“Eat up, son. We’ll go home after dinner,” Bodie told Jas as the child faced a sumptuous dinner in the guest dining room. Jas felt like a prince with his grown up chair and his china cup and saucer. Bodie engaged Logan in a conversation about the beef herd which roamed the mountain, feigning interest as his stepfather talked statistics, a twinkle in his grey eyes as he made it deliberately boring.
“Everything ok, Jas?” Hana asked her grandson quietly, noticing the sad set of his lips.
“I miss my kindergarten dreadfully,” he replied and her brow creased at the sorrow in his voice.”
“Eat your dinner, Jas,” Bodie interrupted, drawing breath before attempting to reroute Logan onto politics. Jas sighed and tucked into his food.
“I hate school. Everyone at kindy loved my stories about Poppa Logan and all the wonderful things my family got up to. At big school, nobody cares.”
“I suppose it’s a different environment so you can’t expect it to be the same,” Hana soothed. She glanced sideways at her son, his voice jovial but raised as he provoked Logan with a political viewpoint which penalised entrepreneurialism and farmers. She sighed, hoping it didn’t end badly.
“Every Monday they do ‘show and tell’ on the carpet,” Jas whispered. “But I haven’t been picked for weeks now, not since I listed all Daddy’s favourite swear words in alphabetical order. He said all of them when he was trying to fix the shower.” Hana bit her lip and swallowed.
“You listed all of them?”
Jas smiled with pride in his eyes. “Yep. I thought Mrs Whatsit would be impressed with me, being able to sort out all my letters and phonics so well. But she told me off and now won’t pick me. And nobody wants to know about my special army members either.” He pouted, mirroring his father’s sulky gene. Hana popped a carrot in her mouth, playing a game which stopped Logan worrying about her but avoided indigestion at the same time. Jas watched her chew and continued with his whispered rant. “When the babies are all bigger and can do a proper karate chop, the doubters will be sorry! I just need to stop Elizabeth smiling such a lot. She has to have a mean face to be a war hero. She’s way too smiley!” Jas sighed as he thought about school – it gave him a pain in his tummy and Hana watched in concern as he rubbed at a spot near his belly button.
“Tell me about your teacher,” she whispered across the table and saw her grandson’s pupils dilate. His lips turned downwards. “She hates me,” he said in a small voice. “Mummy collected me in the police car to do showings off but it didn’t work. She put the sirens on because my girlfriends used to squeal and giggle but now the girls won’t talk to me because it woke Jacinder’s baby sister up in the pram. So Mrs Whatsit complained to the principal and now Mummy has to leave the police car outside the gates.”
“That’s a shame.” Hana stopped pushing her food around the plate and watched the child’s face move through shades of sadness. He popped a pea in his mouth and swilled it around with his tongue.
“Action Man’s not allowed at school anymore either. He’s banned, since the time his bungee rope got caught on the bully boy’s shorts pocket. The bully boy pulled and pulled so hard Action Man came out my hand and slam dunked the boy real good on the floor. He got a panda-eye and Mummy got a phone call.”
“What are you talking about champ?” Bodie asked his son, breaking into the conversation.
“Nothing,” the little boy replied, pushing his mashed potato piles around his plate. “I love how perfectly round these are, like Waihopai Station’s spy domes before the men popped them and got on the news.” He pressed his fork into one of them, making it look like a deflated balloon on his plate. Hana watched as he set about hiding his broccoli underneath.
Bodie went back to wasting his time trying to rile Logan. The intelligent Māori played the game, allowing himself to be taken through every controversial topic available, politics, religion, gay marriage. He let Bodie lead, finding out more about what was in the young man’s heart than if he argued with him. Hana shook her head slightly as she caught Logan’s eye and he grinned at her.
Jas looked up and found Logan looking at him. He bit his lip as his favourite person in the whole wide world smiled and winked at him. Hana saw tears well into the boy’s eyes and it caused a lump in her chest as Logan’s obvious affection touched something in the child’s heart.
