Will had forgotten about his line, was holding his rod slack in his hand. “I’m not…I don’t…I’m careful. I don’t have any kids.” As far as he knew.
Koro swung his arm back, cast his own line again, the transparent filament singing through the summer air, landing with a delicate kiss in the center of the pool. “And that’s a good thing?” he asked, not looking at Will. “That what you want your life to be about? That you’re careful, and there are no kids running around looking like you? Nobody running to you, asking for a ride on your shoulders when you come back from one of those overseas tours? No woman whose eyes are lighting up because you’re home, and this is the day she’s had circled on her calendar?”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Will repeated. He was a failure because he didn’t have a woman? Because he didn’t have one woman?
“What are you afraid of?” Koro asked. “That if somebody sees you, really sees you, she won’t be impressed? Your dad left, yeh. That doesn’t mean you will. You can stay. You can stick. Your choice. Your life. You can run away from it. Or you can run towards it.”
Will was getting angry now. It was his life. It was his choice. He wanted to say it, and he couldn’t. He yanked his own line in with a jerk of his arm, and the line went wild, the fly swinging straight for Koro. He saw it happen, and he couldn’t stop it. The fly flew straight into the top of his grandfather’s chest, the barbed hook catching hold in the collar of his T-shirt, just above the life jacket, startling an exclamation from the old man.
“Sorry.” Will set his rod down hastily as Koro looked down, began to reel in his own line, then stopped, grabbing at his chest with one gnarled hand. “I’ll get it out. Hang on.”
Koro began to answer, but he was gasping, the rod falling from his other hand and going over the side of the little boat with a splash that Will barely heard. Because both his grandfather’s hands were at his chest now, and his face was twisted, agonized. His mouth opened, but only a grunt came out.
“Koro!” Will was reaching for him even as he toppled, laying him down across both seats, then scrambling over him. He fumbled desperately with the straps of the life jacket, then lifted his grandfather’s heavy body to pull the thing off and shove it under the old man’s head.
The fly was still caught in his grandfather’s shirt, the rod dragging at it, and Will pulled it loose with force, ripping the cotton fabric, sending Will’s rod, too, tumbling over the side.
Heart, he thought, because that was where Koro’s hands were. On his chest, grabbing, clawing.
“Koro,” Will said again, and the word sounded like it was coming from far away, from somebody else.
CPR, he thought wildly. But should he get him to shore first? He didn’t even have his mobile, had come out on the water without it, because Koro hated texting, had always forbidden the intrusion of technology into family time.
No choice. Will had to do this, and he had to do it now. Because Koro’s hands had stopped clutching at his chest, had fallen away. His face was gray, and his chest…his chest was still.
No other boats close enough, nobody visible on the shore. And a person couldn’t live without oxygen.
CPR. Now.
He could never have said, afterwards, how long he had tried. How many times he had pressed on his grandfather’s chest, his own ragged breath the only sound, before the other boat came close, the motor cut out, and the voice floated across the water.
“All right there?”
“No,” Will said without stopping. “No. Get us to shore. Ring 111.”
He kept on while the other fellas got the tow rope on, while they hauled his boat to the marina at the holiday park. While he heard the siren approaching, and even when the ambos were running towards him. All the way until they were putting Koro onto the gurney, and Will’s hands fell away, and Will was scrambling into the ambulance after them.
The defibrillator, then, and the tears were streaming down Will’s cheeks as he watched Koro’s broad brown chest, the chest that held a heart that was surely too big just to stop. Too strong just to quit. Watching it jerk into the air under the paddles, then fall back onto the gurney again.
Stopped. Still. Gone.
***
“He died?” Faith asked.
Will sighed and ran a hand over the back of his head. “Yeh. He died. Then and there. Dead, I guess, all the way back there in the boat. From the minute he stopped breathing. And I couldn’t bring him back.”
“That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”
He made a hopeless gesture with one hand, then picked up the glass of wine again and drained it. “I wondered for ages afterwards,” he admitted, “if it was the fly. Sounds mad, I know, but…the shock. Or just…being upset with me. That was the worst. That I didn’t save him, and wondering if I caused it.”
“Oh, no. Surely not.”
“No. They said not. But still. When he went, he left a…he left a hole in our family. In our life.”
He looked out at the moon and thought about Koro up there somewhere. Up there being proud of him, and disappointed in him. He wished he could have said things differently that day. Done things differently. He wished so many things.
“Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane,” he told Faith. “Means, ‘A totara has fallen in the forest of Tane.’ A mighty tree. When it falls…it’s not replaceable.”
“So you came here. Away from your family. Which seems exactly…”
“Wrong,” he finished for her. “Yeh. Wrong. But then, that was the point of what he said that day, that I was doing wrong. Or at least not doing right.” He hadn’t shared the details with her, because she didn’t need to hear that. And because he didn’t want her to know that. “So I came away, to have a change. To have a think, was the idea. At least that’s what I told myself. Probably just to run away from it, from all the bad thoughts.”
“I can see that,” she said. “I want to get away…oh, all the time. And after what happened? Of course I can see it.”
