Just Come Over

by James, Rosalind

  Twenty minutes later, the woman, whose name was Esther, and whose overdecorated fingernails made a clackety-clack noise on the keyboard every time she typed, which was heaps, had made copies of Dylan’s birth and death certificates, his power of attorney, his will, his passport, and Zora’s passport. And she was still typing. Zora had given up asking questions. She was just sitting, now, and trying not to let her mind descend into the hamster wheel.

  He didn’t have any other accounts. His pay was deposited every two weeks into the joint account. You paid all the bills. You know what came in and out. You were the one who transferred funds into his personal account for him, and you checked that, too, to make sure he hadn’t overdrawn it.

  Except that he did have another account. He had this one. How? Where did the money come from?

  There won’t be anything here. It’ll be something old, from before you were married, that he forgot, the way Dylan did. It’ll be nothing.

  You know it won’t be nothing. The prickling of the skin on her arms last night had told her that.

  Finally, Esther said, “Right. That’s all in order, then. We’re able to transfer the funds to you now. Sign here, please, and here and here, and we’ll send them electronically to your account at Kiwibank.”

  “Wait,” Zora said. “What about seeing the history?”

  “Once we transfer the funds, there is no history. The funds are in your account, and this account is closed.”

  “Before you do that, tell me what’s in there.”

  “You’ll have to sign first.”

  “Fine,” Zora said, and signed.

  Esther pushed a button on her keyboard, stood up, and said, “I can give you a statement, anyway. One moment.”

  It was probably thirty seconds. It felt like thirty minutes. Esther came back, sat down again—fussily, with some extra skirt-tucking—then pushed the sheet of paper across to Zora with her blue acrylic nails.

  It was there in black and white. On the left side of the paper, the account number and Dylan Ihaka Fletcher. Ihaka. “He will laugh,” because to Dylan, everything had been a joke. Fun until it wasn’t. On the right side,

  Balance

  $127,218.65

  She was trying to get air, but she couldn’t. Her chest was tightening, and her hands were tingling.

  She was having a heart attack. Black spots appeared in her vision, and then it got wavy. She couldn’t breathe.

  Esther leaned across the desk. She was saying something. What was she saying?

  “Put a finger on your nostril.”

  That couldn’t be what she’d said. Too weird. She said it again, though, so Zora did it. Maybe it was the angels talking. Some Buddhist thing. Serenity.

  She was seriously having a heart attack.

  “Breathe,” Esther said. “Short breaths.”

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to gulp in air. She needed to gulp in air. But this was helping. Wasn’t it? She couldn’t tell.

  “Keep doing it,” Esther said. “You’re hyperventilating, that’s all. You’re fine. Keep breathing. Short breaths.”

  She didn’t know how long it was. She only knew that, when it was over, she had her head on Esther’s desk, the hand under her face was shaking uncontrollably, and so was her knee.

  “Here.” A paper cup of water appeared on the desk a few centimeters from her eyes, and she sat up, took it in both hands, and tried to take a sip.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “No worries,” Esther said, looking fully human at last. “My husband gets panic attacks. I thought that was it. I almost rang for an ambulance, but then I thought, no, too much of a coincidence. Because you’d been gulping air.”

  “Oh. Do you have a . . . tissue?” She was sweating. Dripping, in fact. Some people really knew how to be businesslike.

  She wasn’t having a heart attack now. She was just approaching hysteria, or massive detachment, or something. There was a name for that, when your mind got overwhelmed and separated. Whatever it was, it was happening.

  Esther shoved a box across, and Zora wiped her face and hands, took another drink of water, looked at the paper again, and said, “I need to see all his account activity. I need online banking. Put me on the account. Set me up.”

  Esther said, “I’m not sure if I can do that.”

