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“All right,” she says. She goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
I choose a couple of miniatures from the minibar, pour them over ice in two tumblers, and add a splash of water. Then I stand there, my hands on the counter, and glance around the room.
We’re practically strangers, and she’s been assaulted in the past. I’m expecting her to stay in a room with me, and now I’m plying her with alcohol. Jesus. Could I be any more insensitive?
She comes out of the bathroom, looks around the room to find me, then walks over to the kitchen. She glances at my face and asks, “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I give a short, humorless laugh. “I was just thinking how insensitive it was to offer you alcohol when you’re alone in a room with a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger,” she says, amused. “You might be a strange man, but you’re not a stranger.”
I can’t smile, too upset at everything she’s told me tonight, and I’m angry with myself. “You know I didn’t offer you a drink because I expect… I mean because I thought it might…” I trail off, furious at my apparent callowness.
“James,” she says softly, “I know.”
“It’s just… I can’t bear to think… of you being…” My hands clench into fists on the counter.
I half-expect her to get cross and tell me to stop making it about me. To ask if she can have another room. Or to demand I stop talking about it.
To my surprise, she does none of those things; instead, she walks around the counter and comes up to me. As I straighten and face her, she slides her arms around me and rests her cheek on my shoulder.
“You’re such a nice man,” she murmurs.
I give a choked laugh and bring my arms up around her. Gently, half afraid to hold her. “I’m really not.”
“You are. You’re gentle and kind and sensitive. I trust you.”
It’s possibly the nicest thing she could have said to me. “Thank you,” I whisper, my voice almost a squeak.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” she says, a little puzzled. “I don’t know why I did.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I don’t want you to look at me differently.”
“I do, but not in the way I think you mean. You’re brave and courageous. I have nothing but admiration for you for picking yourself up and getting on with your life and making such a success of it.”
She snorts. “I didn’t even have a job until you gave me one.”
“That was unfortunate, and it wasn’t your fault. You qualified in childcare, and when COVID took that away, you changed tracks and found work in the beauty salon. When that closed, you came to work for me, and now you’ve married me to help me out, even though you know it’s going to upset your parents if and when it comes to an end. You were ready to do anything for your family, and for Leia. I have nothing but admiration for you.”
She sighs. “You always make me feel worthy. I don’t know how you do that.”
“Because you are. You’re very special, Aroha.”
We stand there like that, our arms around each other, for a while. Without her high heels, she feels small and fragile. I rest my lips on the top of her head and inhale—her hair smells of mint.
Eventually, she releases me, and I lower my arms. I push the whisky glass over to her. “Come on, let’s sit down.”
As we return to our seats, I say, “Do you want me to put a lamp on?”
“No,” she says. “The moon is just gorgeous.”
The sun has now set, and the moon is close to being full and hangs in the sky like a Christmas bauble someone’s forgotten to take down on Twelfth Night. It fills the room with a silvery glow.
“It’s strange,” I say, sitting back down, “but I realize how little I know about you. We haven’t really talked like this, have we?”
“I suppose not.”
