was when I heard a knock at the door. And dropped my knitting again.
32
THE POWER OF THE MOON
Gabriel
I’d taken a shower after work, shaved again to make sure, then dressed in clean work clothes and wished I had something else, something better. I’d cooked sausages and baked frozen chips in the oven, all the while wrestling with whether to go over there tonight.
Was it wrong? Should I go to somebody else first? To Daisy and Gray, that would be. It felt like I should be asking permission, but why? Wasn’t the choice ours, under these new rules?
In the end, I went.
Not entirely true. I went because I couldn’tnotgo. Not after Oriana had run after me and told me she’d be at Laila’s tonight. Uriel and Raphael had laughed afterward, had given me stick, as I could have predicted, and I’d known my dad would be hearing about this and couldn’t care. I’d smiled and said nothing, but my heart had felt like it was about to burst.
My heart still felt overactive, but in a slightly sick way. Oriana wasn’t sitting on the steps, which made this visit not accidental, and not casual. It meant I had to decide whether to knock. I didn’t even know that she was still here. I should’ve texted her, probably. If I’d had her number.
Harden up,I told myself. And knocked.
A burst of excited barking, first, and then the door opened. The dog, wagging his tail furiously, looking for a pat, and Priya. “Hi, Gabriel,” she said. “What are you doing here?” Like most of her sisters, she had no problem looking me in the eye anymore. The only one who still had trouble with that was Oriana. So why was I so sure that Oriana was the right one for me?
I don’t know. I just was.
“Came to see Oriana,” I said. “She here?” My heart was completely out of control now, banging away like a freight train, because Orianawashere. In the doorway, in fact.
She was wearing trousers, but the loose, flowing kind she liked, which were black with a pattern of tiny roses today. Her pink shirt matched the flowers, her hair was tied up in a soft knot, and she looked like everything sweet and pretty in the world. She said to Priya, with all the self-possession she hadn’t had when she’d cut my hair, “I’ll sit outside with Gabriel for a few minutes.”
Priya said, “You probably shouldn’t.” Her gaze going between the two of us, suspicious, or just curious, I couldn’t tell. I could picture her going home and telling Daisy, but what did that matter, if I wasn’t going to be doing anything wrong? And I wasn’t. That, I was sure of.
Oriana said, “I discussed it with Laila earlier. She said it was all right.”
“Oh,” Priya said. “All right, then.” She shut the door, but before she did, the dog shot through and came to stand beside me. Oriana laughed, dropped onto the steps, and gave the dog a cuddle, like she had so much affection, it had to come out. I thought about the times I’d seen her from the window, down in the paddock with the alpacas, feeding them out of her hand, stroking their sides. I sat beside her and said, “You don’t get tired of it, then, being so …”
“Being what?” she asked. Still composed.
“Taking care of the babies, and then babysitting. The animals and all, too. Caretaking, I guess.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t always know how to go on with adults. I know with kids and animals, though, and the babies are nothing but dear. How could anybody not love holding them and caring for them? I know I’m soft,” she went on, as if determined to say it, “but somebody has to be soft, don’t they? Don’t babies need somebody like that, at least?”
“Everybody needs somebody soft,” I said. “I know I do.”
“Oh,” she said, and that was all.
You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t begin,I told myself. I had a hand on the dog’s back, and Oriana was rubbing his ears. He was the chaperone, I guessed, sitting between us like it was his job. He and Priya. I asked, “Did you look up about gardenias?”
Now, she looked startled. “No. Was I meant to?”
Oh. She hadn’t. I tried to remember what I’d said about it, and couldn’t. Saying more now felt like a leap into the dark, but I took a breath and took that leap. “I hoped you would, but maybe I didn’t ask you clearly enough.”
“I could look on my phone, I guess,” she said.
I laughed, though I didn’t exactly feel like it. “No. It’s OK. I’ll tell you. They’re meant to be, ah … purity. A pure soul, maybe. That’s what the woman at the shop said. And joy. And …” The hardest one. “A secret love.”
