by PJ Vye
“There’s optimistic and then there’s stupidity. You’re being deliberately obtuse,” he said.
“Close your eyes.”
His eyes narrowed but didn’t close. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
She watched him lower his lids slowly, his breath shallow and loud as he waited. This was a crazy thing to do, but she reached down and placed her hands either side of his wide face before she changed her mind.
His eyes flickered open in surprise then closed again as she lowered her face to his and gently kissed his lips. She lingered there as long as she dared without him getting overly excited and trying to slip her some tongue.
As she pulled away, she whispered, “See—you can never really know when something will be your last.”
A trickle of a tear slipped down his cheek, his eyes still clenched shut. He bit into his bottom lip.
“Don’t give up, Junior. Life is too precious for you to not stay in it for as long as you can.”
Sunny moved quietly out the door and back to her own room. She wondered if he’d tell Mataio what she’d done. And if he did, would Mataio even care?
Thirty-Eight
MATAIO
15 days to go
The spring afternoon sun was fierce as Detective Ronson pulled up two doors down from Tulula’s house. Mataio jumped out of the car and felt the heat radiate from the road. He carefully opened and closed the screen door to the house and locked it behind him. He checked the back door and the windows in all the rooms except La’ei’s, then woke Junior to check his stats and administer more medication.
“Where’s Aunt?”
“Sunny said she’s at the supermarket.”
“Sunny said? You talked to her?” She’s still here.
Junior gave him a silent nod.
Mataio wanted to ask Junior if she’d told him when she planned to leave but didn’t want to hear the answer in case. Either answer would disappoint him. “I have to go out again. Do you need anything? Can I make you a sandwich before I go?”
Junior shook his head and Mataio stopped straightening the bed and asked. “You okay? What’s wrong?” He looked different. Sad.
“I’m good, Blu,” he answered and picked up the television remote. “I just don’t feel like company, thas’ all.”
Mataio gave him a long, careful look. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Junior flicked though television stations on mute as Mataio snapped closed his chart, placed it on the drip stand and stepped quietly back into the corridor.
Outside, Ronson stood on the footpath, his car idling beside his very agitated aunt, who spoke with her hands and arms, her push cart of groceries forgotten at her feet.
“You can’t be sitting outside my house and not tell me why,” she petitioned.
“I told you, I’m waiting for Mataio.”
“That’s not an answer. Why are you waiting for Mataio?”
“He’s helping us with a lead.”
“What’s the lead?”
Detective Ronson took a long breath and turned his head slightly away as if to find a way out of answering. “I’d rather not say.”
“You’d rather not say?” Aunt’s voice rose an octave. “You tell me right now. Right now!”
As Mataio joined them on the footpath, his aunt flung her hands at his chest and spat, “Tell me, Mataio.”
Ronson looked on dispassionately. “We have to go.”
Panic spread across Aunt Tulula’s face. “I’m coming too.” She opened the passenger seat door of the police issue sedan and sat inside, her hands firmly together in her lap.
Mataio gave a helpless shrug, righted his aunt’s trolley bag and rolled it onto the verandah. Ronson collected a few stray apples and returned them to the bag. He spoke quietly as he placed them in the cart. “You okay if your aunt comes? ‘Cause if you’re not, you’ll have to tell me how to stop her.”
Mataio didn’t laugh, because Ronson wasn’t joking.
Mataio leaned the cart against the front door. “I’ll show you the place, and she can come if she wants, but I need something from you in return.”
Ronson stopped mid-step. “Mat, that’s not how we do things.”
“I might need my family protected.”
The detective showed no emotion. “From what?”
“I can’t say. And I might not need it. But if I do, it will only be until I can get my cousin and aunt back to Samoa.”
“How long is that?”
“A week. Two at most.”
Ronson nodded his understanding. “You know I can’t request that kind of protection without a reason. Are they in danger?”
“I don’t know yet. I just need it done, or I won’t show you the place.”
“I’ll arrest you for obstruction.”
“Then do it.” It would almost be a relief.
Ronson looked over at the car and back to Mataio. “That’s not gonna help anyone, now is it. Don’t you want to find La’ei?”
“Will you help me protect them or not?”
Ronson shuffled his feet and hung a finger in his belt buckle. After a moment he said, “I can give you the name of a guy—he’s private so you’ll have to pay him—but he’s good. Really good. That’s the best I can do.”
Mataio stared at the man he’d known for more than half his life. He didn’t like him, but he trusted him. Mataio gave him a quick nod and headed towards the car. “That’ll have to do for now. I’ll send you my new number. Text me his contacts.”
“You know, if you just told me what was going on, I might be able to help.”
“I doubt it.”
“Who’s trying to hurt you?”
“Not me. No-one’s trying to hurt me.”
“Then who?”
Mataio opened the car door and Ronson got into the driver’s side. He let the conversation drop.
They rode in silence for the five and a half minutes it took to arrive at the reserve. Ronson found a park on the street near the south entry point and turned off the ignition. The car quickly heated up.
“You can’t come with us, Aunt. It’s too hot and too far,” said Mataio.
