“Come on, Phoe, please don’t be difficult!” the child’s father complained through gritted teeth, fighting impatience as his long fingers struggled to fit little booties over her socks. The baby whinged and kicked her legs, causing one knitted object to slip off while the other pinged from her father’s hand and landed somewhere near the lounge door. He sighed and sank onto the battered red leather sofa next to her, putting his head into his hands in a picture of despondence. “I can’t do this.”
The little girl beamed a gummy smile. Seven months old with dark wavy hair and a light olive face, she bore the same piercing grey eyes as her daddy. Their combined Māori genealogy screamed out in waves of inherited mana. She sighed, her head touching the back of the sofa and her legs dangling over the edge of the seat cushion as she rooted for her thumb. Turning sideways, she eyed her father with uncanny wisdom, waiting for his next move. His hair was overlong and wavy and he hadn’t shaved for three days or slept properly. Not since the terrible thing happened. He pinched his fingers over the bridge of his nose and willed the headache away. The child extended her legs over towards him and pitched into the crease between the two seats, making a cute gurgling noise over her thumb and smiling broadly.
Logan Du Rose looked down at his baby, her grey eyes crinkled at the edges in an almond shape as she looked at him with mischief. Her dexterous fingers snatched up an offending bootie from behind her head and she flapped it around in front of her face, her pupils dilating with pleasure. Logan exhaled and smiled at her. “I don’t think you need those, do you?” He sighed. “I don’t know how the hell they fit on anyway. That’s Mama’s job. How does she do these silky ties with you wriggling around?” A tightness gripped his chest and fear settled again. He pushed it away. Give me a difficult brood mare any day, over a pair of woolly shoes! “Let’s go find Whaea Leslie,” he said out loud, standing and lifting Phoenix onto his hip. He stooped to retrieve the dirty nappy and the other bootie, hurling the nappy into the roaring fire as he left the room and shoving the woolly article into his tight jeans pocket.
“I hope youse dint throw that nappy on the ahi!” the Māori housekeeper chided him as Logan pushed open the door to the family dining room. He looked guilty and the brown skinned old woman growled at him, hefting the baby against her huge bosoms. “Youse keep doin’ that!” she complained. “It just cooks it and makes the room stink of roke!”
Logan shrugged. Shit was the least of his problems. “Stop, woman!”
“Your mama wouldn’t do that, would she?” Leslie asked the infant, degenerating into baby talk as the child fixed her with a hopeful gaze at the mention of her mother. The woman looked at the child with sympathy, deliberately avoiding the eyes of her employer. She pressed her lips against the baby’s soft olive forehead, neatly avoiding the inquisitive hand which shot out to grab a long, black plait resting temptingly on the old woman’s shoulder.
Logan kissed his daughter on the side of her face and tousled her hair with his big hand. She turned her face to him, offering a knowing smile that made him feel stronger.
“Youse go see the missus.” Leslie smiled at him, “We’re all praying for her.”
Logan nodded once and turned to leave, almost bowled over in the doorway by a group of women who pushed inside roughly. The front girl froze on the spot, causing the other three to run into each other behind her. “Bloody hell!” he spat, grey eyes flashing and his face hard.
“Sorry, Mr Logan.” They shifted nervously in the doorway, fear creating a haze around them. Devastatingly good looking, he was a hard businessman, not afraid of a fight. Two of the women looked at the ground, knowing even if Logan said nothing else, they would get it from the housekeeper later. The other two looked up at the six foot four inch man through their eyelashes, betraying the lifetime crush each of them nurtured since they were all teenagers together. Logan knitted his brow and moved aside for them to pass, hating the way they sized him up like a piece of muscular meat.
He left with a wave at his daughter and a pause to allow her to wave back, her little hand twisting on the wrist as though she wiped an invisible window. The heels of his cowboy boots clicked on the tiled hallway of the old hotel as he strode towards the lobby. He still heard Leslie explode.
“This is a hotel!” Her voice boomed. “Not a bloody playground! Go clear up the dining room and start on the bedrooms. Youse will be the death of me, heahea girls!”
