Page 135 of Catch a Kiwi
“Well, that would be it. I was married all that time.”
“I was married, too,” she said. “That didn’t mean I didn’t have to be strong.”
“Oh.” I considered that. “OK. Huh.”
“When you’re ready,” she said, “I think you’ll know. At a certain point, I just didn’t want to go back to my own bedroom again. When I finished work, I wanted to see him, even if I was working nights and he was working days. When I had a hard shift, I wanted him around afterward. Not to talk, necessarily. To go for a run. To hold me. Like that.”
“Right,” I said. “Well … thanks.”
She stood up. “We’re both making progress, I reckon. You asked to rent the caravan, and I’m asking you to help with the girls next weekend. Baby steps, dependence-wise.”
She and Gray were due back tonight, though, and, yes, I’d missed being with Roman. He’d been in Wellington all last week, had come to dinner on Friday and down to the caravan with me afterward for some very constrained and silly lovemaking—the bed was tiny, and Roman had kept bumping his elbow—but had canceled on dinner yesterday, and I wasn’t sure why. It was the first time he hadn’t wanted to see me in all these months. Part of me thought,It was bound to happen sooner or later,and the other half tried not to read too much into it.
He hadn’t even called me. He’d sent a text instead.Heaps going on. Going to stay in and work tonight.I’d planned to go over there this evening to spend the night with him, since Daisy and Gray would be home, but was this one of those times when you held back instead? I didn’t know how to do this.
I was still pondering it when my phone buzzed. I stopped tenting my rack of lamb with foil and picked up. The gate.
“Hello?” I asked.
“It’s Esther,” I heard. “Can I come down?”
What the heck? I said, “Uh … sure,” pushed the button, told myself,You’ll find out when she’s here,and mechanically straightened the jonquils in their vase on the breakfast bar. “Mash the potatoes for me, will you?” I asked Dove.“Oh—the green beans.” I pulled them from the oven. Roasted, not burnt. Right.Focus.
This didn’t feel right, though. The cold was seeping into me, and I couldn’t make it stop. It hadn’t been nearly enough time to feel the way I felt with Roman, and I’d been so … so unguarded. Socareless.
Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.
As always, I’d fallen short on that one. How could you ignore that golden bird, right there beyond the window? Or those stars in the sky, telling you they could be your blanket? Telling you that you were loved?
How?
61
WHAT LOVE IS
Roman
I was sitting in front of my laptop when the doorbell rang. I almost didn’t answer it. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I didn’t especially want to see anyone.
The doorbell rang again. I swore, closed the laptop, and padded over in my stocking feet to open the door.
Summer. In jeans and trainers and a jacket, holding a plate covered with foil.
I blinked at her. “Hi. Didn’t know you were coming.” My voice sounded a bit rusty, somehow. I hadn’t talked to anybody in a couple of days, that was all.
She said, “I brought you dinner. Did you eat?”
“Uh …” I ran a hand through my hair. “No. Not for a bit.”
“Then you need to eat.” She handed me the plate, took off the trainers, then picked up my laptop and moved it to the coffee table without so much as a by-your-leave. “I’ll keep you company. Do you want a beer?”
This was odd. “Yeh,” I said.
“I’ll have one, too,” she said, and went to the fridge to getthe cans and pour them out, grabbing a knife and fork along the way.
I took the cover off the plate and sat down, since that seemed to be the next step. “Lamb chops,” I said. “Looks choice.” My stomach growled, so clearly, I was hungrier than I’d thought. Potato mash and green beans as well. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” she said, setting down my beer and then sliding in across from me. “It’s almost nine o’clock, Roman.”
