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“It’s genetic?”
“Yeah, does seem to be.”
“How do they manifest? An intense headache?”
“For me it starts with a blind spot, then an aura, like lots of sparkling triangles. About half an hour later the headache starts. Sometimes I push through it, but usually by the end of the day I’m no good to anyone.”
She leans her chin on a hand. “Does it make you sick?”
I scratch at a mark on the table. No girl has ever asked me about them before. If I ever commented to Cassie about having one, she just gave me a speech about how much women had to suffer every month and how lucky I was, so I learned to keep my mouth shut.
“Sometimes I get nauseous,” I admit slowly. “The worst thing is that my ears buzz and I have trouble processing sounds—conversations, traffic, it all gets jumbled. I come home here and there’s nothing but birdsong. It’s like heaven. I just lie on a floating lounger in the pool or on the sofa on the deck and half-meditate, half-doze.”
“So that’s how you get your tan,” she says. “I hope you put on sun lotion first.” She glances at my throat, exposed by the open shirt, then lifts her gaze to mine. Her smile is both mischievous and kind.
Ohhh… I’m going to have to be super careful here. Alex knows what he’s talking about when he says never to mix business with pleasure. There’s something about this girl that fires me up. I don’t know if it’s because everything about her is gorgeous, from her shiny brown hair to her painted toenails, or if it’s because we’ve been intimate, and my body remembers it and wants to recreate it and take it to the next step. But she’s out of bounds now. Any kind of relationship while she’s looking after Leia will be inappropriate and messy. Sex with Aroha would be amazing, no doubt, but in the cold light of day we’re two very different people, with different backgrounds and different lives. Leia has to come first—for now, anyway, until I get everything sorted.
I look down at my half-eaten dinner. It tasted great, but I have no appetite, my stomach already filled with a heavy stone of grief. My loss keeps hitting me like a gong being struck at regular intervals, reverberating through me. I forget briefly, and then I remember, and it’s like my heart has been shocked with a defibrillator. The disbelief is overwhelming. Maddie can’t be dead. It’s ridiculous. How can it possibly be true?
“Why don’t you go and sit outside while I clean up?” Aroha says.
“You don’t have to do that. You’re not my housekeeper.”
“I know.” She starts gathering up the plates. “You do have one though, right?”
“Yeah. Ginny. She’s in her thirties, and she’s nice, you’ll like her. She comes Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. If you need anything, just ask her and she’ll get it for you.” I stand and collect the placemats and take them to the kitchen. “Thank you so much for dinner. I’m sorry I didn’t do it justice.”
“You had a good half. That’s something.” She begins running the tap.
“I’ll wash.”
“James…”
I add some washing liquid to the bowl. I have a dishwasher, but it feels good to do something practical.
She doesn’t argue with me again. We stand beside one another while I wash and she dries up the plates and cutlery. Her phone is still playing Bic Runga. I can see Leia, playing with Pooh Bear in her carry seat. And there it is again—the fresh reminder that Maddie’s gone, hitting me like a tennis racket around the head. I stop scrubbing the frying pan and lean on the sink for a second, catching my breath.
Aroha puts a hand on my back for a moment and rubs between my shoulder blades. Then she continues drying the dishes.
When we first got home, I regretted asking Aroha here. I thought it would feel intrusive, and that I’d be glad when she withdrew to her room. Instead, I find her presence comforting. She’s so gentle and capable, with a little touch of sexy mischievousness that I find so appealing. She’s relaxed and not stressful at all. Emotion doesn’t bother her, which is a very new experience for me. Although she wears makeup, it’s light, and I can see she’s naturally beautiful. It’s like turning off strip lighting and opening the curtains to let the sunshine into a room.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” she says when we’ve finished the dishes. She disappears in the direction of her room.
I wipe across the kitchen counter, then drape the tea towel over the handle of the oven. Finally, I walk slowly across the living room to stand in front of Leia. She’s dozed off, her long dark lashes lying on her rosy cheeks.
I feel as if we’re two survivors of the Titanic, holding onto pieces of broken furniture, drifting in the cold sea and hoping someone will pull us out.
“I guess that makes me Jack,” I murmur to her. I think about the time Maddie and I recreated the scene with Rose and Jack at the bow of the ship when one of Dad’s friends took us out in his boat. We were nine, and Maddie stood in front of me, arms outstretched, while I stood behind her, the wind blowing in our faces.
It was the same trip when Maddie slipped while trying to climb around the side of the boat and she nearly fell in. Dad yelled at her and told her she’d spend the rest of the trip in the cabin. I went and sat with her, because it didn’t seem fair that she was confined when I wasn’t. That incident summarizes our relationship with our father—the two of us drawn together by our mutual hatred of him.
And now she’s left me to fight that battle alone. Thanks, Mads.
I think back to when I called my father earlier in the day, at the office.
“The police have just contacted me,” he stated. “They said they’ve found Maddie’s body.”
“Yeah, they’re here now.”
