didn’t perform, I wouldn’t be selected. That’s what motivates you. The purest meritocracy in the world, being an All Black, and if you don’t find a way to talk and train yourself through the rough spots, you’re not an All Black for long.
It had been more than the mood, though, after that enforced retirement. There’d been the migraines that had attacked on too many days of the month, then hung around to stay. The vision problems. The vertigo, and more irritability that I’d had to pay attention to all of that, that it was still interfering with my life when all I wanted was to forget about it.
And above all, the worry about what it could mean.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, it was called. CTE. In other words, the kind of brain damage that didn’t heal. No way to know if you’d done that kind of long-term harm until they sliced your brain apart looking for it, after you’d died too young. Of depression and suicide, or of dementia. And most of all—of despair at hurting the people you loved most, because your inhibitions were gone. Hurting them with your anger, and your violence. The kind they’d never defend themselves against, because you were too big and too strong and too angry.
No way of knowing, but the symptoms were vision problems. Headaches. Vertigo. Depression. And irritability.
The migraines had got better, so had the irritability, eventually, and so had my love life. While I’d been playing, it had been what my mum said. Just … sparklers. I’d liked sparklers, and it wasn’t easy to develop a relationship when you were home only half the time and working hard almost every day of the week. Early to bed and early to rise, your diet and your sleep schedule both rigorously controlled. At least that was my excuse.
Now, though? I didn’t think it was just about liking sparklers anymore.
Last night—this morning—whatever—I’d wanted to hit Daisy’s father. I’d wanted both of them to come over that fence, and I’d wanted to deal to them there. I’d wanted to hurt them.
I hadn’t wanted to hurt the dog, though. I hoped that mattered.
Seven years ago, five years ago, I’d have got off the couch at Mum’s question, said something too curt to the person who loved me more than anybody else in the world, and would have headed upstairs, the black rage trying to overtake me. Tonight, I said, “It could be the head.” And when she looked at me and said nothing, I said, “It’s probably the head.”
I got a little dizzy just saying it. That feeling when you can’t exhale enough, because the breath is caught in your chest. More weakness.
“What does the doctor say?” she asked.
“Same as always. That they can’t tell if it’ll happen. That they won’t know for years. Until it’s obvious.”
A long pause as the pink faded to purple outside and we watched it, and I thought we were done.
“How does it help,” she finally said, “for you not to love somebody?”
I had no answer.
20
No Strings
Daisy
The next morning, I borrowed Gray’s phone to make a quick playlist while we ate a breakfast that his mum had risen early to fix for us, poached eggs and toast and sautéed mushrooms and wilted spinach and creamy grilled haloumi, as if she were afraid we’d shrivel up from lack of nourishment otherwise. I wondered if she’d like to adopt me.
As I was choosing our songs, I had a terrible thought and asked Gray, “How’s the head?”
“Head’s all good,” he said, that hint of amusement in his dark eyes. “I shudder to ask why you’re checking.”
“We could need some loud songs,” I said. “Escape music tends to be loud.”
“Ah,” he said. “The Taylor Swift discography.” He didn’t tell me to stop, though, so I kept on choosing.
“I have an idea,” he said, as we finished our eggs. “To get this thing started on the right foot. Call it a ritual.”
I eyed him. “Do I even want to know?”
“Yes. I think you may. It’s about the girls’ clothes. You didn’t like the idea of them having to keep on wearing them.”
“No choice,” I said. “As you pointed out—yours don’t fit.”
“And Heaven knows mine won’t,” Honor said with a laugh. “Nah, tell us the thought, Gray.”
He said, “If you wanted to have a new-start ceremony. We can’t get rid of the dresses now, but we could do the caps and aprons. Leave them behind here, in the mountains. Could feel good. Unless the girls want to keep them.”
“No,”