Hana made the twenty minute walk next door in good time and only fell twice in the thick mud, exacerbated by the morning’s rain. She knew the route but stopped anyway to examine the hidden markers she and Maihi planted the year before as an escape route. The cloth strips were stained and tatty, blending into the rustic fence as though part of it. Hana wiped her filthy hands on a fence post and wrinkled her nose, knowing it wasn’t only mud but cow dung too.
Maihi’s husband grazed huge tracts of Hana’s land in return for meat every time they home killed. The bulk of the beef herd grazed the higher slopes and Hana edged nervously around their paddock, reminded of the boys at school as brown eyes with designer lashes turned to follow her while chewing mouths continued their circular action. A city girl at heart, she sighed with relief when there were a few fences between her and the herd, beginning the treacherous descent to Maihi’s welcoming cedar wood house. The last rays of the late sun dipped below the range, leaving greyness in its wake. Hana dreaded a nightmare stumble home in the dark and knew Logan would be cross if she left it too late. She saw the concern in his face at the restaurant but felt grateful to him for not pushing. The quizzical look in his eyes told her he’d guessed already. “I didn’t lie,” she pleaded aloud, startling a nearby falcon feeding on a rabbit carcase. “I thought my father died years ago.”
Maihi responded to the tentative knock on her back door with a hug and barrage of kisses. “Kotiro,” she cried, her brown face crinkling in pleasure. The word meant girl in Māori, but to Hana, it meant daughter.
“Hello, Maihi,” Hana responded, kicking off her wellies on the porch. She allowed herself to be coddled and loved, fed tea and soup, satiating the craving for mothering which ate at a raw spot in her heart. Maihi warbled on with the latest news about her son’s family, chatting away as she buttered bread and pushed it towards Hana, sideways glances telling her all she needed to know.
“Tiger!” Hana exclaimed with pleasure as her old black and white cat wrapped his body around her calves and pressed into her for a stroke. “How’re you doing, old man?” The feline purr filled Hana with inexplicable longing and she reached to pick him up, disappointed as he fled towards the smoky female by the fire. “Oh,” she said, her voice laced with pain. “He thinks I want to take him home.”
Maihi chuckled. “You do.”
“Yeah, I miss him,” Hana admitted. “It feels like a broken relationship.” She looked longingly towards the male as the lavender female licked his tattered ear and face with a rasping tongue.
“Eat youse kai,” Maihi replied, jerking her head towards the bowl of soup in front of Hana. With obedience, she poked her spoon into the thick broth and tasted the meaty goodness, anxiety making it roil in her stomach afterwards.
The visit spared Hana fretting for a while and the Māori woman told local stories which proved entertaining and hilarious. She relaxed and her panic receded to a distant ache until the older woman zapped her as usual. “So, my love,” Maihi said, plonking another cup of tea in front of Hana. “What’s eating you then? Tell me.” The old lady peered at her over her glasses, her fingers deftly chopping kumara and taro and dropping it into a roasting tin.
“I saw my dead father this morning,” Hana said, keeping her voice matter-of-fact. “In McDonald’s in town.”
“A shock then?” Maihi said, not missing a beat.
Hana nodded. “I feel angry, frightened and disappointed.”
Maihi cocked her head and diced a carrot. “Disappointed in him?”
“No.” Hana pursed her lips. “In myself. He tried to talk to me and instead of saying the things I’ve spent twenty-six years bottling up, I ran away.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no!” she groaned, “Please could I use your land line for a moment?”
“It’s probably a fire hazard,” she apologised to the person on the other end of the line and Maihi smirked as laughter came out of the handset. “No, I’m serious,” Hana repeated to the McDonald’s employee. “It’s Action Man’s hair and it fell off in the dryer and was somehow sucked into the vent at the bottom.” Hana climbed onto her stool, watching the wrinkled brown hands chop the veggies with precision. “Apparently an angry Indian gentleman hauled a small boy kicking and screaming from the restaurant and a service repair man’s trying to free the wig now. Bodie gave them Jas’ address and they’ve promised to post what’s left.”