“You can? Seems like exactly the wrong choice now. But Christmas was too sad, with that hole bang in the center of things. Nothing to stay for, I thought. But now, I need it more than ever. The feel of it. The sky, the sea, the lake, the hot pools. The mountains, and the hills. All the greens, because there’s no green like it. I can’t live in the desert.”
He broke off with a laugh. “I sound like a travelogue for En Zed, eh. It’s just that he’s there, still. The ancestors are there, that’s the idea. That’s why a Maori is always buried in New Zealand. Why they still bring the soldiers back, if there’s any way they can. So their spirits can go where they belong.”
“It sounds like a good place.” She poured a bit more wine into the glass. “A peaceful place.”
“A slower place,” he agreed. “A happier place. I mean, nothing slow about rugby, not while you’re playing it. But when you’re not, you’re joking around a bit with the boys, having a laugh. All of that. I miss it. I’m ready to go home. But sad, too.” He looked at her, there beside him. The warmth of her radiated to his side, because he was almost touching her, and he wanted to touch her more. “Sad to leave you,” he said softly.
She looked down, took a sip of wine, and handed him the glass, but he didn’t drink. He set it down beside him and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.
It wasn’t small, and it wasn’t delicate. It was a strong hand, a capable hand, and it felt good in his.
“I’ll miss you,” he said again.
She was looking at him, her eyes huge in the moonlight, her mouth a little parted. She started to say something, stopped again, and Will leaned forward, put his other hand on her shoulder, and brushed his lips over hers.
He felt the shiver of it, the shock of contact. In her, and in himself. Her lips had all the softness her hand didn’t, and he had to kiss them again, then touch his tongue to that tiny mole for just a moment before he returned to her mouth, because he needed that mouth.
She had moved into h
is arms now, her own hands coming up to clasp his shoulders. She was against the wall, and he was kissing her harder, his hand behind her head, cushioning it, his fingers lacing through the hair that tumbled below her shoulders tonight. The blood was pounding in his ears, and everywhere else, too, and he wanted to keep going. He wanted to take her inside and make love to her. He wanted to do it now.
She moved first. He realized that she had a hand on his chest, but it wasn’t to pull him closer. She was pushing him away.
“Will,” she said. “Stop. Stop.”
He sat back, tried to get himself together. The distress was there, plain to see on her face. What had he done, here at the end? This wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t for fun. This was Faith, and it mattered.
“Sorry.” It came out a little shaky. “Got carried away, I guess. Again. Because I…I like you.”
“Yeah.” She laughed, although it didn’t sound like she thought it was funny. “I like you, too. But, no. Bad idea. You’re leaving tomorrow.”
“I am.” Bad idea, she was right, however much he wanted to do it. “I’ll just…say goodbye, then.”
She picked up her glass, her bottle, and shivered a little, because the night had grown colder. “I’m glad you’re going home.” She shook her hair back and looked him in the eye, her gaze steady. “For yourself. And for me. Go home and…be happy.”
“Thanks.” He watched her go, saw her slide back through her window, back into her apartment. He looked at the moon. The next time he saw it, it would be right side up, and that was what he wanted. He needed to remember that.
Leaving Las Vegas
Will hated goodbyes. He usually avoided even saying them, focusing instead on moving on to the next thing. But all the same, it was a relief to find Solomon waiting for him near the United ticket counter.
The other man had insisted on coming to see him off. “Maybe it’s because I want to,” he’d said when Will had told him it wasn’t necessary, and now, Will was glad he had.
Solomon had brought Sefina with him, too. Her face lit up when she caught sight of Will trundling his luggage cart, and she broke free of her father’s hand and ran to him, raising her arms to be picked up. He hoisted her into his arms, where she gave him a smacking kiss that had him laughing.
“Going to miss my golfing partner,” he said.
“We are the champions, Uncle Will!” she said happily.
“Yes, we are. You and me.” And that was another unwelcome tug on his heart.
“Your flight’s delayed, did you see?” Solomon said.
Will moved into the Business Class queue, still holding Sefina, because he didn’t want to put her down, pushing his cart with the other hand. “Bugger,” he said, not caring too much. He’d get home, one way or another. He’d crisscrossed the globe enough times to know that. “Oh, well. Want to go for a coffee once I’m done here, then? My shout.”
“Sure. Why not.”
Will got himself checked in, and they headed over to the kiosk.
“So when does the job start up again? With the builder?” Will asked when they were sitting at the counter, Sefina happily absorbed in a blueberry muffin, the ever-present flashes of neon and clattering ring of the slot machines providing unwelcome background accompaniment.
“Next week. Still waiting to hear on the Outlaws deal. But if not—” Solomon shrugged a big shoulder. “I’ll work construction through the spring, and then my agent says there might be a chance with the Vikings. Minnesota,” he explained at Will’s blank look.
“Don’t know where that is.”
“Think cold. Think very cold.”
“Bit hard, hauling around to all those different cities, isn’t it? Seems like that’s what players here do, though.”
“You don’t do that?”
“Nah. We mostly stay where we are. One team. We tend to stick, stay home.” Except Will, of course, but then, he’d had his reasons, and he’d always had restless feet anyway.