“What can we do to help?” Hana asked, keeping her voice low so Bodie couldn’t hear. “Do you want me to speak to your teacher? What’s her proper name?”
“No!” Jas whined. “I don’t know her name. It’s foreign and I can’t say it. It sounds like Whatsit but it’s not and she gets angry when I call her that.”
“I’ll just keep praying for you then,” Hana said softly. “God’s bigger than Mrs Whatsit and the bully boy.”
“Ok, but don’t let Poppa go and see her either. Promise?” Hana nodded and Jas seemed satisfied. “Things are difficult enough at home anyway with Mummy throwing up all the time and Daddy trying to fix the house to sell and breaking more things that he mends.” Jas sounded like his mother and Hana fought the smile which budded on her lips, as Amy’s exact words were repeated out loud.
A random, unprocessed thought wandered unbidden into the boy’s head and as he hid a piece of broccoli cunningly under the mashed potato, he voiced it, a little too loudly. “What’s sex?”
Bodie stopped with his fork half-way to his mouth and cringed, his olive colour rising to an embarrassed flush. Hana looked at the little boy with her brow furrowed and Logan let out a snort, which he quickly disguised as a cough. When Jas didn’t get an immediate answer, he repeated it a bit louder in case the adults hadn’t understood, following the misapprehension that older people were also deaf. “What’s sex?”
This time a few of the guests turned towards their table, their curiosity piqued. Bodie’s cheeks flamed and he shifted in discomfort, looking hopefully at his mother. As Jas rolled his eyes and opened his mouth wider, aiming to project his voice even more, Hana stepped in, asking in a calm voice, “What sort of sex, darling? Why are you asking?”
Bodie choked on a potato and held his serviette up to his face. Logan bit his lip and observed the scene with amusement. Jas wrinkled his nose and gave an exaggerated sigh which proclaimed his view that all adults were not only hard of hearing, but thick too. “Wer-lij-us-sex,” he lisped and the grownups looked at each other, bemused. It wasn’t a good idea to ask for a repeat of the words as the volume was already attracting interest from surrounding tables.
Bodie’s brown eyes were wide in his face and he shot a frightened look at Hana, who shrugged and pursed her lips. She opened her mouth to diplomatically suggest they talk about it later, when she felt the slight shuddering of the table. Looking down at the jiggling cutlery, she glanced across at her husband in alarm, only to find it wasn’t an earthquake but Logan, causing the movement. His elbows rested on the tablecloth next to her, his cutlery collected into one hand. The other was rubbing at his eyes and he looked distressed. “Logan, are you crying?”
Hana peered at him, hearing the huge breaths he took, causing his body to lurch. Bodie had stopped eating and watched as a tear ran down Logan’s cheek and plopped onto the table. The Māori groaned a couple of times as though in pain and Hana grabbed his arm. “Logan?”
Jas pressed the potato over the broccoli, feeling annoyed as the green stuff poked through. He patted the growing mess softly with his fork and glanced up as his poppa dabbed his eyes with a napkin. His father and grandmother were both staring at Logan in confusion.
“Oh...” Logan groaned and looked up, his face a mask of pain. He rubbed at the scar from his spleen operation and sniffed. “That boy’s killing me.” Catching sight of Bodie’s perplexed face, he dissolved again.
“What?” Hana asked, growing increasingly annoyed. Logan made several attempts to tell them, but even the thought of whatever it was rendered him incapable. Hana tutted, frustrated.
“What is it then?” Jas piped up, having created a dodgy green and white potato dome which he seemed reasonably pleased with. “You know what?” he mused. “If the Waihopai domes were camouflaged with broccoli bits on them, nobody would have spotted them in the first place.”