  “For banking purposes,” Zora said, the heat rising from her chest to her throat, “I’m him. The lawyer explained it. I can ring her up right now and have her explain it to you. I can afford to pay her to do it. That surprises you, I’m sure. It surprises me too, but here we are. I have his power of attorney. We just went through this.” Not panic this time. Rage. She breathed some more. This wasn’t Esther’s fault. “Please. It’s my money. It’s my account. I need to know.”

  Esther said, “Hang on. Let me check with the branch manager.”

  Another fifteen minutes, during which time her paperwork still wasn’t getting done, and during which time she stared down at $127,218.65 and tried to make it make sense.

  It only made sense one way. That Dylan had hidden money from her.

  For years.

  Why, exactly? Because he’d planned to leave her and Isaiah all along, and he’d wanted an extra slush fund when he did, that she wouldn’t know about and he wouldn’t have to share. What other answer was there?

  When he was dying? When she was shaking out two more Oxycodone tablets, because the Fentanyl patch wasn’t enough? When he was moaning with the pain, with the anxiety and the terror of knowing there was nothing else to do, nothing else to try, and no recovery possible? When all of that had been ripping at him with steel claws, shredding his bones, and she could practically see it happening? When he was holding her hand like it was all that he had to hang onto, and telling her, “Hurts. Hurts. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. Don’t leave me. Please.” And she was lying down beside him, wrapping her arms around him while he clung to her, while he tried not to cry and cried anyway, sobbing with pain and fear?

  He’d still kept this secret?

  How could that be true?

  How could it not be?

  Something was wrong.

  Another man might have tried to deny it, but Rhys had learned a long time ago that problems didn’t go away when you ran from them. Problems could always run faster than you could.

  On Thursday night, he’d texted Zora from the hotel in Tokyo and hadn’t had an answer for so long that he’d fallen asleep waiting. When he woke on Friday, there was a video message from Casey, dressed in her Mickey and Minnie PJs, her hair in its loose bedtime plait.

  “I hope you have a very good Captain’s Running tomorrow,” she said, and he heard Isaiah in the background, saying, “Run.” Casey said, “I know,” then faced forward again and said, “I think it’s very hard when you can’t yell at people, so maybe you should just say, ‘Good job,’ or something. Or give them a sticker.” More talking from Isaiah, and Casey said, “Or you could stamp their hand, because then it’s there to remind them for all day.”

  He went to breakfast with a smile on his face, but realized, when the Captain’s Run was over and he hadn’t given anyone a sticker, that Zora still hadn’t texted herself. When dinner was done with and he was sitting on his bed again with nothing more to add and nothing left to do until tomorrow, the moment of truth when the team’s training and their preparation would be tested in the only way that counted, she still hadn’t. So he did. He texted, How’s the roof looking? Did they finish?

  Fifteen minutes, and he finally got an answer. Not the one he’d expected. I found the money after all. Thank you for the offer.

  He didn’t even think about texting again. He called.

  Voicemail. He rang off and tried again, and this time, she answered.

  “Rhys.”

  “Yeh.” Something was wrong with her voice. Too tight. “What happened? Casey?”

  “No. She’s fine. I . . . Some things came up. I need to focus now, and I know you do, too. I’ll
be there on Sunday. I’ll see you then.”

  “Wait,” he said. “If something’s wrong, tell me now. I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.”

  “I know you think you can fix anything,” she said. “You’ve fixed too much. You can’t fix this. Not anymore.”

  “Wait,” he said again. “What? Talk to me.”

  “I . . . I can’t.” Her voice was shaking, but he couldn’t tell why. Sadness. Fear. Something. “I’ll talk to you on Sunday. I can’t do this on the phone. There are too many things to ask, and to say, and once I start . . . And not before your game. I’ll help Casey text you tomorrow. You can send her one as well. Please don’t text me.”

  She hung up on him for the third time, and left him there, staring at the screen, wondering why he felt like he’d just been driven back in the tackle with a shoulder to the solar plexus. He couldn’t get his breath. He couldn’t calm his thoughts. He breathed his way through them, and he still couldn’t.

