Page 49 of Catch a Kiwi
Once we were all seated, Matiu rubbed his beautifully sculpted nose and said, “If you’re wondering whether I’m sorry I volunteered—I am. I’m doing it for Hemi, maybe, but mostly, I’m doing it for Koro. If you’re whanau, he needs to know.”
“I’m no part of it,” Roman said.
“You are, mate,” Matiu said. “You’re Maori. That’s obvious. And whanau matters.”
“I. Am. Not. Maori.” Roman’s voice was quiet, too. And icy once more.
“Right, then. Give me a moment here.” Matiu took it, and then he said what I’d been thinking. “There’s a resemblance. That’s obvious. Especially to Hemi. Like I said—notnecessarily a compliment. I know Daniel’s no prize, but the rest of us aren’t too bad. Mainly, though—the old man’s going to be a hundred. The thought of one of his mokopuna out there alone, no whanau to turn to, not knowing his place in the world, hurts his heart. Sounds like it’s a big ask for you. Pride, eh. But you’d be doing a good thing for Koro if you took the test. And if it comes up a match—if you came to this party, gave him a chance to meet you, let him see everybody else meeting you, that’d go a long way. Give him a chance to start to make it right for you, cuz. I think you’ll see why if you meet him. It’s never a bad thing to come up against that much mana.”
“You’ll do a lot for him,” Roman said.
“Clearly,” Matiu said, “or I wouldn’t be here. My night off, and I’ve got four kids.” Another flash of white grin. “And a wife who’s missing me, I hope. What do you say? Swab your cheek, send a text with the result, let you decide whether to turn up?”
The silence stretched out, both men looking at each other. Roman was a photo negative of Matiu, I realized: dark where the other man was light, but almost … the same picture? Finally, Roman said, “All right. Take the swab. I may as well know the truth.”
“The truth doesn’t always feel better,” Matiu said. “But it’s good to know it anyway. Hard to move forward without the truth.”
21
NOTHING LIKE BARBIE
Summer
Roman’s mother and the others left at last, but only after Roman stood up and said, “That’s all I have time for tonight,” followed by, “No, Mum, I mean now. I have work to do.” I thought,Wish I could do that,and also,Is he really able to see things this clearly? Is all of this really not bothering him more than this?
When he shut the door on them, though, he laid a palm against it like he was bracing himself, which told a different story. I asked, “Want to talk about it?”
“No,” he said, turning around with that intensity still on him.
I said, “It’ll be OK. And even if it isn’t, you’re clearly the rise-from-the-ashes type.”
“I don’t have to rise from anything,” he said. “I’m already here.”
“Wow,” Delilah said, because she hadn’t gone far. “You’re really hard to sympathize with, you know?”
“Fortunately,” Roman said, “I don’t need sympathy.”
“Right,” I said. “Time for bed. See you in the morning. Come on, Delilah.”
“Hey,” she said, “I’m an adult, remember? Maybe I want to stay out here and annoy Roman.”
His mouth twitched, at least, and he said, “Tragically, though, I’m going to work out,” and headed back through the house. Shutdown mode, but some men were like that, unable even to identify their feelings, much less discuss them, until their subconscious had sorted them out. Besides, I didn’t get blown around by men’s moods anymore. I refused. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I could feel for him while maintaining my emotional boundaries.
I told myself that, anyway. And then I went to bed.
I woke sometime after six on Sunday morning to the startlingly loud trill of birdsong out the open window and the smell of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon drifting in, and quickly deduced that it wasn’t coming from Delilah’s cooking attempts, since her idea of “making breakfast” consisted of slapping a slice of toast and an overcooked hard-boiled egg onto a plate and calling it good. I threw my robe over my tank top and boxers and headed out to the kitchen, where Roman was sliding two slices of French toast into an oven in which a tray of bacon was gently sizzling.
He glanced at me with some more of his trademark dark intensity and deeper lines than usual around his eyes, which made me wonder how well he’d slept. “Go on and fix a coffee,” he said as he laid cinnamon-sugar-dusted sliced bananas into a frying pan that was doing some more sizzling, this time with melted butter. “This is almost ready. You letting Delilah sleep?”
“Seems wise,” I said, “since you probably don’t want to hear her opinion of your possible new family on an empty stomach.”
He almost smiled at that one. “She’s honest, anyway.”
“She is that,” I said, tamping the grounds and slotting the holder into the espresso machine. “I half expected you to be gone this morning. You seem like the type to drive fast and far when you’re emotional, especially if you can’t be alone otherwise.” He looked at me sharply, and I said, “Am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong,” he said. “But I didn’t.”
I inhaled the aroma of cinnamon and warmed maple syrup as he fixed the plates, poured probably too much of said syrup over my French toast, and told him, “So instead of asking you how you slept, since I can see you’re still tense and you probably worked out hard for an hour and then did another two hours of strategic analysis on the economics of your wind farm, after which you lay awake for yet another hour wondering why nobody will leave you alone and your house keeps having all these people in it, I’m going to switch the topic to me and say that I’m glad I’m allowed to gain weight now, because I’m sure enjoying the process.”