Logan gave a curious little whimper and struggled to keep the piece of roast pumpkin in his mouth, having only just dared put it there. As Jas opened his little mouth again to repeat the word causing him such trouble, Logan raised his hand and managed to keep it together enough to answer his step-grandson. He swallowed with a valiant effort but his voice still wobbled. “It’s a group of people who get together with a common belief. They all think the same thing. You’re talking about a religious sect, where people with the same faith group together. But there are political ones and other sorts as well. It’s ‘s-e-c-t’ which is the root word for ‘section’ and other words like it. You have to say the ‘c’ and ‘t’ sound, mate, otherwise it...comes out as something else.”
Logan snorted again as Jas made a humphing sound and waved his fork. A blob of speckled green mash shot backwards and hit the wall next to his father. “Time to go, I think.” Bodie placed his cutlery on his plate, humiliation colouring his face up to his hairline. Hana bit her lip, realising her son’s need to best her husband was never going to be fulfilled.
“But I wanna stay here with Hanny!” Jas dragged his feet in the car park, being awkward and difficult for Bodie who seemed to have even less patience than usual.
“Na, come on, mate. Do what your old man says.” Logan hefted the boy onto his shoulders and walked him over to the Honda, Jas balancing with a giggle as Logan bent and reached into the glove box. The little boy’s face lit up, first with amazement and then delight.
“Oh, my goodness! That’s wicked!” Jas sat on his booster seat in the front of his father’s BMW and balanced the chocolate snail on his palm. “Poppa taught me to say ‘escargot’ with a proper French accent. I liked France. They’ve got the Foreign Legion and everything. I love Poppa Logan. I love the French.” He prattled on as Bodie started the car and the young man rolled his eyes, feeling the betrayal of his son in preference for Logan’s keenly. “I might join the Legion if school gets any worse,” Jas mused, but Bodie made the mistake of ignoring him as he waved to Hana and Logan.
“Poor little guy,” Hana said with feeling as she waved back. Logan slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of Phoenix’s fluffy little head as he nodded in agreement.
“It sucks aye? He told me what was wrong on the way up to the bunkhouse. He’s not settling at school but he wouldn’t let me talk to Bodie about it.”
“I offered to go into school, but he almost blew his stack at that suggestion,” Hana said, turning to go back into the hotel.
“When they buy Culver’s Cottage, won’t he transfer to Ngaruawahia or Te Kowhai; somewhere more local?”
Hana shrugged, guilt settling over her pretty freckles. “You mean when they sell theirs and when I finally get around to having Culver’s Cottage valued.”
Logan squeezed her against his strong torso. “Stop punishing yourself, woman. It’s not like we’ve had nothing else going on is it?”
Hana nodded and sighed. “Yeah, you’re right, as always. When we discussed him buying the house a few days before the school holidays began, I didn’t plan on heart surgery. It did kinda put it out of my mind.” Hana looked at the gravel, engrossing herself with the way the light caught the tiny stones, not wanting to hear platitudes. She should have known better than.
“Hey, don’t try and hide from me.” Logan’s voice was low and seductive as he used his index finger to pull Hana’s chin upwards. His grey eyes were kind. “I’m a ‘fixer’ babe, a problem solver, not someone who meets problems with kind but unhelpful niceties. I told him he could show a valuer round while we’re away, to get the ball rolling. I’ll do the next one when we get back and then I’ll ask Angus to recommend another one to keep it fair.”
Hana looked confused. “But he left his key behind, that time when he was angry at me.”
Logan shook his head. “I sent it back with Jas a few weeks ago; that time I looked after him at work and...”
“And Jas told you his father called you ‘the spare’...” Hana trailed off. “I despair of my son sometimes. Of all the idiots I could have married over the years and he reacts to someone as perfect as you.”
The look of pain in Logan’s face was genuine at the reminder of Bodie’s cruel term for him. Hana regretted her tactless mention of something so unkind but saw his eyes regain their light as he registered she just called him ‘perfect’.
