Page 18 of Catch a Kiwi
Roman still just sat there, and I said, “Sorry you asked?” and tried to laugh.
“No,” he said, but that was all. “What happened with Delilah?”
I shouldn’t tell him any more. I’d already said so much, just spilling it all out. Blame the bourbon, though, because I went on. “I finally got unstuck and came to see them. I hadn’t been able to reach Mom, and Delilah always said she was working that day, she was out, whatever, when I asked. I came over, though, from the UK, because Delilah was going to graduate from high school, and that’s when I found out. She said not to come, but I had to. I knew how proud my …” I steadied my voice. “My mom would be that Delilah would be going to college. University, I mean. And when I got there … well, she was gone.”
“And you felt guilty,” Roman said.
“Of course I felt guilty!” Are you kidding? Why couldn’t he see? “Ishouldhave felt guilty! It was my fault. I should’ve insisted that she stop working. I should’ve realized that Delilah was lying. I can’t find any way to make that better. I can’t even find a quote that helps, because there’s no quote for that kind of mistake.”
“Delilah’s not in university, though,” Roman said, which wasn’t what I’d expected. “It starts at a different time over there, right? Must have already started.”
“No. She’d asked for a deferral for a year when Mom got sick, so she could earn some money and help. Wanting to prove something, I guess.”
“Because you’d always done it,” Roman said.
“I’m no martyr,” I said, “and I’m certainly no saint. I told you. I dropped the ball just when they needed me most. And I’ll never make that go away.” I swung my legs off him. What was I saying? What was Idoing?“I need to go to bed.”
8
THE ONE THAT YOU ARE
Roman
I didn’t get to sleep for a while that night.
I’d tried to get Summer to stay with me. I wasn’t sure why. Some combination of pity and sex, probably, which wasn’t particularly noble, but then, I’d never claimed to be. She climbed off the bed, though, so I walked her back to her bedroom and left her there. And then lay awake, troubled and aroused in equal measure, trying to force my brain to let it go.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do. Feed them breakfast, collect their belongings, arrange to get the van towed, loan them a bit of money that I wouldn’t expect to see again, drive them wherever they wanted to go, and forget them. I’d been helpful. I’d been hospitable. I wasn’t responsible.
Unfortunately, my brain didn’t want to see it that way.
“Have good trust in yourself,” I reminded myself aloud in the warmth of the dying fire. “Not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are.” Maezumi Roshi had been right. I knew who I was, and it wasn’t some noble fella, it was the kind of man who wanted a woman’s legs in hislap and everything that would come after it, when she had stitches in four places and her cousin had concussion and they both seemed pretty desperate.
No. A loan, a lift, and goodbye.
I woke to a strong smell of damp wood and wet wool, and slivers of light around the edges of the blinds. When I stepped onto the squashy carpet and looked outside, I was greeted by incongruously bright sunshine and calling birds. If it hadn’t been for a welter of broken tree limbs, a slick of mud over every surface, an impressive litter of scattered debris, and the squelching feeling of the wet carpet under my feet, I wouldn’t have known the storm had happened. I opened the windows to start to air things out, and it was late summer again: fresh and cool, with the promise of warmth to come and only a few clouds in the sky.
I looked at my watch. Nearly seven. I’d overslept by over an hour. That would be the bourbon, or the thoughts. More importantly, the power was back.
I didn’t do my aikido self-practice, even though I always did my practice. I didn’t do my meditation, either. I told myself it was because of the sodden floors, but it probably wasn’t. I headed into the kitchen instead.
Nobody here. No sound in the house, either.
I envisioned the girls grabbing my car keys from the hook by the door, searching the house for pawnable items, and heading off up the road. That hadn’t even occurred to me last night.
I resisted going to the door to look. Either I trusted my judgment or I didn’t, and it was a little late for second thoughts. If the car was gone, I’d find out in half an hour, when Ididlook, and I wouldn’t be worse off than if I found out now. I let it go, made a coffee, and got out the eggs and bread. If the girls—women—were still here, I wasn’t going toworry about their breakfast. The food was here for them to cook, and I wasn’t responsible for them.
I. Was. Not. Responsible. I was also not worried. Problems would come, would break over me, but they didn’t have to drag me under.
I was slipping an egg into the pot of boiling water when I saw her. My hand hovered, then hit the edge of the pot, and I jumped and exclaimed as the egg fell into the water with a splash.
“You’ve burned yourself,” she said. “Here.” She rushed forward, grabbed my wrist and pulled, and stuck my hand under the tap as she turned on the cold water. “Hold it in there so it doesn’t blister.”
“I know how to treat a burn.” I knew I was scowling and couldn’t help it. I wasn’t the one who needed help here. On the other hand, my judgment hadn’t steered me wrong. Here she was, back to being the caretaker, and no thief. “Grab that toast when it’s done,” I told her, “and butter it. You take the eggs out with a slotted spoon and?—"
“I’m a British citizen, remember? I know how to make poached eggs on toast.” She was, in fact, taking care of that now, even setting the eggs on a paper towel to dry. “Commanding me to make your breakfast, though? I’d say it was presumptuous of you, but we just slept in your house, so I guess I’ll do it.”
I said, “I didn’t mean—I meant that you could eat that and I’d make more.”
