Page 124 of Catch a Kiwi
He did.
How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.Marcus Aurelius. Again.
Well,thiswas going to put my stoicism to the test.
55
BRAVE AND FREE
Roman
It was a rainy Monday morning, and I was in a meeting, working with the marketing team to lay out a presentation that I hoped would put us on one of those solar energy committees Summer had talked about. I was saying, “By next Monday, Gordon,” Gordon was nodding, and Esther was typing on her computer and also, somehow, checking her phone. As I was launching into the next point, Esther stood up, walked around the conference table to me, and waited.
I stopped talking and asked, “Yes?” This had to be disaster. I couldn’t remember the last time Esther had interrupted me like this. She certainly wouldn’t do it for good news.
He who is brave is free.Seneca. You handled disasters in exactly the same way as you handled everything else. One decision at a time.
Esther leaned down and told me quietly, “Summer’s out in Reception. Anne told her you were in a meeting, but she said it was urgent.”
“Right.” I closed my laptop and told the group, “Give meten minutes.” Told myself the “brave and free” thing again, and added another Seneca quote for good measure. “Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.” I hadn’t quite mastered that one, unfortunately, because I was both hopingandfearing.
Delilah. It had to be. Either that, or …
There I was, hoping again. Slow learner, I guess. Detachment, that was my brief here.
I headed out to Reception. People looked at me and looked away, because my face was probably too set. Forbidding. When I got out there and saw Summer sitting on a chair, ramrod straight, her purse clutched in her lap with white fingers and so much strain on her drawn face, I got cold all over. Not so brave, not so free, and not one bit detached.
“Summer.” I sank down beside her and put my hand over hers. Hers was cold, and she was nearly shivering, her teeth clamped together. “What happened?”
She turned a blind face to me. “I shouldn’t … be here. Not … not fair. I thought I could handle … but I think I’m having … a panic attack. I think I’m …”
I had my arm around her now, and my other hand on her face. “It’s OK,” I said. “It’s OK. Tell me.”
“I can’t …” She took a shaky breath. “Do you have someplace I can go? There’s the caravan, but there’s Delilah, and I can’t?—”
“Because you can’t scare Delilah,” I said, relieved beyond measure that whatever the problem was, nothing had happened to Delilah. I didn’t think Summer could’ve borne it. “Yeh. There’s a place.” I stood up and told Esther, who was standing nearby as if alerted by radar, “I’m going home. Cancel everything for today. Ping me with anything that can’t wait and can’t be delegated.”
“Everything can wait or be delegated,” she said. “I’ll take care of it. Go.”
Down in the lifts to the carpark, then, and Summersaying, my arm still around her, “Esther’s very good at her job.”
“She is,” I said, heading over to the car. “Tell me now, or wait to get to my house, either one.”
“I need to … wait,” she said. “I need to be … to be …”
“Safe,” I said, and felt the truth of it.
She sat like that, still upright, still rigid, for the five minutes it took to get to the house, then followed me inside. I grabbed the remote and turned up the heat pump, said, “Blankets on the ladder there. Get one,” then knelt at the wood stove and built a quick fire.
When I turned back to her, though, she was still just standing there, clutching her purse. This frozen thing—it scared me. Summer had always kept going, always risen above her fear. Even when she’d been trying to save Delilah from that upside-down van. Even when she’d been stitched in four places and exhausted to her bones, she’d been out there raking that hillside, searching for her gumboots and her wallet so she could clean my car and get out of there. Now, though …
I’d been about to make tea. Instead, I grabbed a blanket from the ladder, pulled Summer down with me onto the couch in front of the fire, wrapped the blanket around her, and held her head against my chest. It was all I could think to do.
For a moment, she still sat rigid. Then she drew in a quick, ragged breath, her shoulders shook, and the sobs came. On and on, shaking in my arms, crying in that way you can tell is physically painful. Crying like she’d held herself together for hours, getting more and more brittle, until finally, she’d shattered.
I’d held her once before like this, when she’d come back from hospital after that girl Erica’s parents had come runningand loved their daughter. That one, I’d eventually sussed out. This one, though … I was stumped.
It must have been ten minutes. It felt like an hour. I still didn’t say anything, because I still didn’t know what to say, but finally, the sobs slowed down, and eventually, Summer was shuddering. Shaking. Clutching my shoulder and saying, her voice wobbling all over the shop, “I’m going to have to wash your … your shirt again. It’s?—”
