There was a thought to make you panic.
I could hear male voices all around me, sounding gentle. Sounding loving. Partners, and I didn’t have one anymore. Max hadn’t come back, because I’d sent him away, or Matiu had. And I knew, all the way to the pit of my stomach, that I couldn’t trust the loving things Max said ever again, or look into his eyes without second-guessing what I saw there.
There was a hollow ache inside me, the sort of sinking in your belly you get when you look at the exam marks posted outside the lecturer’s office, and yours is as bad as you thought it was. The moment when it all comes true. The worst has happened, and you’ve failed.
I hadn’t experienced that one, actually. I’d done well in Uni. A business diploma with a hefty dose of art, and if I’d loved the art better, I’d managed the business OK. I’d had that dream, though, over and over again, for the past three or four years. I’d assumed it was my overactive imagination—or, rather, my profitably active one, since my imagination had always served me well in my professional life, if not my personal one.
That wasn’t entirely true. My imagination worked for my business, and it worked for my kids. It just didn’t work for my husband, because he didn’t love me enough.
I’d taken my first foray into property development at the age of twenty-one, when I’d seen the glamping trend coming and had acted on it, eventually building a network of sites to feed the insatiable appetite of the New Zealand adventure tourism market. I’d thought that was it, that that was my life, but then had come the nights during my first pregnancy when I’d put myself to sleep by dreaming up silly stories of animals having adventures. When I’d started to draw the pictures and captions to share with that new baby of mine, and had found that the more stories I thought up, the more arrived to join them.
All of that had worked. The glamping had done well enough that I’d sold it for a very hefty sum to Matiu’s cousin, Hemi Te Mana, and the books, the other children of my heart, were doing well. My marriage had been up and down, but babies could be a strain on any marriage, I’d thought, and I wasn’t the best partner. I was absent-minded. I was preoccupied. I’d fix dinner for the kids, give baths, get them to bed, and then sort of ... forget about making dinner for myself and Max. Evenings were my best work time, and Max had so often come home late, or not come home at all. He had to do something, he’d joked, to keep from being a kept man, a toy boy to his rich-lister wife, and I’d have forgotten he was there anyway.
Two sides to every story, you see. So I’d gone on believing, most of the time, that I had a happy marriage between two very busy people, and a charmed life. And had dreamed on too many nights about seeing that failing mark pinned to a notice board, about realizing I was signed up to sit for another exam in another subject, one I hadn’t even realized I was enrolled in. My life had been falling apart around me, and I hadn’t let myself see it.
I was aware of movement beside me, of a murmuring male voice, and knew that Matiu was putting Isobel back into her cot. He’d be leaving, then, which was good.
I didn’t hear him do it, though. Instead, I felt his hand over mine where it covered my eyes. He didn’t say anything, but I felt his warmth. And I cried harder. Trying to keep it quiet, not to disturb the others, or not to let them hear.
Just your basic public humiliation.
Finally, there was nothing left. My brain was drained, and my body hurt so much. And Matiu was pressing tissues into my hand. Still here, then.
“Sorry,” I said, blowing my nose, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“No worries,” he said. “Normal, I’d say. How’s your pain?”
“Pretty bad,” I admitted. It was a dull, throbbing ache, but a major dull, throbbing ache. My uterus wasn’t loving the abuse it had taken, and the stitched areas burned. Childbirth, plus an X factor. All that ripping-out, probably. Also, crying uses a surprising number of abdominal muscles. Ow.
He rang the bell for the nurse, and when she showed up, he said, “She needs pain meds.”
“I’ll have to check with the doctor,” the nurse said.
“Fine,” Matiu said. “Would you do that, please?”
So, yes, that was better. So was the nurse asking me about my pain levels, and feeling OK about telling the truth. And so was Matiu saying, when the nurse had left, “I’m starved. Never easy to find time to eat during a shift. I think it’s been about ten hours now. I’m going to grab some dinner. Can I bring you something?”
I indicated the tray. “They already did.”
He smiled. Not the full-on, charming thing I’d seen at the wedding. A sweeter smile, and a quieter one. “And did you enjoy it?”