A dirty Nissan utility vehicle pulled up in front of them with a roar as they reached the hotel steps and Logan smiled at the driver. The friendly kaumātua from the marae bounced out, jolly as always. “Kia ora, Logan.” The timbre of his voice seemed to resonate with a sense of safety, causing a gentle rumble in Hana’s stomach. He embraced Logan and they pressed noses in a hongi, staring into each other’s eyes.
“Aumihi kaumātua,” Logan replied, his eyes warm but his head slightly bowed in deference to the other man’s status as an elder.
“Ah, here she is, our mākoha kuikui.”The portly Māori man repeated his greeting with Hana and she obliged, her brow knitted showing her confusion at the words he used over her. She looked across at Logan and he smiled, offering reassurance.
As the elderly man pressed noses with her mother, Phoenix made a swipe at a large piece of jade dangling within temptation. Unfazed he laughed and kissed her on her tiny cheek, releasing his precious taonga from her clenched fist. “You got good taste, little one,” he told the baby, lifting her out of Hana’s arms. “You will have your own treasures to cherish one day.” Phoenix went willingly and settled on his hip, staring at the ta moko tattoos on his face as though understanding them. The intricate design identifying the man’s cultural identity began on his chin, occupying the area where men often grew goatee beards. It was completed in black ink, swirls and curls weaving their way across his brown skin. They began again on either cheek, similar in design and yet subtly different. It may have looked intimidating on another, but this man was full of life and laughter and his tattoo fitted his personality as though he was born with it.
He was a marae elder, recognised for his mana and influence and Hana found herself smiling in response to his easy presence. She recalled their first meeting after the fire which killed Logan’s birth parents, when he cleansed the area from a spirit of death. Their second meeting was at Reuben and Miriam’s funeral or tangihanga and it made a nice change not to associate his visit with disaster. Hana smiled as the old man bounced her baby on his hip and persuaded a giggle from her serious lips. “Would you like some tea or something to eat?” Hana asked, her English politeness rousing a smile to Logan’s lips.
“No, no. Just a flying visit kōtiro,” he said, using the term of endearment in his answer. “My waahine will have my dinner waiting.” His face softened at the mention of his wife and Hana smiled, liking him even more.
In his late eighties and a decade older than Alfred Du Rose, the kaumātua was sprightlier. He handed Phoenix back to Hana and beckoned to Logan to follow him round to the back of the truck. “Before I open this door,” he said with an air of mystery, “I’ve been keeping these boxes for many many years, at the request of Phoenix Du Rose.” He inclined his head majestically towards the baby, acknowledging her namesake. “She gave it into the safekeeping of my whānau, when the Du Roses divided the land. The instruction was to return it at the moment the whenua was restored to the family as one complete lot – the same as in the beginning. I have heard the time is now.”
Logan’s brow knitted in confusion and a flash of irritation lit his grey eyes. “Nobody knows about this.” He ran a scarred hand through his dark hair, leaving it tousled and unkempt. “We haven’t shaken on it. Neville, my wife and I have discussed it but...”
The kaumātua raised his hand and mana oozed from him in such an awesome sense of power, Hana felt lightheaded. He was so regal and authoritative even Logan deferred to his greater wisdom. “If youse have spoken, then it will be so,” he said, as though it was a certainty. He flicked the rusty catch on the back door of the truck and flung it open.
Hana tried to contain her disappointment as she peered into the space, leaning to see past her curious child’s wavy head. All she saw was a half dozen cardboard boxes stacked inside, some looking as though they had been attacked by damp and lost the fight. The cardboard was stained a darker colour at the bottom of many of them and warped. Logan shook his head in confusion. “What is it?”
The old man clapped his hands. “I will return when you have had time to go through the contents and appraise what’s there. Phoenix Du Rose was clear with her instructions that the taonga were to be returned. To you, Logan. And only you,” the old man said.
“Taonga,” Hana breathed reverently, finally understanding. “You mean these are family treasures?”
