Page 133 of Just Watch Me
“But you can’t have wanted that.” He didn’t answer, and she said, “You need totellme, Zane. I can’t handle the stoical thing. Not today.”
“I reckon,” he said, feeling his way, “that I have mixed feelings. Or I don’t know what I feel. I knew last night, though. Scared to death, that was how.”
“But you’re tough.”
He laughed, though it wasn’t easy. “I’m tough for myself. Not about you. And definitely not about losing you. Same as with the kids. In the earthquake, and after it … that was bad. The kids, and you, too. I knew you’d gone into the CBD, and it was a bad time, knowing that, but not knowing whether you were safe or—or not. When I found you, I—” He had to stop, because he wasn’t able to get the words out.
“Me too.” Her hand was on his face now, in that way she did that got him in the heart. “I was so relieved to hear from you. And to see you. To see that you were safe, and just having you bethere.”
“OK,” he said. “I’ll try some more, then. I was nothing but relieved when the doctor told me what it was, and that they’d got to it in time. That it hadn’t been worse. I looked it up, afterward, while I was sitting here. If we’d been on the planehome when that happened, or if you’d been alone with the kids when I was in Safa, and not able to get help fast enough … that’s what I kept thinking about.”
“But I wasn’t alone. You were there.”
“Yeh. And as for the ‘baby’ part?—”
“Yes?” she asked, when he didn’t go on.
“Dunno, exactly. I love my kids. I don’t get to spend enough time with them, but I love being their dad. So there’s some of that, too.”
“You’re sorry,” she said. “A bit sorry that it isn’t happening, despite everything. That’s how I feel, too, except I keep crying, so it’s all mixed up with hormones, and—” She waved her free arm. “It makes no sense to be sorry, but here I am, crying again anyway.” She laughed through the tears, a choked sound, and he mopped up the tears, the same way he’d done earlier.
“Yeh,” he said. “We can both be sorry, and we can both be relieved. Feelings don’t have to make sense, eh. What d’you plan to tell the kids?”
“We can’t tell them,” she said at once. “That’s too much for them, along with everything else. If we were really together, maybe, but not like this. We’ll tell them I had an obstruction and they had to do surgery to remove it, and that I’ll be crook for a bit. They don’t have to know what the obstruction was. But bereavement leave? You can seriously get it for this? I need help getting home, but?—”
“You’ll need help, full stop. My house for the rest of the holidays, and Nan and Geoffrey can bloody well buckle down for once and make sure you get that help. The kids, too. My house. And ‘if we were really together?’ Pardon bloody me? What d’you call this? I’m in your hospital bed. That’s got to be some kind of relationship milestone.”
“In Fiji, too,” she said. “Giving me the best holiday of my life. And, of course, my eleventy-six children.”
“Oureleventy-six children. We really know how to do romance.” They were both laughing, then, so that was better, even though she was still crying, too. “As for the baby thing?—”
“What? Other than the wrong time and the wrong place. In more ways than one.”
“Yeh,” he said. “Those. But maybe not the wrong idea. Kids are pretty awesome, after all. At least I’ve always thought so.”
50
WHANAU STRONG
It was Friday morning, they were back in Auckland—to be precise, in Zane’s house—and Zane was being annoying.
Yes, he’d been wonderful getting them all back here. He’d got the kids packed up by himself, because even the short trip from the hospital to the resort had left her weak and shaky, and all she’d managed to do was go to bed. He’d got them all fed, too, that evening and the next morning, and got them all to the plane, off it again, through Customs, and back to his house. There were benefits, it seemed, to loving a rugby captain.
He’d kept being wonderful yesterday, too, and this morning, feeding the kids and … and so forth. Honestly, she wasn’t sure, because she’d slept most of the day yesterday. But now, when she’d dressed and come out to join the land of the living, because really, she was fine, he was just being annoying.
He had to go back to the team this evening, which meant flying to Wellington. But she’d promised to stay at his house for the rest of the school holidays, “because,” he’d said, “you’ll have more help here.” Which would be provided by Granddadand Maureen, as well as the man himself when he flew up on Tuesday morning to spend the day, so what was he worrying about?
“A week or two off work, they said,” he was reminding her at this moment as he brought in two heaping baskets of dried clothes from the line and set them on the dining-room table.
“And I’ll have exactly that,” she said, grabbing a shirt off the top of the closest basket, because she recognized it. Finlay’s. “Well, a week, anyway.”
“And then taking it easy for another two weeks,” he said, folding a pair of undies that could only be Georgia’s. Pink, small, and with butterflies. How could you not love a man who folded his little girl’s pink undies? “How were you planning to manage that, workingandcaring for your kids and your house? And before you say ‘Granddad,’ how much does he actually do? How much is he willing to do, when you know he’d rather be over here? You can’t be shopping and cooking and cleaning. Not for at least those two weeks, plus this next one. You need to stay here.” He was plucking out socks now and lining them up for matching. He was a very systematic man.
She said, “You realize that most people fold clothes in the laundry room.”
“This table’s bigger. More efficient. And stop helping. You’re not meant to be doing housework. What did I just say?”
“I can foldshirts.I can do the cooking, too, before you start worrying about that. Breakfast and lunch? Of course I can, and Maureen’s already said she’ll do the dinners. I can cook for my own kids at my house once term starts, too, and stay there. I’m fine, Zane. It was a very simple surgery.”