“Well, I might have if I’d eaten it,” I admitted. “It’s brussels sprouts and steamed fish. Nothing says, ‘Well done on the birth thing!’ like brussels sprouts.”
“Thick milkshake?” he suggested. “Burger? Or what?”
I sighed. “How did you know that I was thinking about Good Good?”
Some more of that smile. “Want me to pull up the menu?”
“I may know it by heart. Chicken burger, please. Chocolate milkshake. Kumara fries. And you don’t have to do that. Or to eat it with me. Except if ...” I stopped. How did I say this?
“If what?”
I looked at Isobel. Asleep on her back, her little mouth pursed. Matiu had swaddled her in her blanket before he’d put her down. There was a thought to make you melt.
“If Max comes back,” I admitted. I felt a little lightheaded. “I’m not sure I can ... how do I tell him to go away? How do I make him leave? Thank you for telling him. I couldn’t ... I wasn’t ...”
Oh, bugger. I was going to lose it again.
“Easy-peasy.” He pushed the button another time, and when the nurse came back, saying, “No answer yet from the doc, I’m afraid,” he said, “Nah, no worries. Poppy’d like to exclude a visitor.”
“My husband,” I said, hardly believing I was saying this out loud. “Max Cantwell. Please don’t ...” Matiu was holding my hand. It was comforting, but this nurse was going to think I really got around. “Please don’t let him in.”
“I’ll make a note,” she said.
“Maybe you could get somebody to take her dinner tray away as well,” Matiu said.
I waited until she’d left, then asked, “Why didn’t you say that you’re a doctor here?” Quietly, in case there was some good reason he wasn’t telling.
“Because I’m not your doctor,” he said, his voice as low as mine. “Because it’s all kinds of inappropriate for your doctor to visit you and bring you dinner, but if he has no doctor/patient relationship with you and is part of your whanau, it’s different.”
“Ah. Is there a required time interval? If there is, you’re probably not out of the woods yet, being the same day and all.”
“Hence no disclosure,” he said.
“Should I ...” I took a breath. “Do you think it’s wrong that I’m insisting about the baby’s name, when Max wanted something else? Setting us up for conflict?”
“How do you feel about the name he wanted?” he asked.
“I hate it. Named after Princess Charlotte? She’d be the fifth Charlotte in her Year One classroom.”
“So why is it better to go with a name you hate?” he asked. “And he didn’t want a girl? Why not?”
“Who knows?” I admitted this, too. No point in not admitting things now. “He didn’t say so, not exactly, just that he hoped for a son. I didn’t care, myself. Hamish and Olivia are a bit ... flipped, which shows you how little gender has to do with personality.”
“Mm,” he said. “I don’t know enough about it, but for the record? I’m on your side.”
Words to melt a woman’s heart. Isobel made a faint noise in her sleep, as if she were agreeing, or possibly saying, “Grab him, Mum,” as if that were an option, and my uterus did some more painful cramping.
Matiu said, “I’m going to go get you that burger. I’ll
ask about your meds on my way out. Never hurts to check in, eh. The squeaky wheel and all that.”
“How can you tell?” I asked. “That I hurt?”
He said, “It’s my job.”
5
The Non-Doctor
Matiu
When I knocked on the window again half an hour later, a different voice answered, “Come in.” A male voice. I thought, What the hell? And my muscles tensed as if I were going to be in a fight.
Which was ludicrous on any number of levels. First, I’d never actually been in a fight, which meant I’d almost certainly lose. I’d always been the mediator, having a laugh, having a word. Nobody got too narky with me, because they knew I didn’t care that much. I helped everybody walk away instead, and then I walked away myself. As for women, I was still friendly with almost all my exes. All of that was a good thing, except right now.
Even if I’d wanted to fight and had been better at it than I suspected I would be, though, physical altercations in hospital were frowned upon. And, of course, I’d get the sack. Wait. One more. The man was her husband, and the baby’s father.
My muscles didn’t get the memo, though. They tensed anyway, as ready to get stuck in as if I had more than a discreet level of Maori tattoo, like the warrior I’d never been.