Logan unlocked the silver Honda CRV in the staff area of the hotel car park. The sweet scent of his wife’s perfume hit him in a heady cloud of longing and his chest hurt with fear. He pushed his emotions aside as always and climbed in. The weather was crisp and the mountains rose up around the gothic style house his great-great-grandfather built, over a century and a half ago. Sometimes the hotel felt like a blessing, the hundreds of acres of bush and pasture, thousands of prime quality beef stock and the horse stud. Other times it felt like a millstone hanging around his forty-one-year-old neck. The responsibility dragged him down when he least needed the added complications.
Logan adjusted the rear view mirror as he started the engine, noticing another line of grey hairs beginning in his sideburns, peppering their jet black companions. He exhaled and pulled out of the gravel car park, hitting the five kilometre tarmac driveway at a dangerous speed and almost piling into a campervan lumbering through the huge wrought iron gates.
The driver wound his window down. “Is the campsite round here?”
Logan nodded. “You should have gone off to the right after the last bend, but it’s fine. Go down past the motel units and say Logan Du Rose sent you that way. They’ll have to open the barrier for you.”
The English driver rolled his eyes in relief, not wanting to brave the breakneck road again for a wrong turn. Logan nodded and sped away, desperate to get to the private hospital in Auckland where Hana was. His phone trilled and he juggled it onto the cradle and pressed the speaker button. “Du Rose. What?”
“Your wahine matua texted last night but reception is bad again so I only just saw it. She wants to see Phoenix. Will you come back for her?” Leslie’s voice sounded crackly on the line.
“No, I’m not!” Logan snapped. He disconnected, rudely avoiding the housekeeper’s tirade. He felt split, knowing his wife wanted to keep breast feeding but was physically unable to cope with the distress. The previous day she struggled against the pain of four incisions in her chest from the heart surgery as the little girl fed. The child coped well with cow’s milk and a feeder cup that morning, Logan reasoned, knowing he was kidding himself. “She’ll kill me.”
Pulling out onto State Highway 1 and heading north towards Auckland, Logan tried to concentrate more on his driving, noticing the cop car hanging around on the hard shoulder touting for business. He touched his brake lights as he approached it, cursing himself for the futile moment of weakness which would show in the radar gun. He indicated and overtook a slower vehicle, maintaining his speed at a steady hundred kilometres per hour until the motorway turnoff to the hospital.
It was after nine o’clock and he missed the rush hour traffic deliberately, although Phoenix made him later than intended. Even though she wouldn’t complain, he knew Hana would be waiting hopefully for his face to appear around the door. And her daughter’s. The thought of her disappointment cut into him and he considered driving all the way back for the baby. Don’t be stupid, he convinced himself; you’re almost there now.
The private Monty Lassiter Hospital or the ‘Monty’ in medical circles was both expensive and fortunately covered by Logan’s medical insurance. Taken ill at Rangiriri Pa, between Huntly and Auckland, the the air ambulance flew Hana straight to Auckland General Hospital, for the lifesaving surgery. A genetic fault led to a thickening and blocking of her aortic valve, slow and deadly. The tear was almost fatal, leading to a massive heart attack. Her brother’s expert compressions dragged her back from oblivion until help arrived. A happy family picnic quickly degenerated into chaos, misery and disbelief as history repeated itself and the Creator attempted to snatch back Logan’s wife, just as he had her mother twenty-six years earlier.
Logan ran a shaking hand over his face, trying not to relive the awful afternoon. It came back to him when he laid his head on the pillow, making him avoid their comfy double bed. He blamed himself, as did her brother. “She’s forty-six years old!” Mark shouted angrily in the hospital corridor as they waited for news of Hana. “She’s just had a baby! How the hell did you miss the fact she repeatedly fainted during her pregnancy? I can’t believe you allowed her to brush it off so casually!” The gifted surgeon was livid. “I suppose you’ll tell me you didn’t know about the other episodes either?”
“I didn’t!” Logan kept his teeth gritted. “You’re the surgeon, not me!”
“Yeah well I checked her over a few weeks ago and told her to see her own doctor. I knew something was wrong!” Mark’s anger switched to himself and he worked to deflect it back onto the handsome Māori pacing the linoleum floor. “Didn’t you notice how tired she got and the weight loss, breathlessness under stress, pains in her upper abdomen and chest...geez man. Don’t you care about her at all?”
Logan balled his fists in fury, wisely keeping his mouth shut but only for Hana’s sake. He didn’t think he had ever felt so helpless or guilty as he did that terrible afternoon, waiting for the emergency surgery to finish. At the pa, Logan and Mark almost came to blows over who went in the helicopter with Hana, but her father, Robert stepped in and insisted Hana’s husband went. “Mark!” he quietly chastised his son, his Scots accent failing to disguise the terrified wobble. “Let her husband go with her. It’s what she would want.”