“Yeah, well. Home. I barely remember what that is. Vegas is where our families are, but mostly—home is wherever I am. Or more like where Lelei and the kids are. Home is where she is.”
Will finished his coffee, and Solomon stood up. “We’ll get out of here, though, so you don’t miss your flight.”
Will stood, too, and Solomon wrapped him in beefy arms. “Stay strong, my brother,” he said.
A lump was rising in Will’s throat, to his horror. “I’ll be sending good thoughts for you with the team,” he told the other man. “And for that baby. Let me know about both of them. And thanks for everything.”
“It’s all good,” Solomon said. “Whatever happens. It’s all good.”
***
He was still thinking about it four hours later, lying back in the comfort of his leather seat in the first-class cabin of the Air New Zealand Dreamliner. After he’d been welcomed on board by people who knew who he was, who had greeted him by name in an accent that fell on his ear with all the comfort of home.
Home is where she is, Solomon had said, and Will wondered what that would be like, and knew that he didn’t have a clue.
He did know something about home, though, and he was glad to be going there. He was rapt to be going there, in fact, just as he’d been rapt to leave Aussie in the first place, to come home to the land of the silver fern. And the land of the All Blacks. But all the same…
“Another beer?” the flight attendant asked on her way by.
“Please.”
She brought it a minute later, poured it into a glass, and set it on his tray table. “Going home where you can see the stars, eh,” she said, and Will glanced at her, startled.
She caught the look and laughed. “That’s what I always think, when I’m making the return journey with a few days off. That I’ll be able to get home where I can see the stars.”
“Yeh.” Will smiled at her. Nothing but a coincidence. Everybody liked to look at the stars. He raised his glass. “Cheers for this.”
She swayed up the aisle as the big jet rocked a little in the airstream, and Will took a sip and realized that he never had got around, the night before, to asking Faith why she didn’t move someplace where she could see the stars. Why she had to look at the city lights instead. Why she had to pretend.
***
Faith’s feet negotiated the rocky trail, her steps quick and light as she pushed a little more speed out of her body on the way up the steep slope towards Pine Creek. The winter quiet of the stark desert landscape surrounded her, Red Rocks’ namesake formations glowing in the weak late afternoon sunlight, and her soul found a little peace, because this was her favorite spot in Las Vegas. Her escape, her beauty and solitude and space.
She focused on breathing into the sadness. Made herself examine each regret, holding it like a butterfly in her hand, its wings beating against her skin, then opening her fingers and letting it go.
If she’d slept with Will, she would have been missing him even more now, and probably feeling used, too. Feeling abandoned. The risk had been too great, and she didn’t take those kinds of risks. Or any risks, if she were honest.
She’d wondered all along why Will had agreed to model, since he hadn’t seemed to relish the idea. If it hadn’t been for the money, why? Now, she thought she understood. He’d wanted some risk. He’d wanted something new. He’d wanted to feel alive, and who was she to judge that? She was living in her mother’s apartment building, doing two jobs she didn’t care about to pay off her student loans, dreaming of living by the ocean, of living a different life, but so frightened to take the leap, to leave everything she knew. So afraid to try, because if she tried, she might fail.
Enough regrets. They would get her nowhere. Time to escape into another world, another story, one she could control.
She could take Hope and Hemi to the ocean, or better yet…maybe Hemi flew Hope to New Zealand.
What about Karen? Well, this was before Karen got sick, obviously. And Karen was in school. Hemi would have inst
alled Karen in his apartment, with his housekeeper, and Karen’s…yes, her best friend to keep her company. His driver could take them to school and pick them up every day. Karen would love it. And it would only be for a week. A flying visit, literally, to his Australian interests, because Te Mana was big there, with a quick trip to New Zealand as well, just because Hemi could.
They’d travel on the corporate jet, of course, would eat five-star cuisine and join the Mile-High Club in the teak-paneled cabin. Hemi wouldn’t even wait for the bed to be made up, or to get his own clothes off, though he would take off Hope’s, because he loved her body, loved to see her naked. And that was what they made those big leather chairs for, after all. For him to hold Hope over him, move her any way he wanted while he whispered dirty things in her ear. Hope was going to have a very, very pleasant flight.
Once she had them walking down the steps onto the tarmac, though, Faith’s mind blanked. She could take Hope to Paris, because she’d seen enough pictures and read enough books for that. But she couldn’t take her to New Zealand. Will was on his way back there right now, headed across the Pacific, and Faith had no clue what the view would be like on his way from the airport to his house, or what his house would look like when he got there. She knew he lived in Auckland and was going to be playing for the Blues, and that was all she knew, because she hadn’t asked him any more than that. Because she’d held back, so afraid to care.
But she’d said she was letting it go, so she took Hope and Hemi to the Pacific coast instead. To her own dream, the sea stacks and crashing surf of Northern California, where they would walk on the bluffs above the beach, watch pelicans gliding overhead in a perfect V formation, their wings barely needing to flap. They would see the majestic birds diving down between cliff and sea, plunging into the water, and Hemi’s hand would be strong around Hope’s. Both of them savoring the moment, and that they were sharing it, Hemi’s pleasure all the greater because Hope was loving it.
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