One Heartbeat

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hana tasted the fresh winter air, gasping as though denied oxygen. She felt the sour taste of vomit in her mouth, but the feeble retches wrought nothing. She muttered to herself and fought the knot in her throat. Shame joined misery as Hana remembered Phoenix and she turned, ready to brave anything to retrieve her child. Anything. Even her father’s doppelgänger.

Hana ran into Logan’s broad chest, hearing him grunt. Phoenix giggled and made a grab for Hana’s curly red hair. Tama righted her as she swayed with the impact. “I didn’t finish my burger,” he grumbled. “Where’s the fire?”

“Hana?” Logan’s grey eyes filled with suspicion and unanswered questions. Hana opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She had no words to describe what happened or how she felt about it. Instead, she took her baby and mopped at the dribble of ice-cream sick on her chin.

“When she gets diarrhoea, you’re changing her nappies,” she bit, accompanying her threat with a glare at Tama.

“What did I do?” he groaned. The men watched Hana stomp around the car, her wellies making a rubbery, clumping sound on the concrete. Her eyes darted to the sliding doors of the restaurant and then back to Logan.

“Get in!” she hissed, her body language oozing discomfort. She grappled with the door handle and her eyes radiated pure panic as she found it locked. Logan pressed the key fob and the lock sprung open. Hana bolted inside, taking the baby with her. She pressed the switch to lock her door and inserted Phoenix into her seat from inside the car.

Logan gave Tama a nudge and sent him round to the passenger side. Seconds passed as they both climbed in and settled. Hana let out a sigh of frustration. “I want to go, now, please,” she begged, urgency making her sound petulant as she struggled with the straps of the car seat.

“Maybe you’ve got diarrhoea,” Tama commented. He turned to face her, his lips widening in a grin. Seeing her frightened expression, he turned around and raised an eyebrow at Logan. He opened his mouth to speak and Logan gave a shallow shake of his head.

Hana dabbed sick from the baby’s chin and complained to herself. She kept glancing through the side windows and her eyes widened as Logan drove past the restaurant’s front doors to get to the road behind. He fumbled with his seatbelt as the elderly male tourist emerged and hobbled towards the car park on wavering legs.

The old man’s face looked pale and ghostlike as he raked the parked cars with wide, blinking eyes. The woman emerged after him, putting her hand to her mouth before wrenching on his arm. She pointed at the departing Honda as Logan joined the main traffic flow. He watched in the rear-view mirror as the old man bent double, his shoulders heaving. A passing customer leaned towards him in concern, her head nodding as she asked if he needed help.

At the traffic lights, Logan turned to view Hana and her appearance made him swallow a ball of fear with an audible gulp. The stiffness of her body looked painful and her teeth worried at her lower lip until it bled. He reached behind and offered his hand, gratified when shaking fingers took it and squeezed. “It’s okay, Hana,” he soothed. “Lots of people have panic attacks; it’s nothing to worry about.”

Tama opened his mouth and Logan wasn’t quick enough to still his tactless observation. “You don’t.”

“How would you know?” Logan growled and Tama pressed himself back into his seat. The traffic crawled onto Greenwood Street and passed the restaurant. Graffiti on the front wall invited him to do something explicit with himself. Logan spotted the tourists as the cars ahead stilled again. The man sat on a low wall by the play area and the woman hovered around him like a bumble bee. Logan took in the old man’s military bearing but as he pressed the gas pedal and rolled the truck forward, he recognised something unexpected blossoming in the rheumy eyes. It took his breath away. Hope.

Something from Hana’s past had come back to bite her and she hadn’t anticipated its arrival. The man’s physique gave Logan a clue, but it raised more questions than it answered. Hana told him her parents died decades ago. Logan frowned, wondering why she’d lie. Another glance at the devastation on her pretty face reassured him she didn’t. He saw her trying to collect herself, her fingers patting the baby’s chest in a gentle, frantic movement. The old man’s appearance had traumatised her and she looked like she wanted to run. Logan stroked his fingers over her knee and her body temperature felt cold to the touch.

Hana closed her eyes and drowned in her silent agony. Her lips moved over words without a sound. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.” The visions she’d buried moved through her mind, her father and brother slinging her Indian boyfriend onto the street for getting her pregnant. Logan’s hand felt hot against her knee, thawing a section of the ice which ran through her veins. She saw her father’s face in her mind, older, sadder, bent double by life and circumstance. She’d needed his help and instead he’d thrown insults and punches. The words returned to torture her, the sting not dulled by time but as fresh as the day he’d spoken them. Slut. w***e. Disgusting.

Hana squeezed her eyes closed and a tear tumbled free and crashed onto the rise of her cheek before plunging onto her coat. The waterproof material repelled it and Hana watched through her eyelashes as it pooled in her lap, joined by another and then another. She forced her wringing hands around her, hugging her stomach to keep them still. What did he want? Why was he here? Hana acknowledged the bitterest blow of all in that split second as she recognised him. Because she’d looked for her mother out of habit and not found her. She couldn’t find her. Not ever. Jude McIntyre died months after the fight which detonated her family. Hana’s brother banned her from the funeral and she didn’t get to say goodbye. They took even that from her in their final punishment for her one catastrophic mistake.

Hana leaned forward and heaved out a long breath. The seatbelt cut into her neck and she held onto the pain and let it disperse the numbness. When it didn’t feel enough, she clamped the fingers of her right hand over the scar on her left wrist and squeezed. A searing pain shot up her arm and into her shoulder. She relaxed and leaned into it. “I’m alive,” her mind told her. “I’m alive.”