Mark followed them to the hospital by car and a tense standoff between the men ensued as somehow they both ended up feeling guilty and pushed out.
Logan paced along the corridor to his wife’s room, his boots making no sound on the plush, expensive carpet of the private hospital. He felt the familiar skip of his heart at the thought of seeing her. He loved the wisps of red hair hanging around her face and the shy smile she kept only for him. She was the only person in his life who ever made him feel needed and it completed him. Please be ok, Hana, he begged an unseen God.
Hana’s bedroom was immaculately spotless, not a trace of her remaining. The high bed was stripped and lifeless, the room empty. Logan panicked. He ran back to the nurse’s station with long strides, arriving with a face of dismay and confusion. His grey eyes were the colour of grit and his tanned skin paled horribly.
“It’s ok, Mr Du Rose,” the young nurse said with kindness in her face. “Your wife’s waiting for you in the day room. I’ll show you where it is.” She came around the side of the desk in soft soled shoes which made a dull squeak on the carpet. They entered a room which looked as though it could feature in a Homes and Gardens magazine.
Hana Du Rose sat in a high-backed chair watching television without registering anything happening on the screen. She was rake thin and her clothes hung off her like curtains. The usually pretty face was colourless. Her emerald green eyes were listless and had temporarily lost their twinkle. Curly auburn hair was pulled away from her face in a loose ponytail, which Logan could tell someone else did for her. Tendrils escaped and hung around her face like a curly halo.
At the sound of the nurse, Hana turned to face her with a serene smile that didn’t reach her eyes. But when she saw her husband, it lit up like sunshine on a mirror and she was beautiful. She struggled to her feet and he half-ran to her, frightened to grip her in his usual firm embrace. Instead, he held her as though she was fragile china, feeling the bones through her fleece and chastising himself for his neglect yet again. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. He used his thumbs to brush the hair gently off her forehead and kissed her there, keeping his lips pressed to her skin for as long as he dared with the nurse still looking.
Hearing the attendant’s shoes squeaking as she left the room, he moved his lips onto Hana’s, enjoying the familiar taste and feel of her. He drew her into him, trying hard not to hurt her against his body, but needing to show her how much he needed her. Logan breathed in the scent of her hair and the accustomed smell of her skin, centring himself and trying to regain some semblance of security, realising his nerves were frayed and jangling. The underlying scent of disinfectant and cleaning fluid ruined it.
Hana let him hold and kiss her, needing the physical contact. Her husband felt so strong and invincible, it gave her a needed sense of safety. Every incision or needle mark on her paper thin skin hurt, leaving a continuing ache which wore her out. “Where’s Phoe?” she asked. “I need to feed her.” Hana’s chest hitched at the unexpected relief of finding Logan alone and guilt made her tone rough.
“At home,” Logan’s voice was muffled through Hana’s hair. “It was too hard yesterday. Everything will be all right, but we need to be patient.”
“Yeah, it was hard. She waved her arms around, grabbing hold of anything within reach,” Hana acknowledged. It was exhausting, trying to feed the seven month old baby and keep the tiny hands away from the stitches, the drip wire and everything else of interest. In the end, Logan swaddled the baby in a blanket to pin her down and the little free spirit had not enjoyed the experience.
Hana sighed, laying her cheek against Logan’s chest. She slipped a hand up the back of his tee shirt and savoured the feel of his smooth skin under her palm. He smelled like he always did, of fresh hay and summer sunshine. It gave her comfort and peace which translated into a long relaxing exhale.
Logan misread it, stiffening in panic and dropping so he could catch his wife behind her knees and lift her bodily off the ground. His strong biceps tensed and her lightness terrified him. Hana stifled the groan which almost escaped as the stitches pulled in her chest. She snuggled her face into his soft neck. His hair tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze. “I want to go home, Logan,” she begged plaintively. “Please take me home?”
Logan spun on the spot, trying to find somewhere to put his wife down so he could talk sense into her. Finding nowhere instantly appealing, he plonked himself down in a comfy armchair and snuggled her into his lap. Hana resisted, as though taking part in a silent protest and Logan relaxed and drew her into him, savouring the normality of the embrace despite the distinctly abnormal surroundings. He stroked Hana’s hair and kissed the top of her head numerous times, his brain practicing sentences of negation.