“Will you get the bill?” Maihi worked hard to control the escaping smirk.
“He said there’d be no charge. Oh Maihi, don’t laugh! The whole experience felt harrowing.”
Maihi struggled to contain her snorts of laughter, contrary to Hana who at no point thought it remotely funny. “What will you do?” Maihi asked, wiping the tears from her face with the hem of her apron.
“Write and thank them probably,” Hana sighed. “Or get Jas to. They’ve been very considerate.”
“No!” Maihi replied, her face serious, “About your matua, your papa?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Hana with sadness in her voice. “I ran away from the only opportunity I’ll ever get to tell him how he made me feel. I went to him for help after I messed up and he discarded me like an imperfect blotch on his pristine landscape. There’s nothing I can do. He won’t still be sitting in McDonald’s two hours later.” Hana sighed and bit her lip. Her voice became soft. “He’d aged so much I hardly recognised him. I have to let it go; let him go.”
“Seems a shame.” Maihi’s chopping slowed. “All these years you thought he was dead and now he isn’t, you miss out on the chance to release the accusations that have stained your heart for a long while.”
“I haven’t got a stained heart!” Hana bit indignantly. “I forgave him years ago. Dada was the one who held onto grudges and offences, not me. I dealt with it.”
“So how come youse ran then?” Maihi asked. “If youse dealt with it before your God, you’d have given your matua a hug and told him you was pleased to see him.”
Hana’s mouth opened but nothing came out. She gaped and swallowed, speechless at Maihi’s accusation. Injustice made way for recrimination and Hana felt un-forgiveness and bitterness steal back into her heart. “I thought I forgave him,” she stammered. “What have I done?” She sulked in silence, isolating those emotions which surfaced with such force in the restaurant and turning them over in her mind’s eye, examining them for flaws. Maihi continued with her food preparation, humming the same song Logan played in the kitchen a few hours ago.
Hana jumped up in alarm, noticing the darkening sky and disappearing afternoon. “Oh gosh, it’s getting dark. I should go.” Her eyes widened at the thought of making the bush walk home alone.
The unmistakable sound of a motorbike climbing Maihi’s steep driveway made the house rumble as reflected headlights bounced around the room. “It’s youse tahu,” Maihi commented, drying her hands on her apron. “He’s come for you; the good boy.”
Logan unfolded his tall frame from the bike and removed his helmet, running strong fingers through his messy fringe. Hana melted at his thoughtfulness, overridden by the realisation she would have to go home on the back of his motorbike. “Oh, no!” Hana groaned. “It was a disaster last time. He told me off for squealing and I melted my wellie-boot on the exhaust pipe.”
Maihi ignored her and let Logan into the kitchen, closing the door to keep the heat in as he stood on the mat in his cowboy boots. She hugged him and he put his arm around the elderly matriarch, trying not to clout her with the helmet in his hand. “Your carriage awaits, my lady.” He raised his eyebrows and Hana stood with obvious reluctance. “You’ll be fine,” Logan said with a smirk. “It can’t be worse than last time; come on, get a move on.”
Maihi kissed and cuddled Hana, fortifying her for the bracing cold and the ride down the breakneck driveway. Hana tried not to think about it too hard as she grappled around on the deck outside for her wellies. Maihi’s arm slipped around her shoulders, her mouth close to Hana’s ear.
“Don’t youse think it’s time you trusted your man?” she asked knowingly, raising an eyebrow flecked with grey. “Youse have to let go sometime, Hana Du Rose.” Maihi closed the back door with a wave over her shoulder.
Hana griped at her words, knowing she spoke of trust on more levels than just the bike ride home. She sighed, tensing as Logan settled her on the pillion of his flash motorbike. It fired and Hana cringed visibly as he handed her the spare helmet and fitted it to her head with extreme care. It felt snug and smelled of newness, which surprised her. “Keep your feet here,” Logan mouthed over the sound of the engine, placing her feet onto the rests to avoid a repeat of last time. I loved those wellies, Hana griped inside her helmet, grateful to be making the trip on Logan’s posh machine and not Maihi’s old dirt bike again.
