“Oh.” Rugby was incomprehensible to me, like most other team sports—no frame of reference again—but even I knew who Drew Callahan was, if only vaguely. Former captain of the All Blacks, and he was here in Dunedin now, I thought, doing something rugby-like.
TBIs. Traumatic brain injuries. And CTE. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. Uncontrollable anger, that could mean. Violence. Dementia. “I didn’t realize you liked rugby,” I told Matiu, feeling like I’d taken an unauthorized peek into Gray’s private documents.
“I have to like it,” Matiu said. “Hamish is dead keen.” His stepson. “Gray Tamatoa’s before his time, unfortunately, or I’d be earning Dad Points all over the shop here. But Daisy,” he went on more soberly. “You and your two pretty little teenaged sisters are living in his house, because he kindly invited you, because he felt sorry for you? On his lifestyle block, far from the neighbors, out of screaming range? Without a car of your own, and him weighing more than any two of you put together and five times as strong, and with that history? No.”
“We’re not in his house,” I said. “Or we are, but … not exactly. He’s in his house. We’re in his yurt.”
Matiu said, “His yurt?”
“A very flash yurt,” I said. “And I have a key.”
Matiu folded his arms. “You’re safe because you have a key. You don’t think he has a key as well?”
I said, “I was thinking, before, that you were like an older brother. Now I remember why I don’t want an older brother.”
He sighed. “I need to get my skates on. Patients to see. But I’m coming out to see the yurt, and to meet him. You’re working tomorrow, yeh?”
“Yes,” I said cautiously. “Night shift all week.”
He turned back to the computer and started typing again. “Go get a new phone today, before you go back out there. Text me with the address and put me on speed dial. And I’m coming out tomorrow after work, before you come in for your shift. Leaving those little sisters alone with your lovely, safe, older fella, I’ll just add. Who weighs a hundred-plus Kg’s if he weighs one, and probably bench-presses 140. And isn’t married.”
“You can’t,” I said. “You have a family. Also, I have things to do tomorrow. And excuse me, were you married until, oh, two months ago? Did I miss that somehow? How many axe murders did you commit whilst scarily single?”
He finished typing and headed for another patient room. “I’m coming out. Call it six o’clock. We’ll bring pizza. The kids will be thrilled. Hamish on both counts, once I catch him up on the highlights reel. Go get your sister so I can see those films. And for God’s sake, get their names changed. What was yours?”
I did my best to scowl at him. “Chastity.”
He winced. “Ouch.”
26
Morning Light
Gray
Before dawn the next morning, I was running on the hard-packed sand of the beach, warmed up and going well, my body and brain loose and relaxed. To my left, the coming-and-going sound of the surf filled my head. Ahead of me, the waving beach grasses and golden sand and gray sea continued on, world without end. Above me, the wispy morning clouds were just beginning to be tinged with pink.
Daybreak.
There were a few others out here. Early-morning dogwalkers. Fitness fanatics. And maybe some people like me, who needed some air before another long day.
I’d come home at eight last night, three hours past quitting time, after cobbling together a makeshift plan for the week, possibly regretting my extra half-day off. When I’d opened the fridge, though, there’d been a plate under clingfilm in there, piled high with tender chunks of lamb dripping with rich brown broth, all of it ladled over pillows of potato gnocchi. There had been a brightness to it besides the heartiness, too. Layers of flavor. I didn’t know how she’d done it, if the cook was Daisy, but it was one of the best dinners I’d ever eaten. There’d been green beans as well. Buttery, lemony, garlicky. I’d practically licked the plate clean.
There’d been something else in the fridge, too. A dish of rhubarb stewed to softness, with something cakey on top, and a little bowl of vanilla custard.
Obedience had made me a rhubarb slump. That just made me … smile.
There was a little piece of paper under the rhubarb bowl that I only saw when I was putting it in the microwave. Stuck there by