The kaumātua smiled and nodded at her, his eyes twinkling at her obvious awe. The baby pointed an index finger at the boxes and babbled something unintelligible as her daddy stood and surveyed what looked like the remains of a garage sale. “Come, come,” said the old man and shoved at Logan’s inert body. “I do not want my hoa waahine to feed my dinner to the dogs three nights in a row! Let’s get these out of here.”
He leaned in and shouldered the first box as though it contained nothing but air, shifting it onto the steps with care and respect before reaching in for the next one. Logan galvanised himself and retrieved the boxes nearer the seats, lifting them down to sit by the others. With a hug and a wave, the elderly man was gone, spitting up gravel behind his huge car wheels. Logan stared down at the boxes on the ground and groaned.
“Will there be some sort of handing-over-ceremony?” Hana asked.
Her husband shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe that was it,” he said, tiredness leaking into his voice.
“This is really exciting! Family treasures, how wonderful.” Hana hugged her daughter, her eyes dancing with purpose. “Don’t worry,” she said, rubbing Logan’s upper arm. “I’ll help you go through it. I can’t wait to see what it is. I hope it’s not just old bits of chipped china your grandmother was fond of though. That’ll be disappointing.”
“It’s not,” Logan said, with a little too much certainty. “I think I know what it is and it’s nothing but a few boxes full of māreherehe.”
“What does that mean?” Hana asked, fingering a corner of the nearest cardboard box.
“Trouble!” Logan ran his hands through his hair. “Roke paroro.” He left Hana standing by the boxes while he went to fetch some manpower.
“I don’t think I want that last bit translated,” Hana told her daughter. “I know the last word means storm and the first one is a swear word. I think I can guess what he means.”
Phoenix sucked her fingers and burbled nonsense in reply. Logan wasn’t long, returning with the new stable hand and one of the stockmen on his heels. Between them they manhandled the boxes into the lift and upstairs to the first floor. By the time Hana climbed the spiral staircase with her baby clutched in her arms, they were hauling the last box down the corridor into her bedroom.
“Hello, Rawhiti,” Hana said pleasantly to the young man as he passed. He nodded and returned her greeting, escaping after the stockman into the lift but looking eager to escape conversation. Hana accosted her husband on the threshold of their bedroom.
“I hope Rawhiti didn’t get into trouble the other day,” she said. “I told him I was allowed to take Sacha. It wasn’t his fault.”
“I never said anything to him about it,” Logan seemed distracted as he stood over the boxes. “I don’t know if Jack did.”
“I hope not,” Hana said with sincerity. “Will you check?”
“No,” Logan responded, his tone short. “I don’t employ good managers and then quiz them on how they do their job. Nor should you.”
Hana plopped down on the bed in their room, feeling chastened. She let Phoenix wriggle out of her arms and crawl on the duvet cover. It was too slippery and silky and she couldn’t go anywhere. Hana lay down next to her and watched as she rocked backwards and forwards on her hands and knees, not sure what to do with her hands once she got the motion going. Hana giggled as she rocked forwards, moved one hand and then collapsed onto her face. Unperturbed, Phoenix showed no signs of despondency. “Very shortly, something’s going to click and she’ll be off,” Hana said, watching her daughter with pride. “Then we’ll find out what trouble really means.”
Phoenix could almost taste success, her face beaming as she chatted to herself in excited baby burble.
Logan quit staring at the outside of the boxes and lay down on the bed next to his wife. “Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t lecture you.”
Hana reached over and touched his cheek, feeling the stubble pushing its way through his skin. His colouring was so dark on his pale olive face, his five-o’clock-shadow began right after he finished his morning shave. She pushed her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down towards her for a kiss. His lips were soft on hers and she loved the feel of his beard growth on her chin.
With a gasp, Logan lurched across her body with his left arm and Hana took a sharp intake of breath from the shock. “Sorry, sorry!” he exclaimed, seeing her reaction. When Hana looked to her right, she saw he gripped her daughter’s ankle in his hand and she wriggled and squealed. Logan smiled down into Hana’s surprised emerald eyes. “I suddenly saw her out the corner of my eye and she was off and going for it. I could imagine her crawling right off the end of the bed.”