Logan’s neat bum looked good on the wide seat and Hana afforded herself a longer stare as he righted the machine, kicking away the stand and bringing it upright. As she felt the powerful surge of the engine, her confidence failed her and she snatched at the back of his leather jacket. “Use the hand rail,” Logan called, his voice muffled inside the helmet and dulled by the powerful roar. He took her hand and placed it on the bar behind but as soon as the bike moved forward, she let go and put her arms around his stomach. Last time she squeezed too hard, but this time she remembered and gripped his leather jacket in grasping fingers. Breathe, breathe, she told her body, trying to push thoughts of death, serious injury or crashing, out of her mind. The bike rolled forward and Logan kept his feet near the ground as it pitched and tossed over the rough driveway and around the sharp bends. Hana fought the urge to lean the opposite way to the turn, forcing herself to relax and follow the graceful movements of her husband’s body. She put all her trust in him as Maihi suggested, finding an eroticism about the release of pent up terror.
Hana began by shutting her eyes but opened them half way down the mountain, finding it less of a stomach lurching fairground ride if she could see the road. The headlights picked out bush and trees as they gingerly descended. Hana concentrated on her posture, conscious of not slumping forward as a dead weight on her poor husband’s back At the bottom of the driveway, Logan checked the winding road carefully and pulled out left. He got up to speed gradually before the first bend and Hana turned her face and leaned her head against his spine, snuggling in as close as the helmet allowed. She heard the gear changes and felt the movement of Logan’s limbs as he depressed the clutch and swayed with the bike. An experienced rider, he easily accounted for the extra passenger and how it altered the bike’s handling. Hana remembered the words of her late mother-in-law, Miriam, who chided her for not riding with Logan. ‘Youse won’t stay married to a biker long if you don’t learn to ride pillion.’ It was intended as a threat, a warning and Hana remembered her pique over it. The memory of her Indian husband rose to the fore, Vik’s death like a stain on Hana’s heart. His passion was tennis and she played to give them something in common. He still cheated on her.
Logan’s body took the full force of the air buffeting them as they rode towards home and Hana experienced a budding sense of exhilaration cutting through the fear. She saw the last bend before their driveway as they hurtled around it, feeling a stab of disappointment. But Logan blasted past and onto the open road, increasing speed along the straights and handling the deadly bends with precision. Hana felt a strange peace as though something blew from her soul that shouldn’t have been there. She felt a tickle rising in her stomach as they sped forward and it bubbled up inside as a giggle. She wanted to go faster but there was no way of communicating with Logan. Hana satisfied herself with the brilliant night sky above and the glint of starlight on the Waikato River to her right. The Milky Way spread out before her, the same view from Logan’s mountain where Phoenix burst into the world amidst leaves and dust. Hana giggled into her helmet, glad nobody could hear her momentary lunacy.
They sped as far as Parker Road and Logan indicated left and made the turn, travelling the gravel road gingerly to avoid a skid or damaging his bike. At the small car park for the reserve he pulled in and parked, leaning the bike on its sturdy stand. Only one other vehicle sat there, parked in the dark with a hunting dog’s crate open in the back. Logan switched off the engine and lifted his leg over the massive chassis but when he removed his helmet, Hana remained still, not understanding. Logan undid her chin strap and lifted her helmet off, brushing her red curls away from her face. She smiled at him in the darkness, not wanting to spoil the moment with words.
Hana sat on the bike as Logan put his arms around her, pressing his lips over hers. It felt private and safe, just the two of them with no fathers to mess it up by jumping from the woodwork like crazy jack-in-the-boxes and destroying everything. Logan’s hand snaked under Hana’s shirt and she shivered at his touch, his kisses deep and searching. “Here?” she whispered and felt his nod against her cheek.
He led her into the undergrowth away from the car park and spread his leather jacket on the ground between the crowded punga trees. The unexpected exhilaration of the bike ride left a blush of risk on Hana’s psyche and made her daring enough to undo Logan’s jeans and expose him to the night. He moaned in pleasure and Hana fleetingly wondered if this and not the bike itself was what Miriam wanted her to experience; the thrill induced recklessness of speed.
