Page 53 of Just for Me
Wait. In this situation, Hayden was Luke. Wasn’t he? Standing tall and walking away, because there was no choice. Because this was where he had to go right now, and this was what he had to do.
Leave. And be alone.
He closed his exercise book. He should go for a walk. He was in Rome, after all, and the evening would just be getting started out there. He should put on his jacket and Hayden’s scarf, the most elegant piece of clothing he’d ever owned, and take in the city. Or he should ring Hayden, if he was lonely and missing him. Eight at night here meant eight in the morning there.
What would he say, though? Ask for comfort, when he was being a coward and Hayden knew it? Lately, there’d been pauses between them. Silences. Too much distance, and Luke couldn’t tell what was on the other end of the line, but he suspected it was disappointment. Maybe disillusion. Hayden never asked him if he’d come out yet, why he was faffing about like this, but Luke could feel him wanting to, and he didn’t know how to answer.
It was only a few months until July, when Luke would be done playing for the season and Hayden would come visit again, but it felt like he was standing in a long, cold, dark tunnel, unable to see the light. Unable to see the end.
He'd take a walk.
* * *
“How comeyou never bring a date to dinner anymore, Uncle Hayden?”
That was Casey, who was working hard on twirling spag bol around her fork. They were out on the deck again for this Friday-night dinner, because the day was glorious. Blue sky, blue sea, warm sun. Hayden put a smile on his face and said, “Luke’s in France, remember? Well, actually, he’s in Rome at the moment, preparing for heroics with England.”
Casey stuffed a round ball of spaghetti the size of a clementine into her mouth, then chewed on it determinedly like a squirrel deciding to eat all the nuts at once. When she gulped down the mouthful at last, she asked, “How come?”
“How come what?” Hayden asked.
Rhys said, “Napkin, Casey.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you have Bolognese sauce all around your mouth and chin,” Rhys said. “Which is from Italy, by the way.”
“Because Rome is in Italy,” Isaiah said. “It’s very historical there. And they speak Italian.”
“Iknow,”Casey said.
“You probably didn’t,” Isaiah said. “But that’s OK. People don’t like to admit they don’t know something. You’d think they’d speak Latin, because that was what they spoke when they started Rome, but they don’t. That’s kind of weird. It’s the same people, but they changed the language.”
“You could look it up,” Rhys said, and when Isaiah stood up, added, “After dinner. And tell us the answer. Got to be a reason, eh.”
“Why do you always have toknowthings?” Casey asked.
“I don’t know,” Isaiah said. “I just do. It’s good to know things. It’s information.”
“OK,” Casey said. “Then how come Luke doesn’t come visit you, Uncle Hayden? Dad goes away for rugby, but he always comes home.”
“You have to go where you live, in rugby,” Isaiah said. “You can’t just go to anothercountrywhen your team’s training.”
“But Dad goes to other countries all the time,” Casey said.
“Because the team’s playing there,” Isaiah said. “You don’t get to choose where you go. Unless your partner’s having a baby or something, you have to stay with the team all season long. If you’re an All Black, or playing for England like Luke, you have to stay for the test matches, too. It’s almost all the time.”
“Oh.” Casey considered that while she twirled more spaghetti and Rhys said, “Start with a tiny bit, maybe, so you look a bit less like a snake eating a goat.”
“Spaghetti is hard,” she said.
“Yeh,” Rhys said. “But tasty, eh.”
“OK,” Casey said. “Then Uncle Hayden could go visit Luke, because he’s not a rugby player. He could fly on a plane. You can lie down like on a bed,” she told Hayden. “It has scary toilets that make a very loud sound, but you can’t get sucked into the hole, so it’s OK to go in them. And they give you cookies, too, and when Dad and I went, they let me see the front of it where the drivers sit.”
“The pilots,” Isaiah said. “In the cockpit.”
Casey ignored him. “So why can’t you go?” she asked Hayden.