Hana looked up at her husband while he leaned across her, wrestling with his daughter who wiggled and protested, keen to give it another go. “S’up?” he asked, staring down at her, confused by the offended look on her face.
“Do you kiss me with your eyes open?” she asked and Logan laughed.
“Not telling,” he said, leaning down and biting her neck. The moment was destroyed as Phoenix managed to leave Logan holding her sock and bootie, making her sortie on the little runway that stretched out invitingly before her. “Come back here!” Logan ran round Hana and launched himself at his daughter’s legs, just as she reached the other side of the bed at an impressive crawl speed. He caught both her feet and hauled her back to the start.
“That’s mean,” Hana said, her voice sounding lazy. “It’s like putting a snail at the bottom of the wall to start again.”
But the child had learned something new and was insatiable. In the end, Logan put her on the floor. Phoenix amused herself by touring the bedroom, picking up things that were formerly inaccessible like shoes and bags and fluff and bits of whatever she could get her hands on. Hana sighed having done this part before and remembering the exhaustion of it.
But Logan hadn’t and it was all wonderfully new and exciting to him. He crawled around behind her, giving chase while Phoenix belly laughed and fatigued herself, finally throwing up her lunch on the wooden rimu floorboards. She sat up, a look of distaste on her pretty face, but as she pushed herself up onto her ample nappy-clad bottom, she pitched over backwards and landed with her head safely in Logan’s outstretched hand. “You need to get better at that bit,” he told the indignant face staring up at him. “First lesson in any use of forward motion, is how to stop!”
Logan took his daughter off to the bathroom for a face wash. He returned carrying her on his hip and she wore only a little vest on top. “The All-Whites have been christened,” he announced. “With sick.”
“The All-Whites are no longer all white,” Hana said poetically. The boxes caught her eye and she sat up. “Do you have to open these as head of the family because they’re a taonga, or can I?” she asked, curious about the contents.
Logan looked nervous, his eyes darting towards the troublesome containers. “I’m not the head of any family, not Reuben’s and definitely not Alfred’s. I don’t understand why Kuia Phoenix left them to me. And actually, I don’t know if I want to open them at all!”
Hana heard the irritation in his voice. He registered the confusion on her face relented. “Look, she told me about all this stuff, many times. I just forgot until today, is all. She kept saying she’d put the family treasures safe and one day when I built the new house, I’d be able to get them back.”
“So what’s the problem?” Hana asked, pulling a face. “She obviously wanted you to have them enough to hide them elsewhere.”
“Nev’s not signed anything!” Logan said. “He’s agreed in principal but that’s all. The surveyors will go through the property tomorrow, but there’re no guarantees he’ll accept. His son is absolutely set against it.”
Phoenix cuddled into her father as though cold, pushing her little hands and arms in front of her and resting her cheek on his shoulder. Instinctively he snuggled her in tighter and she shut her eyes.
“So what will you do with it all?” Hana asked, spreading her hands at the huge mess on the bedroom floor. “I don’t want to fall over them in the night.”
“Hopefully it’ll all be finalised soon. Then maybe I’ll know what to do with it.” Logan turned away from the mess of cardboard and Hana got the feeling the discussion was over.
Logan gave his daughter a bath in the sink and changed her nappy. She was exhausted from all the crawling, but it didn’t stop her trying to flip over onto her front while he was doing up the poppers on her sleep suit and making a swift getaway. Logan laid her firmly on her back again and wagged his finger at her. “No, Phoe! I’ve seen parents chasing their kids around and it ain’t happening. My daughter’s gonna do as she’s told.”
Phoenix put her bottom lip out in protest, hearing the authority in his voice. She stared hard at her daddy, watching his deft fingers and the concentration on his face. She studied him carefully, her little brain drinking in information the whole time. By the time the poppers were closed she had moved on mentally and seemed surprised her own bottom lip was still inside out as she tried to smile. He laughed at her and said something in Māori before kissing her on the nose.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Hana said, still curled up on the bed. “What did the elder call me before? I didn’t know the words.”