When I pulled the curtain aside, it wasn’t Max Cantwell sitting in there, which I was both sorry and glad of. It was a middle-aged couple instead, whom I recognized as Poppy’s mum and dad. The space was crowded, what with the two of them and the baby in her cot. Isobel was still sleeping, and there was an enormous arrangement of red roses on the windowsill, about the biggest I’d ever seen, at least three dozen. An over-the-top gesture, and no subtlety at all. They looked like nothing so much as a casket spray, and besides, red roses weren’t right for Poppy. She needed something more individual. Something softer, and much more romantic.
Why had she had three kids with a man who did even thank-you-for-our-baby flowers this wrong? I was furious again. Anger times two, when I was used to anger minus one. Very unsettling indeed.
Her dad had been saying, “. . . ridiculous,” when I’d knocked, and Poppy herself was looking tense, although neat, her hair combed back into a plait and a white camisole visible under the hospital gown. That would be the mum’s doing.
Her father’s hard gaze swiveled around to me when I entered, and there was a frown on his face when he said, “I think you have the wrong room.”
I didn’t answer him straight away. Instead, I told Poppy, “Eat it while it’s hot,” and pulled containers from the bag. “Chicken burger, kumara fries with tomato sauce, and one thick shake. Chocolate.” I couldn’t tell from her face or her body language, so I asked, “Did you get the pain meds?”
“Yeh,” she said, reaching for the shake. “Thanks.”
“Feeling better?” I asked. “Tell the truth, please. Pain level, one to ten?”
“Who are you, exactly?” her dad asked again, a little more sharply this time. Not used to being ignored.
“We met you at Jax’s wedding,” her mum said, “didn’t we? There was such a crowd, but your face is familiar.” She said it calmly, her hand on her husband’s forearm. “I’m Poppy’s mum, Megan MacGregor, and this is my husband, Alistair.”
“Matiu Te Mana,” I said, shaking her hand, then Alistair’s. “Hemi’s cousin.”
“Meet the man who delivered Isobel,” Poppy said. “On the grass. Awkward, eh.” She was going for breezy and bright and not quite managing it. Pain. Embarrassment. And, I thought, grief.
I wanted to hold her hand. I didn’t. There wasn’t anywhere to sit, either. There was barely anywhere to stand.
“How’s the pain level?” I asked her again. I couldn’t be her doctor, but I was doing it anyway. Story of my day.
“Three, maybe,” she said. “It still hurts, but it’s better. They gave me something.” She looked around. “You could sit on the bed, if you like, and eat your dinner.” She told her parents, “He hasn’t eaten since he went to work this morning, and he was fairly heroic today.”
“Nah,” I said. “Doing my job, that’s all.”
“So he’s here,” Alistair said, “but you’ve told Max he can’t be? He was raising bloody hell out at the nurse’s station as we came in. Said you blocked him. Threw him out, or the doctor did.” He stared at me some more. “Which would be you. I said it couldn’t be true. Why would you keep your husband from seeing his child? Why would you keep him from seeing you? This is no way to succeed at marriage. He has a right.”
Poppy was plucking at the blanket, the skin drawn over her cheekbones. The baby made a protesting newborn sound as if she sensed her mother’s distress, and Poppy rolled to her side, got her hands under herself, sat up with an involuntary groan, and reached for her daughter.
I wanted to say, Let your mum pick her up and give her to you. I wanted to unwrap her burger and chips for her, so she could eat while she fed the baby. I wanted to tell her dad, If you’re going to upset her like that, get out of here. I wanted to ring for the nurse, and for Security, the way I’d done earlier, but I wasn’t in charge anymore. I wasn’t liking that much at all.
I ignored her dad and told her, “My advice as your non-doctor? Ask your mum to change Isobel and give her to you. Eat your dinner. Ring for the nurse if the pain isn’t better. Ask for quiet if you want it, and rest while you can.” Yeh, I hadn’t followed my own advice much. Then I threw caution to the winds, tore a strip off the brown paper bag the food had come in, took the hospital’s pen off the table, and made a note. “And if you’re not getting what you need here, ring me, and I’ll take care of it.”