“Tell me what you know.” Her hand quivered as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Nothing,” said Mataio quickly. “Nothing, Aunt. It’s a place La’ei and I used to go. They just want to do a search.”
She looked out the window at the scrub. “You think La’ei is here? You think she’s dead?”
Tears welled and rolled swiftly down her cheeks. “You told me she was pregnant? You said she’d ran away. Where’s my grandchild? Where’s my La’ei? She can’t be here. This is no place to die.”
As she sobbed, her monologue turned from English to Samoan. Ronson caught Mataio’s eye in the rear vision mirror and asked, “What’s she saying?”
Mataio translated. “Samoans have an intricate burial process. If La’ei was killed and left to die here, she’s not only been robbed of her life, but her spirit might be unsettled and cause problems for her family. A traditional Samoan death involves the exchange of gifts and food for the family.”
Mataio rubbed his aunt’s shoulder but she wouldn’t be consoled and cried out as she threw her hands in the direction of the reserve. “Show me this place, now,” she demanded in English.
“It’s too hot. You wait here.”
“No, I want to see. Let’s go.” She opened the car door and both men followed her. “Do you think she’s buried here?” The words sounded like a feral cat.
“We don’t know,” said Ronson. “We only heard about this place a few days ago from her boyfriend.”
Tulula wiped the tears still dripping from her face and said, “Ah yes, the father of my grandchild. Where is he?”
“In custody.”
“Did he kill La’ei?”
“We honestly don’t know.” Ronson stepped briefly into the shade to check his phone. “Look, we don’t know anything until we search the area. And
we can’t search the area until we know where it is. Let’s go.”
Tulula begrudgingly took Mataio’s arm to steady her legs. “Why did you not tell me about this place, Mataio?”
Mataio led her along the running track. Ronson followed and filmed the path with his phone.
How could he explain to her what this place meant to him? What La’ei meant to him? “It was ours,” he said. “Just ours.”
Aunt Tulula clicked her tongue. “So many secrets, Mataio. So many secrets.”
Mataio stared straight ahead and considered showing them a different spot. They’d never know. Turn left instead of right.
The secret tree engraved with a M/L at the base still stood exactly where he remembered, only twenty years taller.
This is it. Decide now. You want to share this?
The last place they’d shared together.
Only it wasn’t just theirs. She’d told someone. She’d told Fui.
He gestured past the tree and led them to the right.
This time he wouldn’t lie.
Rule No. 10
Community Service
Thirty-Nine
SUNNY
Sunny sat up on her bed—La’ei’s bed—and realised she must have fallen asleep. She checked the time, her emails, her messages. Nothing. The house was quiet. Tulula should be baking pork buns by now. She’d been gone all afternoon.
Sunny crept through the house in her socks, listening, but could only hear Junior’s rhythmic snores from the back of the house. Still no milk in the fridge. Sunny texted Tulula and heard it ping on the bench. That was the problem with this family. No-one carried a phone.
Heat pelted through the kitchen window and she lowered the blind and turned on the air conditioner in the lounge. Tulula was out in this heat.
Sunny grabbed her shoes and ute keys and headed out to find her. A trolley-cart of groceries landed at her feet as she opened the front door, but no sign of Tulula. She dragged the cart inside and put the groceries away. The milk probably wouldn’t make it but she put it in the fridge anyway.
Should she start on dinner? Should she drive around and try and find her? She checked her phone again. The movement had made her hot and she wandered back into her room and sank back onto the bed.
Was it only last night he’d made love to her? She traced a pattern on the quilt cover absently, then began to pull the sheets tight and tucked them in. She shook the quilt and smoothed it out over the corners of the bed, just as Karina’s mum had taught her all those years ago.
Her own mother had never been good at teaching her day to day stuff like the best way to make a bed. Curl her hair, apply makeup, rub-on streak free tanning lotion—yes—but housework—no.
Sunny sometimes spent entire weekends at Karina’s house, learning the basics—how to bake cookies or wash dishes or plug in a DVD player or read a map. When she’d had questions about where babies come from, she’d ask Karina, who’d ask her mum and then relay the answer. It was the perfect arrangement for a girl who wouldn’t dare ask her own parents for anything personal or emotional, in case it came with a full-blown argument.
She learnt young the only thing that would make her mother’s eyes smile was to look pretty and practice her talent so she would win the contests. The only thing to keep her father happy was peace and quiet. She spent her childhood working hard to attain both.
Karina did pageants too, but her mother never made her drink diet shakes for breakfast and lunch when she was seven or lock her out of her bedroom and make her sleep in the corridor if she lost a competition for not smiling enough.
Karina’s house had been her respite, her halfway house, her only sense of security. They’d learned the violin from the same teacher and played duets together for fun, until Sunny’s mother found out and put a stop to it. “Duets don’t win beauty pageants,” she’d say.
With La’ei’s bed made, the pillows plump and smoothly aligned, Sunny grabbed her keys and phone again—at least in the ute she’d be out of this heat.