Logan bit his lip and viewed his wife sideways. His fringe hung in his eyes giving him a sexy, pin-up look and Hana felt desire stir in the pit of her stomach. “Please?” she asked, persisting.
“Ok, he called you the gentle matriarch,” he said softly.
“Oh.” Hana pulled a face. “That makes me sound really old and infirm.” Disappointment stamped across her face in work boots and she felt cross.
“It’s a compliment actually,” Logan corrected. “You’re the mistress of this place and I’m real happy he said out loud something I’ve known my whole life.” He left the baby with Hana and went to clear up the bathroom, leaving her feeling stunned by his words and knowing she’d failed to grasp something important once again.
Feeling the cold, Hana changed into her pyjamas and slipped into bed. She turned the electric blanket on its highest setting, even though sitting on it made the bed into a fire hazard. Logan brushed Phoenix’s fluffy hair up into a quiff and then handed her over for a feed. Hana half expected a battle but she fed quickly and easily, falling asleep on the breast and snoring. Hana shuffled down the bed, laying the little girl on her chest and covering her with the duvet. Logan switched the telly on for her and began fiddling around with the boxes, moving them next door into his sister’s old room. “Liza hasn’t been home for months,” he said, almost to himself. “And these are making me nervous sitting here.”
“What about if Tama wants to stay in there?” Hana yawned. “Now he’s back from playing the sober driver for his out of control mates.”
“He’s sleeping at the bunkhouse,” Logan replied. “It’ll be fine.”
Inside Liza’s room, Logan piled them up neatly in the corner, leaving the worst water damaged one by itself. Then he stood over them, worrying at his thumbnail and remembering his grandmother. “What did you do to me?” he whispered to her essence. “This isn’t my problem.” Pushing the last box through the bedroom door, he spotted a figure standing in the wide hallway watching. Alfred was transfixed at the sight of the battered box moving slowly across the wooden floorboards. He recognised it of old and his heart went still in his breast.
“What is that?” he hissed, his face aghast as he strode towards Logan. “Where did they come from?”
“Arama delivered them earlier.” Logan kept his voice impassive. “Kuia Phoenix left them for me.”
“No. No!” Alfred’s grey eyes bugged and his face flushed. “Reuben took them out of spite, I know he did!”
Logan shook his head. “No, Dad. Arama’s father kept them as part of the agreement with her.”
Logan’s use of the term Dad, made Alfred take a step back. “I’m not your father,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes filled with pain. He pointed a gnarled finger at the stack of boxes. “Reuben took them. We fought the same day I went to see him to tell him to stay away from you. He bloodied my nose and weakened my mana and then he bedded my wife again and again just to prove it!” Spit issued from Alfred’s lips and Logan took a step back, horror making his eyes dark.
“This is not my fight,” he whispered. “It never was.”
Alfred shook his head and raised his voice. “Reuben was his usual arrogant self. He refused to stop giving you the guitar lessons she took you to. ‘He’s my son,” he shouted at me. I told him, ‘You never had any rights to him, not when you bedded my wife and definitely not now. He calls me father, not you.’ He cried like a baby!” Hysteria seemed to embrace the old man, straightening out his bent spine and bringing insanity into his grey eyes. “He cried like a baby. ‘They’re just guitar lessons,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told him who I am. I’m begging you. Please don’t take this from me.’ He told me he didn’t have the taonga but I knew he was lying, just like he always lied.” Alfred balled up his fists in fury, dribble coating his chin in a white film. “Him and that kairau!”
Logan’s eyes flared at the use of the derogatory term and he swallowed. His voice was low and menacing. “Don’t call my mother that!”
Alfred waved his arm at Logan. “It’s what she was!”
Logan stared at the old man, hardly recognising him as the loving father of forty one years. The question was out before he could stop himself. “Why didn’t you let him teach me?”
