I sat on the bed and confessed. “Because I haven’t been sure you liked me.”
She sat down herself and said, “I always liked you. And I also thought you’d break Gray’s heart.”
“Oh,” I said, then couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Course,” she went on, “that was pretty silly of me. He’s got a strong heart. Stronger than I realized, maybe. Exactly like the rest of him. Reckon he can take care of himself. That’s mums, though. Worrying, eh.”
I said, “I’m too much work. I do realize that. I’ve got so much baggage, I could open my own luggage shop. And I’m not even talking about my sisters.”
She said, “Good thing Gray’s used to hard work, then. How’s he doing so far?”
“Amazing,” I said. “He’s doing … amazing.”
“He’s got baggage of his own as well,” she said. “You may want to think about that.”
“I know,” I said. “Head knocks. TBIs. I know what that means.”
“Reckon you do,” she said. “Makes you want to cut and run, does it?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not. He’s wonderful. You’re his mum. You must know he’s wonderful. Besides, I’m a nurse.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You are. And I’m thinking that if I told you to leave him alone, you’d answer about the same as he would if I tried to tell him. You’d both tell me to bugger off and mind my own business, and I’d never see my grandchildren. May as well make the best of it.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or … something else. I said, “We’re not … we haven’t … we’ve known each other hardly any time at all.”
“Oh?” she said. “That how it feels, then?”
“No,” I admitted. “It feels … I can’t even tell you how.” Like forever, I wanted to say, and didn’t dare even think it.
“I know how,” she said. “I met his dad when I was seventeen and he was twenty-four. He wasn’t much to write home about, you may think. Too old for me, no more education than I had myself, rough as guts, and taking me all the way to Wanaka. All the way from Auckland, and that journey was a different story then. The Mainland was the back of beyond, nothing but sheep and mountains, and Pakeha as you like, not an Islander to be seen. And I wouldn’t have listened to anybody who’d tried to warn me about any of that. I stayed where I was even after he died, because he was there in the mountains, and I didn’t want to lose him. Every sunrise and every sunset, he was there. He still is. Talking too loud. Laughing too hard. Loving me with everything in him. He’d pick me up off the ground every day when he came home from work, spin me around, and kiss me like I was the very best thing in his day. No man had ever picked me up before, I’ll tell you.”
I said, “He died when you were pregnant. Gray told me. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeh,” she said. “He did. Died trying to save his mate from a bushfire they were working. Always the strongest one out there, and the bravest. The first man in, and the last one out. The kind of man you could count on. Full of mana.”
The tears were here behind my eyes again, and this time, they weren’t for me. I said, “Like his son.”
“Yes,” she said. “Exactly like his son.”
50
Pick-Up-Able
Gray
I’d been right. Daisy was pick-up-able. Wonderfully, delectably, deliciously pick-up-able. I had heaps of opportunities to find that out during that week.
When I came home on Monday, she met me at the door, and all the troubles of the day dropped away. This time, when I picked her up, I didn’t have to tell her to wrap her legs around my waist. She did it anyway.
The kiss started out hot, and then it got hotter. Her hands were around my head, her tongue was in my mouth, and she wasn’t saying anything at all.
When I shoved her up against the door, she gasped, and when I pulled her blouse open, she moaned. Also, she was wearing a skirt.
Well, yeh. Most men probably don’t celebrate Day Three of getting a woman out of the Sexually Scared Zone by ripping her clothes off and fucking her against the door. Just me, apparently.
Also, it was a good thing she’d switched houses with my mum. Tolerant as my mum was,