When Logan let Hana up for air, she laid her head on his shoulder and kept her arms around his naked waist. The cold licked their semi naked bodies and reminded them it was winter. Logan’s kisses dulled Hana’s awareness of the bush night noises, but she jumped and squealed as a red eyed possum sped through the bushes and scampered away. Logan laughed, his deep melodious tones spreading out into the night as he kept Hana on the ground. He kissed her again. “I should get you home,” he whispered into her ear. “I left the boy taking care of our daughter. Anything could happen.”
Hana put her arms around his strong neck and wished she could stay in the moment a while longer. Her husband hadn’t asked about the tourist but she knew she owed him an explanation. Maihi was right; she needed to trust him. “That man,” she began haltingly, “in McDonald’s, he’s my father.”
Logan nodded. “I guessed so.” He didn’t press or advise, waiting while she wrangled and spinning slow, sensuous circles on her side with his finger. “I don’t know what to do,” Hana said, grabbing his hand and twisting his long fingers in hers, threading them backwards and forwards through each other in agitation. “I thought I dealt with my feelings.” She sounded petulant, like a child. “Why does my past keep coming back and messing things up?”
“Kōkau,” Logan said softly, “because it’s unfinished.”
He pushed his free hand through her hair at the back of her neck. Hana closed her eyes, feeling soothed to her core. She sighed and sat up, feeling the tingling in her breasts as her milk readied itself to let down. “I need to get back to Phoe.”
Logan studied the pale glint of Hana’s breasts in the moonlight, reaching out a hand to touch their fullness. He felt the dampness of milk on her nipple and reached for her.
“No, we need to go,” she said, standing and pulling up her jeans.
“But I’m not done yet,” Logan said, his voice seductive. Hana bit her lip at his long olive body shrouded by leaves and ferns.
“You’ll have to be.” Hana smirked, pushing her swollen breasts back into her bra and buttoning her blouse askew in the dim light.
Back at the bike, Logan put the helmet carefully over her head and Hana smirked at how he made even the simplest task into a seductive gesture. He put his thumb into the space at the front of the helmet and brushed her cheek before snapping the visor down over her inappropriate remark. He winked, fitted his helmet over his dark hair and swung his long leg over the saddle, careful not to swipe her off the pillion with his boot. Hana settled herself as he started the engine and the machine boomed to life, disturbing sleeping birds in the native trees. They cruised home and even the steep driveway was not as frightening as Hana remembered. Logan swung the bike down the slope and under the garage door as it opened, killing the engine and dismounting. He turned to Hana, looking at her in expectation as she stayed on the saddle, examining a fern stuck in her sleeve.
“Come on, Mrs Du Rose.” Logan smiled at her with his grey eyes as he removed Hana’s helmet, his face filled with promise. She wanted him to kiss her again, but he didn’t, holding his hand out to help her dismount. His eyes raked her face for understanding as Hana wrestled herself free of the powerful machine, smirking as she cocked her leg over the front instead of getting off the conventional way. Logan lifted her down and pinched her bum before removing his boots, leaving them on a square of newspaper near the internal door. Hana watched, filling her senses with the essence of her husband. He was such a precise man, so compulsive and careful. She loved every movement he made, how he thought so hard about some things and yet did other so effortlessly. Hana remembered their first encounter in the staffroom at school when Logan seemed so awkward, stuttering nervously throughout their conversation.
“How long did you watch me before talking to me?” she asked. She twisted the cord from her jacket in agonised fingers.
“Weeks,” her husband replied.
“The-girl-on-the-train,” Hana murmured. “The-Circle-Line-girl.” She pulled the plastic toggle off the end of the cord, seeming surprised once it was in her hand loose. “I fancied you from the start.” She smiled coyly at him, her green eyes sultry and her full lips beckoning to him. I fancied you even before I knew you’d named your multi-million dollar corporation after me. Hana looked at her husband with a mix of emotions on her face. She stroked the handlebar next to her absently, running her fingers over its length and back again, feeling the rubber grips underneath as though reading braille.
