Page 26 of Just One Look
Boxing Day
It had beenthe day after Christmas. The sky was a pure, deep blue that day, the seas were calm, they were speeding through a gentle swell in a boat, and Elizabeth was, for once on this trip, almost purely happy. Yes, Piper had found admirers, was laughing and talking with them right now, probably, but Elizabeth was hanging over the rail with Lauren beside her, watching a pod of orca leap and splash out there. The dolphins who’d been surfing the bow waves before, their gray bodies expressing nothing but joy, had melted away when the orca appeared. Elizabeth could understand that. Orca were huge, and they were expressing more “hunting” than “joy.”
The dolphins surfed, a crew member had explained, because it was easy, the kinetic energy created by the wake allowing them to ride the wave, to get a rush of speed without effort. “Far as we can tell,” the woman had said, her nose smeared with zinc oxide ointment, her body strong and sturdy in her shirt and shorts, her blonde ponytail as unadorned as Elizabeth’s own braid, “they do it because it’s fun. They’re catching a ride.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said. “I thought I was just anthropomorphizing them, because theylooklike they’re having fun, and it’s so nice to think it’s true. But they really are.”
The woman laughed. “Anthropomorphize away. I’m doing a marine biology course myself, so I’m meant to be scientific, but that’s the best explanation anybody’s come up with. Dolphins just want to have fun.”
Now, her ex-stepmother, Lauren, sighed beside her, gazed out at the orca, and said, “Best Boxing Day ever.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, and added, clumsily, she knew, “Thank you for taking me. It was wonderful. I didn’t know how different the water could feel. Or …”
“I know!” Lauren said. “Can you believe that I’ve never scuba dived before? You never really see your own country until you’re showing it to somebody else. It’s like a whole new world, isn’t it? Under the sea. What was your favorite part?”
Elizabeth considered. “The color of the water, maybe, the way you can see all the blues. The sea turtle. That was amazing. Just all thefish.”
Red and silver and brilliant blue, schools of them moving together like a choreographed ballet, their changes of direction quicksilver-fast, every member of the school following an unseen signal, because somehow, they never bumped into each other. The ones that changed color as they moved amongst the reef, only the yellow spot on their sides staying the same, and the heavy, sluggish-looking ones that lurked on the bottom. The water surrounding you, holding you up, your fins slicing against it as if it were made of something thicker and more magical than the stuff that came out of the tap. Out there, under the water, she hadn’t felt too tall and too big, and she hadn’t felt clumsy. She’d floated and looked and enjoyed and … forgotten herself.
On the boat, too, drifting through a sea cave, passing from light to darkness. Tracing the edges of cliffs, seeing the flocks of sea birds soar and dive in an awesome display of speed and power. Coming close to shore and hearing a chorus so pure and liquid, it hurt your heart. Those were bellbirds, and that was how they sounded. Like the chiming of silver bells.
And hearing the history. That this place was tapu,sacred and forbidden, because of the tragedy that lingered here. That once, it had been fertile and rich with human life, the Maori terracing the now-deserted hillsides in a stair-step pattern you could still see. Planting kumara, the ubiquitous sweet potato that was a staple of life, and harvesting all the bounty of the sea, the kai moana. And then, while the men were away at war, being set upon by a rival tribe. Women and children and old people killed, and others jumping to their deaths from the cliffs. The chief coming home with his men, afterwards, and finding only a few survivors who’d hidden from the slaughter. One of them had been his son, but his wife, his other children … they were all gone.
He’d gathered his men, his son, and left the islands, never to return. His joy, later in that sad journey, at finding his wife and one of his daughters, taken prisoner by the raiders and then escaping them. And still so many lost. His responsibility, and his sorrow. Declaring the islands tapu,which they still were today. No habitation, and no visitation, either, except by the birds and the boats that stayed offshore.
“Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitu te whenua,” the skipper had said, finishing the story. “People disappear from sight, but the land remains.”
“The land remains,” she told Lauren now. “I liked that.”
Lauren didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked out over the sea, though the orca were gone now. “I like it, too,” she said. “Death is hard. Change is hard. But something remains, even when we’re all gone. For Maori, what remains is the place you’re from, where your ancestors lived and died. Whenua is the earth beneath your feet, your land. Your home.”
“You’re not Maori,” Elizabeth said shyly, “but was it hard anyway, leaving here?”
Lauren smiled. Her smile was beautiful. Elizabeth had never been able to hate her, but somehow, she’d never been able to love her, either. It felt sometimes like her heart was encased in ice, like she couldn’t feel, not the way other people did. Her stepmother said, “Yes, it was. I’ve left heaps in my life. Got married, then divorced. That’s leaving, if you like. In Australia, married again to your dad, and leaving for the States, then leaving again. I’m happier back here, but I’ve still left too much. I left you, for one thing, and I’ve missed you.”
There was that sensation again, the ice. Elizabeth could feel her heart freezing over as surely as if she were watching it happen. “You were always nice,” she said. Lamely, she knew. Why couldn’t she say something more? Why wouldn’t the words fall off her tongue the way they did for other people?
She was still trying to think of what to say when Lauren said, “I know I’m not your mother. But I did my best. And I wanted to say …” She hesitated, and Elizabeth braced herself, feeling so guilty and ashamed of her cold heart. Of how Piper, especially, made her go rigid and curl into herself like a roly-poly did when you prodded it. It wasn’t Piper’s fault that Elizabeth wasn’t beautiful and charming, and she knew it, but somehow, she couldn’t help it. She knew Lauren was going to say something about that now, because it was so obvious. She should say something herself, like her dad always said. It wasn’t like Lauren could have missed it, but all the same—she couldn’t. She was frozen.
“I wanted to say,” Lauren went on, “that if you ever need somebody to talk to, I’m here. A bit far, maybe,” she added with a smile, “but at the other end of a phone line.”
Elizabeth said, “Thank you,” and couldn’t think of anything else.
“I think sometimes,” Lauren went on, “you believe that you’re not strong, or maybe even not worthy. I wonder if you realize how steadily you hold the core of yourself and refuse to let anyone chip it away.”
“I … do?”
“You don’t pretend,” Lauren said. “Most of us pretend.”
A flush. Of recognition. Of embarrassment. And, definitely, of shame. “Oh. That’s just because I can’t, though.”
“Mm. Maybe. Or maybe you know who you are, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Also, most people who’ve been through what you have would be afraid of water, and here you are, scuba diving. You’re not afraid of much, are you?”
Elizabeth wanted to say,I’m afraid of everything, though. Everything except what I can do myself, what I can control.Instead, she said, “I can’t …” and stopped.
Lauren waited, but Elizabeth didn’t go on. “You can’t …” her stepmother prodded gently.
They were both still in their wetsuits, their arms resting on the rail, their faces in the wind. Salt tang and freshness and the sun glinting on the water. For once, they were equal, just two people standing on a boat. Elizabeth said, “I can’t talk about my mom.” The words came out jerkily, like pebbles forced up through her tight throat. “It’s not like … I don’t want to. But I can’t.”