“Because you were mine!” Alfred snarled, drawing his lips back from his gums like a wild animal.
“But not now?” Logan’s eyes bored into the old man’s, grey on grey. “Now there’s no challenge involved, you don’t want me anymore?”
Alfred looked sick, his breath coming in short huffs. His eyes cast about the offensive boxes with a wild quality and he refused to meet Logan’s gaze. “Get them out of here!” he snapped, rubbing his hand across his mouth.
“No!” Logan’s voice held authority and his eyes were hard like pools of ice. “This is my property, my land and my house.” He took a step forward, his body stiff and unyielding. “The only thing that no longer belongs here, is you!”
Alfred’s lips parted in surprise and his eyes lost their fire. His body softened and realising his error, he took a step towards Logan. “Get out!” the younger man hissed. “Get out of my face and out of my life.”
The awful forty-one year old mystery unravelled more of its bile for Logan and he stayed in Liza’s room, reaching for an inner calm that wouldn’t come. Despite her seven month absence from the hotel, Liza’s expensive perfume still lingered in the air. Logan conjured up an image of his sister in her judge’s robes. She was formidable and feared in legal circles, the kind of judge barristers cringed before, but Logan was one of the few people who knew the other side of her. He had seen the tearful, vulnerable woman abused by a psychotic husband, needing her brother to dig her out the awful, spiralling mess. Logan sighed. For forty-one years she was his big sister, cruelly relegated to half-sister by a painful revelation. Logan balled his fists, knowing she had always known. He pressed his toe against one of the boxes, hearing glass moving around inside and sounding broken. “Yeah,” Logan whispered to the empty room. “As broken as me, Michael and Liza. Thanks for the reminder.”
Back in the bedroom, Logan found his wife fast asleep on her back and the baby snoring on her chest. He peeled the child off and laid her gently in the travel cot, covering her up with blankets. Hana looked pink and overheated and becoming worried, he laid a cool hand on her head. She was burning up and he panicked until he noticed the red light peeking out from under the valence. “Bloody hell, Hana!” he tutted and turned the electric blanket off. “Hasn’t this family had enough of fire?”
His wife sighed in her sleep and turned onto her side. Logan stripped off to his boxers and got into the red hot bed, kicking the blankets off and pressing the light switch above his head. The room plunged into darkness apart from the television’s flickering light, until Logan cancelled that too. He fell asleep, lulled by the rhythmic steady breathing of his wife and the gentle snores of his daughter.
Logan woke with a start, his heart pounding as he struggled out of sleep, aware something was wrong. He put his feet on the floorboards and was instantly awake, a skill honed from years of dangerous living. The noise which woke him came again and he moved quickly across the room, tracing its source until he found it.
“What’s all this crap?” Liza rounded on him as she tripped over another of the boxes abandoned in her bedroom. She looked fraught and upset, more rattled than usual. Logan leaned against the door frame and rubbed his hand over his face. His state of undress seemed to irritate her even more and she glanced at his shorts and waved her hand towards him. “Put some damn clothes on, Loge! I don’t need to look at your bloody, mangled body!”
Logan’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, thought nothing came out. It was a cruel thing to say. Already self-conscious of his scars, her verbal attack was unexpected and hurt filled his grey eyes. He took his foot off the doorframe where it rested, stood up straight and left.
He went back to his girls and shut the door quietly. He didn’t hear the whispered ‘sorry’ as his sister realised her mistake and he deliberately ignored her quiet knock on his door a few minutes later.
Much to his surprise, Logan dropped off to sleep again, snuggling up to Hana as the bed grew colder. Hana grunted and turned into his body, taking the pressure off her surgery wounds and pressing her face into his downy skin. When Logan woke in the morning she was cuddled tightly into his side with her head in his chest. Love seemed to surround him like a protective shield and he lifted up her nightshirt with gentle, roving fingers and sought to ground himself in what really mattered.