She heard someone approach and Sunny flung open the door. A tired, drawn out Tulula pushed passed her and into her bedroom. Mataio met her eyes, his also sad and heavy.
Her original question fell away and she asked, “What happened? Are you okay?”
Mataio didn’t stop and spoke over his shoulder. “What time does your flight leave?”
Sunny spoke to his back. “I didn’t book it.”
“What?” Mataio stopped and turned back to her, deep, angry lines across his forehead.
Sunny took a sharp intake of breath. She mustn’t let him bully her. She had to say what she planned to say. “The old passport is void once the new one is ordered. You didn’t give me a chance to tell you.” She hurried on before she lost her nerve. “Can we talk? There’s some things I need to say.”
She pretended not to see the frustration on his face. She could read him like a billboard—he wanted her gone.
“How long before your new passport gets here?”
“I don’t know, Mataio.”
“You must have some idea?”
“If you want me gone, Mataio, I’ll go to a hotel. You can send me my new passport there.” Sunny slammed the front door, stomped into her bedroom and tried to slam that door as well. Mataio caught it and it made a loud slap against his hands.
“What?” Sunny demanded, letting her anger counter the threat of tears.
Mataio’s jaw clenched. “You can’t tell us where you’re staying. Pay with cash.”
“Why?”
He hesitated; his hands restless. She got the feeling he was wrestling with an answer. Eventually he said, “Contact the Post Office and ask them to hold the passport for you. Once you leave here, that’s it. No contact.”
Sunny rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, Mataio. Do you even understand how insensitive you are? I can’t believe you…I can’t believe I…”
Tears welled and she couldn’t get her words out, so she pushed the door against Mataio until he relented and let her close it between them.
Her shoulders heaved in silent sobs as his footsteps disappeared down the corridor. She jumped when she heard a knock and Tulula’s voice. “Let me in, Agelu (Angel).”
“I’m fine, Tulula. I’m packing,” she said, unable to disguise the shake in her voice.
“Let me in, Agelu. Please?” She sounded so tired and worn. How could she deny this woman anything? She’d lost her daughter, her husband, her sister and almost her son.
Sunny pulled out her suitcase and threw a few things in, then opened the bedroom door.
Tulula walked with a heavy stoop and sat painfully slowly on La’ei’s bed. “Where you going, Agelu?”
“Mataio doesn’t want me here. And I don’t want to be here.”
Tulula drew out her response, like the effort of talking was too much. “You don’t mean that.”
Sunny stopped packing and sat beside the old woman. Tulula had never looked so frail. She wanted to comfort her, but she didn’t know how. Tulula wasn’t her aunt, this wasn’t her family, and she had no right to ask what happened. “Can you call me when my passport arrives?”
“You’re not going. What if that man comes after you? We can protect you here, but not at a hotel.”
Sunny fanned them both with a notebook and Tulula cracked her neck from side to side.
“I stole from him, Aunt. I took one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars.”
Tulula continued rolling her neck. “How is it stealing when you helped earn it?”
“I didn’t earn it all.”
“Did you take it all?”
“No. I took less than half.”
“Then you’ve nothing to feel guilty about.”
“So why do I feel so bad?”
Tulula turned to face her. “Because you did something that was best for you.”
What Sunny really wanted, she couldn’t have. But maybe Mataio wasn’t best for her either. “There are a lot of secrets in this house, Aunt.
I’m not sure why, but if feels like I need to leave. Secrets tear people apart, from the inside out. I’m ripped up enough as it is, without this. You’ve been so kind to me, and I’ll never forget it, but I need to go.”
“Mataio never could see much past his own situation. I’ll talk to him again.”
“No, please, don’t. I need to do this myself. I’m sorry to leave you though.”
Tulula took both Sunny’s hands in hers. “You’ve brought me such joy. You deserve every happiness. More than that boy can give you. He’s got something amiss in him. Something changed when his mother died. He can’t ever love like you need to be loved, Agelu.”
“How can you be so sure? Maybe it’s all I deserve. You don’t really know me...”
Tulula clicked her tongue and patted Sunny’s hands. “He’s messed you up good, didn’t he? Bad man.”
Sunny couldn’t be sure if she meant Judd or Mataio. Maybe it could be either.
Now Tulula rubbed her temples, her eyelids half closed.
“Do you have a headache, Aunt? Can I massage your shoulders?”
The woman nodded and shuffled forward against the cushions so that Sunny could kneet behind her on the bed. She eased her thumbs into the knotted muscles in Tulula’s neck and massaged up and down her back, slowly getting firmer, feeling the tension release under her experienced fingers. She took the woman’s head in her hands and applied pressure to her skull. Tulula groaned with appreciation.
Sunny thought about her messengers. It had been almost a day and she’d not had a single reply from any of her friends. Surely, this spoke more to the quality of her character than the impression she’d made on an emotionally scarred elderly person?
She needed clarity. She needed redemption. She needed to be honest with herself.
“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?” Sunny asked.
Tulula’s head nodded in her hands.
“I had a friend, Aunt. Her name was Karina. We grew up together. We shared the same agent, we toured together and we eventually shared a flat in London.