  Something was wrong with her, or with Isaiah, and it was bad, because she was shutting down. The same way she’d done that afternoon at Dylan’s tangi, when she’d reached the end of her rope, and he’d known she needed to be quiet, and to be alone. That was how she sounded now. Like she couldn’t cope, and she had to cope anyway.

  If it was Isaiah, it would be worse. That would be how she’d feel. She’d battle through anything for herself, but if it was Isaiah? She wouldn’t be able to stand it, and she’d have to stand it anyway.

  Wait. It couldn’t be Isaiah. He’d sounded fine on the phone—well, in the background—and so had Casey.

  If it wasn’t Isaiah, it was Zora.

  Cancer wasn’t catching, no matter how it seemed when your Dad and grandmother had both died of it. No matter how it had felt when your brother had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, too, and it had ravaged him like it wasn’t meant to do. Even though it was meant to be survivable. Everybody had said it was survivable.

  He’d never reckoned he’d get it himself. He’d reckoned it would happen to somebody else he loved instead.

  Zora was young, though, and she was strong.

  So was Dylan.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands, dropped his head, and held on.

  He’d been in Japan when Dylan had called him with the news. He’d been here. In Tokyo. In this same hotel, the night before a game, lying on the bed and watching a movie. It was the same thing all over again, and he couldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .

  “It’s bad, bro,” his brother had said that night, and his voice had wavered. “I’m not going to be playing again.”

  “It’s all right,” Rhys had said instantly, so sure it would be. “Nobody plays forever anyway, and you’ve had a good run. You’ll be all good. You’ll do treatments.”

  Dylan had been released from his English club anyway. If he’d been playing again, it wouldn’t have been at Super level. Time to do something else, Rhys had thought. Time to man up and move on. Dylan had a wife and son to support, and the house he’d bought had been too much of a stretch. He’d been talking about TV, about becoming a commentator, but Dylan was always talking about something. Which was, of course, why he’d be a good commentator.

  “They’re going to take one of my balls,” Dylan said, and Rhys’s mind caromed back to the moment, back to where his focus was supposed to be. “And they’re going to do radiation on the other one. It’s going to make me sterile. Zora . . . she wanted another kid. She used to, anyway.”

  “So they take one. That’s why you have two. You get her pregnant before they do it, that’s all. Or you . . . dunno. Freeze sperm, or whatever, and save it for after. And then you fight.”

  He heard what Dylan hadn’t said. What if I can’t fight hard enough? What if I don’t win? And, as always, he stepped into the breach. “You’re going to fight hard enough,” he said. “You’ve got the blood of warriors. Time to prove it. I’ll come home during the bye and go to the next appointment with you, talk to the doctors, find out what else we can do. You’ve got me behind you, and you’ve got Zora. You’re going to fight, and you’re going to win.”

  “Yeh,” Dylan said, and drew in a long breath. “OK. That’d be good, if you came.”

  “How’s Zora?” A question he never asked, but one he had to ask now.

  “She . . .” Dylan said, then stopped.

  “She what?” Never tell him Zora wasn’t stepping up. Zora had steel underneath.

  “She was talking about . . . leaving. Her and Isaiah. And I don’t think I can do it without her.” More shakiness, now.

  “Wait. You got the diagnosis, and she told you she was leaving? Are you sure that’s what she meant?”

  “No. Before.”

  Rhys had a hand in his hair, was forcing the calm. “Bro. What did you do?”

  A long silence. “She found a few texts. From a girl. And me. But I told her it was nothing,” Dylan hurried on into the silence. “Just blowing off steam. You know it’s nothing. She’s in England anyway. She’s not even here. Nothing for Zora to worry about.”

  If it’s nothing, Rhys thought and didn’t say, why do you keep doing it? He said, “I can’t help you with that.” He knew it was cold. He said it anyway.

  “I need her,” Dylan said. The words were halting. “I can’t do this without her. I can’t do it if she leaves me.”