“The doctor said I could go,” Hana persisted. “I’ve got a discharge notice with instructions and a prescription for pills. Please can I come with you?”
“I’m not sure,” her husband answered truthfully. “We’re a long way out if something goes wrong and it’s not the easiest place to land a chopper.”
Hana sat up and looked at him in dismay, betrayal in her green eyes. “You don’t want me to come home.” Anger and astonishment curled her upper lip in a pout. She shoved herself off his knees and stalked away, her slender back rigid and her ponytail swinging. “If you don’t have faith in me, then what’s left?”
Hana saw only personal rejection. She had accepted the discharge notice, convinced rest and familiar surroundings would aid her recuperation. The insurance company wanted her out, her room had been reallocated, and her few belongings were behind the nurses’ station. Now she had nowhere to go. Hana went to the immaculate bathroom half-way down the corridor, shut herself in and sat on the top of the toilet seat in tears. If Logan wouldn’t take her back to his hotel in the mountains, she would need to find an alternative destination. “Because I’m not staying here!” she sobbed.
Hana contemplated her options, which were limited. They included getting a taxi to her house in Ngaruawahia, or even back to the staff unit at the Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys where she lived during term time with her teacher-husband and baby. The major flaw in the plan centred on her heart attack and emergency airlift not including her purse or handbag. “I’ll call Tama then,” she chuntered stubbornly to the empty bathroom. “He’ll fetch me.” Her chest hurt with the realisation that if she dragged her nephew into the miserable situation; it had the potential to fracture his relationship with Logan and they would both blame her. Besides which, she couldn’t go anywhere without Phoenix.
Hana continued to run through her list of friends and possible rides out of the hospital, counting them off on her fingers. Her daughter, Izzie was in Invercargill at the opposite end of the country with her three young children, but her son was an hour and a half away in Hamilton. Their relationship was not the best, but he might be willing to drive up and get her if she begged him. “No house keys!” Hana wailed to herself, hearing her pathetic voice echoing back to her from the wall tiles.
“Mrs Du Rose, are you all right?” asked a soft voice through the door after the owner of it knocked gently. Hana recognised the nurse who cared for her over the last few days.
“I’m fine,” she sniffed, blowing her nose loudly and not wanting the nurse to open the door on her.
“Your husband’s here. He’s concerned about you. Could you please open the door?”
“No,” Hana said sullenly, blowing her nose again. “Tell him it’s fine, he can go. I’m organising a lift for myself. I need to find a way to get my daughter off him and then I’ll be sorted.”
Hana heard whispering outside the door and ignored it. She enjoyed the rare power self-pity fuelled for her after four days of being constantly under someone else’s control. She leaned sideways on the toilet seat and looked at her face in the mirror. “Ugh!” It was blotchy and pinched-looking with a smattering of tears on her drawn cheeks. She squeezed a few more out easily and looked again. She already felt like a geriatric and now she looked like a pathetic one as well. A sad geriatric whose husband won’t give me a ride home from hospital. Hana hiccoughed and the tears ran freely then at her pitiful situation. She tugged at the roll of toilet paper and the last three sheets detached themselves, leaving an empty cardboard cylinder dangling from the metal hook.
The whispering outside the door stopped and the handle turned and clicked. Hana watched as it opened slowly and Logan appeared in the doorway. She screwed her face up in exasperation; forgetting his ability to break in anywhere. “Get lost!” Exhaling crossly, Hana turned away, swivelling on the toilet seat and hearing the hinges emit a dreadful creak. The nurse looked in at her through the gap between Logan’s arm and the door, satisfying herself the patient hadn’t collapsed. Hana pressed the fragile squares of tissue against her eyes and tried to mop herself up, hearing the door click shut again. She wondered if her husband had gone away but couldn’t peek, as one of the tissue pieces had stuck to her eyelid.
Standing up, Hana felt for the sink, only able to see through one eye. The water was cold as she splashed it over her face and she spluttered as some of it went up her nose. A paper towel dispenser hung on the wall to her right and she reached out and snatched towels from it, rubbing the hard material over her face. When she looked at herself in the mirror again, she was pleasantly surprised to find the cold water had reduced the puffiness of her eyes and the frantic rubbing had given her cheeks colour. Her husband’s grey irises met her refection as he stood watching patiently for his wife to finish her ablutions. “I’m organising a lift,” she said facetiously at him. “You can go now.”