Blurring the lines. Too bad.
After that, I left, because I couldn’t work out a scenario in which I was helpful and not a complication. That was uncomfortable, if you like. It was also new.
Poppy
I wished Matiu had stayed. He’d needed to eat, and besides, he was oddly calming. Maybe because he so clearly knew what he was doing, so you could relax and know you were being taken care of. Which was nice.
My dad said, “You could’ve asked us to bring you dinner.”
I said, “I didn’t know you were coming.” Which was because my phone was somewhere else. In the nappy bag, which was in the closet, probably. I hadn’t much felt like finding it. My mum had worked her quiet magic, though, and my life was sorted. My grandparents were staying at the house, and Nan would be giving the kids their baths soon. After that, Grandad would tell them a bedtime story. Grandad’s stories were gentle, clever ones, about pixies in the forest and kids who shrank down so they could take shelter under mushrooms. He made the world magical. He made it make sense again.
I wished I was there to hear the story. I could use a bit of magic just now, and for once, I wasn’t up to creating it myself.
My mum was changing Isobel, who was starting to fuss, her tiny fists clenched, her head turning, trying to find the nipple, trying to find me, the sight and sound and vanilla smell of her making my breasts tingle, right on cue. It was still amazing to me that babies came into the world knowing who you were and what they needed, and that your body knew exactly how to respond. It wasn’t a miracle, and yet it was, every time. The most wondrous miracle there ever was. I took another sip of my milkshake and took Isobel from Mum, putting off the burger for ten more minutes.
My mum said, “That was kind of Matiu, bringing you dinner.”
“Surprising,” my dad said. He’d calmed down a little. Thought-rays from Mum, maybe. “Didn’t recognize him at first, out of context, but I remember him now. Danced with every unattached woman at the wedding, and some of the attached ones as well. Came alone, too. Just in case there was a pretty bridesmaid, no doubt. Or two.”
My mum laughed and said, “Too cynical, darling.”
I knew my dad was exactly right. My brother Jax had said, on the day, “Surprised he didn’t bring a date,” and Karen had said, “He never does. That could give her ideas. Besides, a d
ate would cramp his style.” Why would that upset me, though? Had I thought Matiu had come to visit me, postpartum belly and all, as part of his courtship routine? That was ridiculous, if you like. It almost made me laugh. Almost.
“Realistic, more like,” my dad said. “Well, enough of that. Time for you to tell us what’s going on with Max, Poppy. What have you gone and done now? Hope you haven’t burnt any bridges. Max wasn’t here for the baby, and you had a hard time. That’s a pity, but if that’s grounds for separation, your mum would’ve thrown me out twice over. A man is never going to be a woman, and expecting him to be is asking to be disappointed. Besides, I’d call getting into an auto accident on the way to you enough of an excuse.”
I so did not want to get into this. I needed to tell him anyway. To tell both of them. “He’s not coming home again,” I said. “I threw him out.”
My parents looked at each other. “Darling,” my mother said. “Why?”
I said, “He’s having an affair.”
“Rubbish,” my dad said. “He can’t be.”
I felt my baby girl getting what she needed from me, my hormones responding to her like she’d been made for me to love, which she just exactly had. I thought about how perfect she was, and how glad I was to have her. I thought about lying in the grass, too, how impossibly much I’d hurt, how scared I’d been. And the wave of rage washed over me and swept me off my feet.
“Go away,” I told my father. “I mean it. Go away. And take those bloody roses with you.” I was only going to talk to people who believed me from now on. And if that meant I only talked to people much shorter than me? That was fine. They were my audience, after all.
My parents stood up together, my mum with her hand on my dad’s forearm again. That happened so often, the photographer was going to pose them like that for their golden anniversary portrait.
I tried not to hate my dad. I tried not to hate Max. I tried not to hate Matiu for leaving. I didn’t succeed at any of it. I still had that red-hot rage thing. Or that redhead rage thing. My fingers were around Isobel’s head as she nursed, the only point of pleasure I could find, and I focused on it with everything I had.
Stone Cold Kiwi (New Zealand Ever After Book 2) Page 4