Logan took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, knowing his wife probed back in time because she was too afraid to go forwards. He gathered her into him and Hana enjoyed the abandon of the moment, wrenching at the zipper of his jacket with naked hunger. “Again?” she whispered.
The clearing of a male throat cut through their passion. Hana looked towards the internal door and saw Tama standing on the stairs beyond, holding Phoenix. He covered her eyes with one hand and she frantically rooted for his fingers with her rosebud lips, believing her food would somehow materialise there. Tama looked embarrassed. “Hey, old people getting it on in the garage; don’t mind us.” He indicated with his head towards the helmets nestled together next to the bike. “So you finally got to use your new helmet?”
Hana heard Logan give a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, sorry,” Tama said, noticing his uncle’s flash of irritation. “I didn’t mean to spoil anything...well a few things.” He fixed his eyes on Hana. “Can you feed your daughter please, Ma? She’s eaten a whole bowl of baby rice and is still hungry.”
He turned and headed back up the stairs to the hallway above, carrying the baby who having spied her mother, let out a wail of angry denial.
“You bought the helmet for me?” Hana asked Logan.
He shrugged and nodded. Hana kissed him on the lips and cuddled in close. “I assumed it was Caroline’s,” she said, knowing she poked the wasps nest but unable to stop her mouth.
“Hana, stop it,” her husband said, gritting his teeth at the reference to his destructive ex fiance. “I know you’re hurting but don’t punish me, too.”
“Sorry.” Hana lowered her eyes in contrition. “I enjoyed the ride though,” she said with mischief. “Maybe we could do it again soon?”
Logan looked gratified as though she’d given him a missing puzzle piece. It was a milestone, another hurdle in their young marriage tackled and defeated. “Ok. Deal.” He stroked her hair and leaned down to remove her wellies. Hana lifted each foot, resting her hands on his shoulders like a child. He put them neatly on the paper next to his.
In the kitchen upstairs, Hana fed the baby under her jumper, feeling relief as the pressure from her swollen breasts lessened. Phoenix played hidey boo, wrenching the woolly shroud off her face and displaying smiling grey almond shaped eyes. Her right arm rested against Hana’s waist and her tiny, smooth palm ran up and down her mother’s bare skin. She was a stunning baby, her slate grey eyes in her olive face and dark hair matching the other two people in the room. Knowing she was satiated, Hana sat her up to wind. “You’re just mucking around now, baby,” she crooned to the smiling child.
“She woofed the baby rice,” Tama said, flicking at the pages of the telephone directory on the table. “When the women at home had kids, I thought they started them on solids earlier, like three months or something.”
“When I had Bo and Izzie, it was three months and they could go onto cow’s milk at six months. Theories change I guess,” replied Hana. “There’s a woman at the baby centre where I take Phoenix to be weighed, who still doesn’t give solids to her eight-month-old and the midwife said it’s got to be formula milk until they’re two.”
“Yeah?” chortled Tama, “I don’t fancy your chances of giving her formula milk. Not after...” He stopped and looked across at his uncle. Logan’s face darkened and became unreadable. For once, Tama exercised wisdom. “Sorry,” he said, biting his lip.
“It’s fine,” Hana said, giving the teen a small smile. “I was stalked, kidnapped and hurt. It happened and there’s nothing we can do to change that.” She smiled at her daughter’s face as Phoenix made a wobbly swipe at a lock of red curls. “She would’ve got used to bottled milk eventually. Life goes on.”
“Unless she died of hysteria,” Tama added unwisely. He felt Logan’s eyes boring into the side of his face and cringed.
Hana grew silent as despite her bravado, her mind flipped elsewhere, to an old fashioned living room in a mock Tudor house and a mixed up, psychotic man with a grudge against her husband’s family. She glanced at the red mark on her wrist where the crystal glass shattered and its ragged shard penetrated her vein. The surgical wound rose pink against her pale, delicate skin. “A woman at the baby clinic thought I’d tried to kill myself.” Hana’s voice was low and her brow furrowed in a mix of emotions. “She handed me a leaflet and said I was selfish.”
