Page 46 of Catch a Kiwi
She sighed. “All right, I may have told ateenyfib. A bit more has happened than I said. I met Daniel a week ago, and I knew we were coming down when I rang you earlier. I wanted to give you some notice, and now you’ve had it and we can be comfortable together if you’ll just loosen up a bit. Look at me! I’m rolling with it, as usual. You’d be so much happier if you learned to do that.” As usual, she was dressed to stun, her chestnut-with-help hair artfully cut, her earrings swinging, her figure taut in tight jeans and a body-hugging top that would’ve come from the top shelf, and, I was sure, her makeup subtle and perfect. I couldn’t tell, because we were outside and it was dark. I wanted to stay outside, too. I didn’t want this man to put one foot over my threshold.
“You rang because you needed to know where I was,” I said. I could have said that if I “rolled with it” the way she did, I wouldn’t have this house and she’d have nothing. Instead, I said, “Do you have a place to stay tonight? It’s after nine. If not, I’ll ring up and book for you. I’ll pay for your room, but that’s all.”
“Darling,” she said, “you can’t mean that. You’d turn us out on the street? You have this enormous house, and he’s yourfather.”
“He’s my sperm donor.” I stopped and took a breath, then another one, deliberately slowing my heart.Wise men don’t judge – they seek to understand.Wei Wu Wei. Easy for him to say.
Movement from beside me. Summer, stacking things ontothe tray. Unobtrusively. I said, “You don’t have to do that. Or to leave.” Furious again, no matter what Wei Wu Wei had said, that our time together had been shattered by this.
She said, “I’m here. However you need me.” Quietly, because she’d meant it only for me.
It was the space I’d needed, maybe, because I got myself under control again.It doesn’t matter what you wanted to happen. This is what’sactually happening. Deal with it.“Let’s go in the house,” I said. “I have a few minutes. This is Summer, by the way. My mum, Lola. And my birth father, Daniel Te Mana. Whom I just learned about today. And …” I looked at the other bloke, who’d been silent thus far.
“Matiu Te Mana,” he said.
“Your cousin,” my mum said.
“Possibly,” Te Mana the Younger said. “That’s what I’m here to determine. Here for the whanau.” He didn’t look any more excited about it than I was, and who could blame him.
“Summer, eh,” Daniel said, looking her over. “Pretty name. Pretty as that, too. More than pretty. Should’ve known my son would have good taste. Like me there, anyway.” It was the tone of his voice, and the way he was checking her out, from the glorious hair she’d let down because she was finally feeling relaxed with me, to the body and face she couldn’t help.
Summer said, before I could jump in, “I like to think I’m more than the expression of somebody’s taste,” with more steel in her voice than I’d heard before.
“If you’d like to go get that room right now,” I told Daniel, “keep talking about her.”
“Honestly, Roman,” my mum said. “Where are your manners?”
“What did I say?” Daniel said, and I could hear the whine beneath. “It was a compliment. It’s a sad world if you can’t even compliment a beautiful woman anymore.”
“Let’s go inside,” my mum said. “Come on, Daniel.” She headed for the house, and Daniel followed her without a backward look at me. So much for his burning desire to be the father I’d never had.
I didn’t move, because whatever I told myself, I couldn’t make my feet do it, and the younger man—Matiu—waited until I finally said, “I don’t want this. In case it isn’t clear. Or anything from your family, either.”
“I’m getting that,” he said with some humor. “I’ve got swabs to do a DNA test, but if you don’t want it, say the word.”
I needed to go in after my mum and Daniel—I didn’t trust the bloke as far as I could throw him. It was that shifty eye. I could have sent Summer in there for me and trusted her to handle it, and she’d have done it. Instead, I told her, “Stay.” Sounded too abrupt, so I added, “Please.” I hadn’t signed up for Daniel, but neither had she. Delilah was in there, but she could take care of herself. She wouldn’t think she had to be polite, for one thing. I asked Matiu, “How are you the one drafted for this?”
“I’m the one who lives in Dunedin,” he said. “Daniel went to see my grandfather—my Koro—in Katikati last week and told him the news. Koro told my brother Tane, and Tane rang Hemi and me. News travels fast amongst the whanau, and I don’t think anybody was astonished that Daniel’d?—”
“Scattered surprise kids about the countryside?” I asked.
He grinned. “Sounds bad when you put it like that, but that’s about the size of it. Nothing against you. Hemi’s his kid too, after all, and he’s not a bad bloke, once you get past the terrifying manner. On the other hand, there’s the sister in Aussie. Ana. Not my favorite. But Koro’s turning a hundred in a week or so. Still all there mentally, but frail as smoke, and there’s not much he can do about this news. He deserves to live in peace now, I’d say, so I told him and the others that I’d handle it.”
“I’d say so too,” I said. “No worries here.”
“Not you I’m worried about, mate,” Matiu said.
“Ah,” I said. “I gathered that pretty quickly myself.”
“Yeh. Daniel also rang Ana. She’ll be in Katikati for that birthday, too.” He paused.
“No worries,” I said again. “I’m not going to say ‘my sister,’ much less crash your party or ask for a loan from Hemi Te Mana, whatever relation he is or isn’t. I’m doing OK for myself, thanks.” I was aware that Summer was listening, but none of this was a secret, and none of it was anything to do with me, despite the message my body was trying to send. Of threat. Of danger.
Deal with it and move on.Story of my life.
“Yeh, well,” Matiu said, “Ana’s worried there’ll be less for her, maybe, when Koro dies, though I don’t know why. Not like there’s going to be anything for her anyway. There’s Koro’s house once he goes, but whatever Daniel gets, he spends. And no worries, I won’t tell her aboutthishouse, or you’d have two of them here. She does her best to make Hemi cough up the lolly, but he’s no fool. She’ll be hoping for better from you once she gets a clue, fair warning.” He grinned, a flash of white teeth and heaps of charm. “I don’t know what Hemi thinks, because whatever he said, he said to my brother Tane, but I can guess. I’m here myself because it was pretty clear Daniel was coming to see you no matter what you or any of us wanted. Better for you to see more of us than just him, or you’d be sure to run screaming, and that’d cause Koro too much of that distress. I’ll take them away when we’re done here, though, and yeh, I’ll have to pay for Daniel’s room.”
“I’ll pay, if somebody needs to,” I said, not happily.