The livid scar underneath Logan’s right eye twitched slightly as Hana stared at its reflection in the mirror. It was back to front and looked wrong. Without removing his gaze, Logan leaned back against the smooth wall and put the sole of his boot against it, bending his knee and settling in for a long wait. Hana’s nerve began to leave her, knowing she would inevitably lose this game. She wanted to get out of her claustrophobic self-imposed prison, feeling trapped by the giant male blocking the doorway, his muscles bulging through the white tee shirt. Logan studied his wife with interest as he settled into a comfortable position. Stalemate. A tiny smirk lifted the corner of his lips and he folded his arms.
The battle of wills began and it was familiar and safe, re-establishing their dynamic as a couple. Hana’s fragility terrified her husband. He fell in love with a feisty redhead and very much wanted her back, regretting the foolish doubts he shared out loud. It was selfish and possibly a little cruel. He was ready to say sorry, but wasn’t sure if Hana was ready to hear it. She unnerved him and so he waited, treating her like a horse he was in the process of breaking, exercising his never-ending patience and inviting her to test his iron will for herself. Hana huffed and puffed and sat back down on the toilet seat, determined not to give him the satisfaction of beating her. Again. Deadlock.
The sound of shuffling made them both look round as an elderly man pushed the door open. Dressed in a fluffy green dressing gown, he walked with difficulty, pushing along a metal walking frame. He looked uncomfortable. “Oh, terribly sorry,” he said seeing Logan standing to the right of the door and Hana sitting on the toilet. “There’s a problem with my ensuite and the other one’s engaged.” He tried to turn his walking frame and almost toppled sideways, saved by Logan shooting out his strong forearm.
Hana rose from the toilet lid, her face laced with guilt and called after the retreating white hair, “It’s fine. I’m done here. You can have this one.”
Logan helped the old man shuffle through the toilet door, listing like a stricken tanker. “Thanks so much.” He looked grateful, “I don’t think I’d have made it.”
Hana bolted, hoping to escape the bathroom before her husband but wasn’t nearly quick enough. Clamping his big hands around her upper arms from behind, he pushed her in front of him towards a cupboard door on the opposite side of the corridor. Finding it unlocked, he forced her in one-handed and shut the door behind him. Hana opened her mouth to speak, the metal shelves digging into her back but Logan put a finger over her mouth to stop her. “Firstly, I never said you couldn’t come home. You jumped to conclusions. I have valid reasons for being worried, but I’ve talked to the doctor now and I’m fine about it. They’ve given me an emergency number to call and an advice line I can access if you get sick again.”
Logan leaned in close to Hana and placed his right hand against the shelving unit above her. He towered over her and she felt tiny in comparison, looking at his shirt buttons at close range to avoid the penetrating grey eyes reading her like an open book. One of the little buttons was coming adrift, its cotton threads protruding dangerously. They fluttered comically in her breath.
“So how do we play this?” Logan asked, sounding tired of Hana’s amateur dramatics. She shrugged like a sullen teenager and shook her head. “Will you stop being difficult and get in the car with me, or do I carry you out kicking and screaming?”
Hana smirked, relieved he hadn’t suggested leaving her there to fend for herself. She felt grateful it wasn’t even on the list of options. She hung her head and feigned contrition. Logan ran his fingers down her damp cheek and lifted her head to look at him. “What am I going to do with you?” he whispered, his voice laden with emotion. His mouth was warm and luscious against Hana’s dry lips and she drank in the kiss with enthusiasm. The wounds on her chest ached as the familiar feeling plummeted through her stomach, desire and lust reviving her tired body. She pushed her hands under his shirt and felt the solid muscles either side of his spine and the tautness of his body, wanting more. Clattering in the corridor disturbed them and Logan pulled away first, indicating the door with a jerk of his head. “Stop being an egg and get your nono in that car!”
Hana slipped out from under Logan’s arm and scooted, rattled by the loud beating of her heart in her ears. Logan stirred something latent within her and the new pacemaker responded, channelling the heightened blood flow caused by passion. Hana hoped it would be able to cope with the responses the beautiful Māori invoked, every time his feather light touch dusted her porcelain skin.