Hana started, her eyes wide as Logan dumped his burping daughter on Tama in punishment and dragged out the chair next to her. He settled into it and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Why are you thinking about that?” he asked, his eyes the colour of grit, wiser than his years.
“The court case is coming up,” she replied. “The detective inspector said I have to give evidence.”
Logan squeezed her and kissed the side of her face, unable to argue with fact. Tama played with Phoenix and couldn’t look at the results of his tactlessness. “But we’ve been here before,” Logan said, his lips against her hair. “And after what his son did, the old guy pleaded guilty. You didn’t have to give evidence and you never know, Laval might do the same. You pray about stuff, so it’s up to your God. We all know you’re a praying woman, so if He can’t sort it, it sucks to be Him, aye?”
Hana smiled at her husband’s simplistic way of viewing her faith. Logan’s philosophies were refreshing, if sometimes a little skewed. She laid her head against him and relaxed, thinking of the exhilaration of the bike ride and watching her nephew with her daughter. Tama sat the baby’s butt on the table edge and supported her with his big hands. He played a stupid game considering she’d just fed, putting his head into her tummy and wiggling it around, his hair flopping in her face. She squealed and laughed, wrapping her keen fingers in his black mop and tugging.
“Oh,” he said helplessly, unable to extract his hair as she leaned forward and sicked over the back of his head.
Logan laughed and delayed rescue, wanting his nephew to suffer. “That’s for the ice cream she’s not supposed to have,” he said with a smirk. “And for bringing up stuff we want to forget.”
Hana kicked him under the table and he reluctantly stood, dumping a tea towel on the back of Tama’s hair and removing the child who kept handfuls of his black hair in her tiny fists. She pulled faces of disgust and made sad squeaking noises of misery. Logan managed to get a napkin to her face as she barfed up more. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed.
Tama headed from the kitchen with the tea towel around his face, cradling his stained hair. Logan jerked his head towards the teen’s back. “It’s Mary, mother of God,” he said sarcastically. Tama frowned and a few seconds later, Hana heard the shower running. “Two showers in one day,” Logan said, grinning at her. “Do you think he’s growing up?”
Hana shook her head. “Na, he just knows he stinks for a change. Phoe should puke on him more often.” She relaxed, feeling grateful for the two entertaining males in her house. “Don’t be so hard on him,” she said to her husband softly, “he’s still a child. He opens his mouth without thinking and it’s not his fault I’m such a big baby about things.” Logan raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “He’s trying, Loge, give him a chance,” Hana implored. “He’s desperate to please you.”
“He’s very trying!” her husband commented under his breath and Hana sighed. Logan took the child to their bedroom to wash and change her, an unexpectedly hands-on-father much to Hana’s early surprise. He returned with a clean daughter, ready for bed in a sleep suit adorned with monkeys. She beamed at Hana and waved her arms happily.
“I’m not sure I should feed her again,” Hana muttered, worried about the state of the child’s stomach. But Phoenix seemed keen to replace what she lost on the back of her cousin’s head and fed greedily. Logan picked up the guitar and strummed long, dark fingers over its strings, producing a low note. He fiddled with the tuning pegs to tighten the strings, dissatisfied with the sound. Hana watched in silence. Apart from Reuben’s striking looks and the ability to play, the instrument was his only legacy to his son.
No longer feeling the music, Logan put the guitar against the pantry door and sat next to his wife. Phoenix saw him from an upside down position and smiled, a cheeky, conspiratorial beam. He grinned back and stroked her downy head. The baby head-butted Hana’s breast and carried on feeding, her lids growing heavy with sleep.
“Can I use the car for church in the morning?” Hana asked. “Or do you need it?”
Logan pulled a face. “I need to go out with Tama. Can I drop you off and fetch you afterwards?”
Hana nodded. “Yep. I’ll keep Phoenix with me. The older ladies adore her; I hardly see her for the entire service.”
Logan exhaled as though relieved. Hana eyed him sideways with suspicion but had learned not to ask. Occasionally she hadn’t liked the answer.
