Page 149 of Just One Look
Reshuffling the Deck
She was takingher shoes off in a little mudroom area, then grabbing her suitcase from Luka. He wrestled her for it for an instant, and then his face went blank again and he let it go.
“Fine,” he said, walked into the kitchen ahead of her, and said, “Hi, Gran. I’m home.”
She followed him. She couldn’t do this, but she had to. He’d helped her with her dad, and she’d sprung this on him now? Why hadn’t she waited to tell him until they’d left?
Because she hadn’t been able to wait another minute. Because when she’d been lying with him last night, their legs tangled up under the cream duvet, and hers were still shaking a little, when she’d been warm and sated and sleepy, his hand had been on her face, and he’d kissed her forehead with so much sweetness, then wrapped himself around her and pulled her close in the way that made her feel safe …
She’d thought,Maybe there’s another answer.Not wanting to name it even to herself.Maybe, if I tell him …
Well, she’d told him.
She should have asked Jordan after all. She’d wanted to call him for advice on how to bring it up, what to say, what todo,but fully integrated personalities, people with agency and purpose, didn’t call and ask their best friend how to run their life. Not when they were thirty-four, they didn’t. They ran it themselves. And people in a relationship, asuccessfulrelationship, talked to each other to solve problems. They didn’t call somebody else after the fact and whine about it, or agonize over it beforehand like teenagers. They were open. They were honest. They were unflinching. They saw whether they were on the same page, and if not, they saw whether they could get there.
Or not.
Now, she pasted a smile on her face, stepped into the kitchen, and saw an extremely old lady, her face darkened by sun and carrying a roadmap of every year she’d lived, her hair cut short and snow-white, working at a laptop. She stood up slowly, but barely using her arms to support her, ending up tall and almost straight, and held out her arms to Luka.
“Hi,” Luka said. He held her so gently, it hurt Elizabeth’s heart, but then he let her go. “What are you up to?”
“Doing the accounts,” she said. “Always accounts to do, eh. You look well. Thought maybe you’d have a …” She gestured.
“A brace? Nah, don’t need one. Nearly healed now. Change of plans, though. We’re not staying two nights, just the one. Oh, this is Elizabeth. My Gran. Vera.”
“Oh,” Vera said. That same way he would’ve said it. Blankly. “Afternoon, Elizabeth.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” she said, and wondered what she should do. Hug? No, obviously. The older person hugged first, surely.
Luka said, “Come on, Elizabeth. I’ll show you where.” All the emotion gone from his voice, and no “Elle,” because that was gone, too.
She followed him. What else could she do? In the bedroom, which clearly belonged to one of his sisters, because he wouldn’t have a room here anymore, she said, “I can go back, if it’s easier. If you’d rather. There must be a bus back to Auckland.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not stranding you up here. Stay the night. I won’t touch you, no worries.”
“Because you need me to help with your family,” she said. “I did this all wrong, but, Luka, wait. I think we should—”
“Not now,” he said, then stopped, ran a hand over the back of his neck, and sighed. “I’ll talk to you later. You can tell me about the … opportunity. It’s a good one. I see that. I know that. I can’t do it now, though. I’m here, and I have to do this.”
“But …” she said, but he shook his head and headed out again.
When they went back into the kitchen, the old lady—Vera—said, “They’re working in the shed. I’m doing shepherd’s pie for supper. Got it in the oven already. You could have a cup of tea, maybe.”
“We’ll go out there,” Luka said. “See if I can lend a hand.”
Out into the mudroom again, and then into the rain, and she said, hurrying along behind him, “I thought she’d be worse. From what you’ve said.”And not said,she thought.
“Who, Gran?” he said. “Nah, Gran’s not bad. Quiet, mostly.”
That was all, because he was pulling open the door to a metal shed. It was brightly lit, and redolent with the smell of oil and burning wood, which would be from the ancient iron stove in the corner. A figure in coveralls raised her head from under the hood of a battered blue pickup truck. Sofia. She said, “Baby brother. Hi. Made it at last, eh.”
“Yeh,” he said. “Pissing down out there. Good for the trees, I guess.”
Another woman, one of two working on a green tractor that didn’t look much newer than the truck, said, “Weather’s not been too bad so far this winter. Is this Elizabeth?”
“Yeh,” Luka said. “Oh. You met my sister Sofia. This is Lana. And my mum, Rita. Elizabeth.”
Rita had to be well over sixty, which was a shock, though why should it be? Her hair was iron-gray, her face, like her mother’s, told you she’d spent her life outdoors, and her mouth turned down at the corners. Solidly built, as tall as Elizabeth, and her posture as upright as her son’s. Uncompromising, you’d call that. She said, “You can go check the hives, Luka, if you want to make yourself useful.”