  “Then tell her so,” Rhys said, “and hope she cares.”

  That was then. This was now. It couldn’t be happening again. It wasn’t possible. But why else would Zora sound like that? He tried to think of something else. Money, the house, her van, something with the kids at school, but none of that could be as bad as she’d sounded.

  Pregnancy.

  A leap at his heart, then a dive, like his heart had fallen into his belly. He knew the sound of “bad news coming.”

  He was going to make it better, though. He was going to make it as good as it could possibly be. That was his job.

  He knew bad news when he saw it, too, so he reckoned he’d know straight away, once he saw her. He couldn’t even have told you how, except that it was the difference between the team in the sheds after the game, these last two weeks, and how they’d looked the week before. He could have watched a video of any one of his players unlacing his boots and unwinding the tape and have said whether he’d won or lost.

  He held the anxiety at bay on match day, compartmentalized with all the skill of twenty-three years in the professional game, and punched his way through it. When everybody else was sleeping their way across the Pacific, though, exhausted by the battle in a way he didn’t get to be anymore, he watched the game film once, then watched it again, making his notes and letting the strategies form, on his third beer now and feeling nothing, and knew sleep was still off in the distance, refusing to come close. Peace is for other people, it taunted him. Not for you.

  Finally, when the images blurred on the screen and his pen faltered on the notebook page, he put his computer away, pushed the button to make his seat into a bed, and pulled the duvet over himself. He lay in the dark, opened his phone, and forced his eyes to work a few minutes longer, to read the thing he’d downloaded weeks earlier. The Song of Solomon. He read the words, then repeated them in his mind, the fatigue robbing him of his defences and his distance. The cadence and the imagery flowed through him like a Maori waiata sung in the marae, when your voice blended with all the others until they were one, your greenstone lay warm against your skin, and the blood of your ancestors coursed through your veins like you were the mountain and the river, and the mountain and the river were you.

  Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire.

  Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

  He read it through once, then again, and thought, You may drown trying to swim across, but you can’t feel the water
when you’re standing on the riverbank. You’re going to be there with her all the way to the other side this time, even if all you can be is her strong arm.

  The chevrons and whorls of his moko seemed to pulse against his skin. Whatever this was, however bad it got, she was going to know he was there.

  He came past the barrier with Finn, both of them pushing their trolleys toward the group of wives, girlfriends, and kids, the same way they’d done thousands of times. This time, though, one of the little figures was for him. Somebody in a unicorn T-shirt and sparkly shoes who charged straight for him. His heart lifted and soared, and he scooped her up into his arms, felt her own monkey arms wrap around him, and thought, This part’s all right. This one, I can hold safe.

  “I missed you very, very much,” Casey said. “You were gone for forever. And Zora has a new roof on her house. It looks the same as the old roof, but she doesn’t have to have a bucket anymore.”

  “Good news,” he said. “I missed you, too, monkey. How are the bunnies? Getting bigger?”

  “They’re grown up,” she said with a sigh. “I told you. They’re little, that’s all.”

  “Oh. I forgot.”

  “They hardly ever poop on the rug,” she said, and he thought, Wonderful.

  They got to the others, and he set Casey down and put his hand on Isaiah’s head, then thought, What the hell, mate, crouched down, and gave him a one-armed cuddle instead. Baby steps. Isaiah stiffened for a second, then cuddled back, tentative as you can imagine, and Rhys’s heart grew another size. Progress, he thought. And then, finally, he stood up and looked at Zora.

  Nothing there. Blank.

  She said, “Ready to go?”

  “Yeh. Back to my place?”

  “Isaiah and I already moved our things home. You can drop us.”

  He’d planned to go to the gym, as usual, when he got home, to get himself right. Instead, he pulled out his phone. “What’s Hayden’s number?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Hayden. What’s his number?”

  She gave it to him, and he dialed. “Hey, mate,” he said when Hayden answered. “Rhys here. Could I get you to do some emergency child-minding? My place?”