Hana tidied the kitchen while Logan put his daughter to bed. She fingered the phone directory on the kitchen table, her eyes narrowed with curiosity. “What’s that doing here?” she asked the empty room. With a shrug, she put it back in the hall cupboard.
Tama appeared from the shower grumpy and uncommunicative. His wet hair stuck up at odd angles as he stalked into the living room, his track pants riding low over his boxer shorts. He slumped on the sofa and turned the TV on, losing himself in a mindless movie with the volume up loud.
“Bedtime,” Logan growled in Hana’s ear, slapping her bum and pushing her towards the bedroom with a wink. “We’ve got unfinished business, wahine.” He locked the bedroom door and unbuttoned his shirt with slow, calculating movements, his eyes dark and sultry.
Hana stirred around midnight in the throes of another awful dream.
Laval stood over her holding Phoenix in his arms and laughing. Hana’s wrist spurted a rainbow of crimson shades but she had to get her baby back. She took the whisky glass and smashed it repeatedly into his face, feeling relief as he bled and let go of the child. Reaching out to catch her, Hana discovered she wasn’t there. Her baby was gone.
She woke sweating and distressed. Logan was no longer there and she’d tangled herself in the covers with her thrashing. She felt the underside of her left wrist, brushing her other hand over the scar and wincing at the tenderness still there. But there was no sticky, spraying blood. It was just a nightmare.
Hana left the bed and padded across the room; the floor boards cold under her bare feet. She checked on Phoenix, putting her head inside the bedroom door and listening for her comforting snuffles. Nothing. Her heart rate hiking again, Hana walked over to the travel cot, pressing her hands over the sides. Her fingers touched the cold empty mattress and she panicked. She ran, drawn by the light of the living room and the dull hum of male voices. The fire gave an eerie glow as the men chatted, sharing the sofa with their backs to the door and the TV muted.
“She’s gone!” Hana heard the terror in her voice as she blasted into the room, making both men jump. Tama got to his feet and Logan turned, the baby asleep on his chest. Hana put her hands up to her face and tried to breathe as light-headedness overwhelmed her. Her brain told her body all was well, but it struggled to understand as her heart pounded in her chest and blood rushed in and out of her ears. Tama put his arms around Hana, stroking her hair and soothing her.
“Take the baby!” Logan snapped, pushing Phoenix into his nephew’s arms and taking over with his wife. “Put her back in her cot.”
Tama took the child, resisting the urge to face the unspoken challenge. He caught the look of mistrust in his uncle’s eyes and shook his head, knowing he’d never shake the stigma of his past crimes. He took the sleeping child back to her room and lay her gently on the mattress. “When you grow up, sis,” he told her. “Don’t shag everyone you meet; you’ll get a bad reputation and have only yourself to blame.” He covered her up with blankets, hearing her contented sigh. “It’ll be different for youse,” he whispered. “There’s people what care about you enough to help you make good choices. You won’t be like me, looking for love in all the wrong places.”
Hana wore an old shirt of Logan’s from the hotel. It hung to her thighs leaving her shapely legs exposed. “Bed, Hana. Everything’s ok,” Logan soothed. “All’s as it should be.” He shivered in the cool hallway in a tee shirt and boxer shorts, pushing Hana gently down towards the bedroom with his strong hands on her shoulders. “Phoe woke around eleven with stomach ache but she’s fine now.” He missed out his argument with Tama over the ice cream and tactless reminder of Laval, shaking his head and wondering if he could ever straighten the boy out.
Logan helped Hana into the wide bed, recognising the veiled terror in her face as she struggled at the surface of consciousness, not fully awake. “I’ll get you a drink of water,” he whispered, kissing her forehead and pulling her right hand away from its death grip on her wrist.
Logan passed Tama in the hallway and the younger man indicated the baby’s room with his head and put his thumbs up. Logan narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Thanks.”
Tama returned to the living room and a mindless documentary about penguins. His hormones raged at the sight of Hana’s slender legs and he tried to block all inappropriate thoughts from his mind. Anka’s face swam in front of his vision, late forties, his friend’s mother but supple and athletic. Tama smiled at the memories of Anka hiding the stretch marks on her stomach and inner thighs as she sat astride him. “I don’t care,” he’d stressed, thrilled with the eagerness of the older woman to fulfil his needs. She became his drug of choice; more wanting more and then more still until more was never enough.
One accidental fumble became a full blown affair, a broken marriage, myriad destroyed friendships and a furious Logan. Anka lost her job at the school and was fortunate to avoid prosecution for fraternising with a student, while Tama found himself expelled. “Trust me to bed Hana’s best friend,” he growled, shifting on the sofa in discomfort. He struggled to banish the image of Anka’s rounded breasts and the way she spoke his name, knowing the difference between love and lust but sensing them blend into one. He touched the hard corners of the phone in his pocket and groaned. “No! I won’t text her.” His fingers fluttered in disobedience, drawing out the device and seeking her name. Even reading it on the screen heightened his sexual tension.
Hearing Logan’s movements in the kitchen as he ran cold water into a glass, brought Tama to his senses. He’d promised himself a new start with the acquisition of the Du Rose name, knowing Logan hadn’t given it easily. Tama’s birth certificate still said ‘father unknown,’ the herald to his unwanted status. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus his mind on the TV, involving himself in the plight of the penguins and calming the loneliness in his soul.
“Lay down, babe.” Back in the bedroom Logan patted his chest and Hana snuggled in, holding onto a clump of his shorts material like a lifeline. It bunched the garment uncomfortably around his hip but Hana stilled.
Logan stayed awake until he felt her dive off the cliff into sleep again although she was fitful and unsettled for hours. He mulled over how to handle the difficult meeting while his wife was at church. The tourist sounded keen to meet. The old man showed a hunger in his face as he raked the car park with frantic eyes and it pricked Logan’s curiosity.
“Are you sure this is what she wants?” Tama had asked, handing him the telephone directory.
“I can’t take the risk of him turning up without warning,” Logan replied. “It’ll be easy for him to find Hana now. We wore a distinctive soccer strip with the school name emblazoned on the back, so he just needs to turn up at the school or go to next week’s game. He’ll find her within a few days if he’s determined. I want to know what the man’s angle is. He’s looking for her; I saw it in his face. The question is why? Especially as she seems terrified of him.”
Logan needed answers before he contemplated letting the old man near his hard-won family. He easily found the car hire company, quoting the registration number and claiming he found a wallet next to it in a McDonald’s car park that afternoon and wished to return it. After a few dead ends a company in Hamilton claimed ownership of the rental, traced the driver via their Auckland Airport depot and rang him back.
“Why did you leave your number?” Tama asked, running a hand over his confused face. “Don’t you want his?”
Logan shook his head. “Never become a detective, Tama. You’ll be crap.” He rolled his eyes. “They won’t give me his number because of privacy laws. They’ll give him mine and then it’s up to him. He’ll know who I am if he’s intelligent.”
“How?”
Logan bit back the sarcastic retort and focussed on his inner calm. “Because his wallet is still in his pocket.”
“Ohhhh.” Tama gave a knowing smile before his face clouded over. “I still don’t get it. So, what wallet did you find then?”
Logan laid in bed and cuddled Hana closer. The tourist rang within minutes on a landline from his motel. He desperately wanted to see his daughter and wouldn’t be happy when the two intimidating Māori men turned up alone. Logan didn’t care.
Hana’s natural instinct was to run but Logan recognised regret in her eyes afterwards. She had questions which burned in her soul. He knew because he wrestled with his own each day, the need to ask Reuben why? Why didn’t you fight for me? Why did you allow your brother to raise me for forty years? Why did you allow your inheritance to pass into another’s incompetent hands? And how? How could you stand on the other side of the fence and watch, without going mad?
Logan knew the answer to that last question because Reuben did succumb to madness, disappearing inside himself with grief and loss and frustration, sent there with the help of alcohol and rage. Logan pulled his wife closer, brushing the damp curls away from her face and shielding her from whatever was to come.