Logan made the turn onto a side street and cut back onto the main road in front of the restaurant car park. The traffic crawled towards a busy intersection and Logan watched the elderly couple walk towards their vehicle. The woman talked with animation, holding onto the man’s arm though his shoulders slumped like someone who’d been kicked in the head. Their smart white sedan looked like a rental and Logan glanced in the mirror again at Hana. He saw her wipe her eyes on her sleeve and pursed his lips. His quick brain memorised the registration number of the car. The woman opened the passenger door and Logan saw the Hertz logo in the corner of the windscreen. Possibilities flew through his mind. He needed to solve the mystery without upsetting Hana further. His fingers tapped a beat on the steering wheel as he planned.

The Hakarimata Ranges came into view and Hana’s silence felt eerie as though she waited for a hatchet to fall on her head. She smothered the occasional sniff and stared at her knees. Logan withdrew his hand before the city limits, but he doubted she noticed.

“Are you back at the school boarding house on Monday?” Tama asked, his question jarring in the silence.

Logan nodded. “Yeah. It’s better than it was. Less night duties now someone else pulls their weight. We don’t stay on site during my free weekends because they can’t resist calling me to sort out some disaster. We’ll drive back on Sunday night or Monday morning before school.” He watched Hana in the rear-view mirror again. She took a deep, fortifying breath and ran a hand over her face. “When do you go back to college?” Logan made the turn towards the Waipa Bridge and missed his nephew’s look of misery. “I’m proud of how well you’re doing.”

Tama had inherited the Du Rose good looks and the ego to match, but his colour faded as the blanched look overtook his handsome Māori features. “Next week,” he answered. Logan nodded. Keen to change the subject, Tama turned to look at Hana. Concern lined his forehead. “You okay, Ma?” Hana nodded, the motion shallow and non-committal. Tama turned around again, worry etched into his face. His instincts screamed of impending disaster and he dreaded it. “You sure?” He risked the challenge as the metal security gates at the bottom of the steep driveway rolled aside. He turned his body so he could get eye contact with her, saddened by the way she moved her head to avoid his gaze.

“Stop asking me, please.” Hana shook her head from side to side, her voice sounding wooden and laden with doom.

Tama reached his long, muscular arm around the seat behind him and took her hand in his. Her fingers felt freezing against his skin. She’d given him more love in the last six months than he’d ever known and her pain drove a stake through his heart. He narrowed his eyes and sought to make it better. “I love you, Ma,” he whispered. “Please be okay.”

Tama felt Logan’s sideways glance and stiffened, sensing mistrust cross the centre of the vehicle. Logan said nothing but Tama removed his hand and sat round, seeing his uncle’s gritted jaw press through his cheek. As Logan made a tight turn on the incline, Tama saw his own name inscribed into his uncle’s bicep. Nestled next to Phoenix in a cursive script, it offered a flush of pleasure but also warning. Someone loved him. He couldn’t afford another screw up.

Tama peered behind him and caught Hana’s attention, receiving a tentative smile through eyes filled with tears and a face which wobbled beneath his scrutiny. He felt an irrational anger for whoever caused her anguish, balling his fists in childish loyalty.

Logan halted the truck at the top of the driveway and Culver’s Cottage loomed before them. It overlooked the mighty Waikato River at its convergence with the clay filled Waipa, restored to its former 1900s magnificence. Behind it soared native bush, the green hues rising to meet the angry grey sky with confidence.

Hana forced herself from the vehicle and sighed as she breathed fresh air. Rain pattered again and she watched Tama as he lifted Phoenix in her car seat and covered her with his jacket. “Ugh!” he grunted at the sugary vomit scent rising from her clothes.

“You can sort her out when she wakes up with a belly-ache,” Logan muttered. His scarred fingers unlocked the front door and pressed buttons to deactivate the burglar alarm.

“Whatever,” Tama grunted. “You love pacing the floor with your precious daughter. She’s the only one who smiles at you when you’re in a bad mood.”

Hana kicked off her boots and stalked to the master bedroom, throwing herself face down on the four poster bed. She snuggled into the clean duvet, feeling the lead weight of grief in her breast. Questions without answers piled into the forefront of her mind. Should she have stayed? Would he listen to twenty-eight years of anger and regret? Hana pressed her face into the pillow until she couldn’t breathe. The old Robert McIntyre listened to nobody, least of all his daughter. She allowed herself to gulp a breath and sighed it out. He’d stood metres away from his own flesh and blood and didn’t realise. The baby he rejected sat nearby and his great grandson made a fuss about a doll’s lost hair right under his nose. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. “You missed it all,” she whispered to the empty room. “Life and death and I did it without you.”

Hana curled into a tight ball and pressed the images away. Her mother’s silent tears played on a loop in her mind and she blamed herself. She should have gone back and explained. Her deaf mother had jumped in fright as the McIntyre men launched themselves at Vik. Hana meant to write to her but didn’t, assuming her father would destroy the letter. The next contact with her family came in the form of Judith’s funeral notice with a handwritten note. “Don’t come. We don’t want you there.”

A fleeting image of her perfect older brother with his perfect wife and perfect children drifted across her inner vision. Hana shuddered and pulled the pillow over her head. Losing her mother hit her again like peas removed from the freezer, as fresh as the day an unkind hand froze them in time. She forced herself not to cry, pressing her fingers over the scar on her wrist to distract her ragged thoughts. They sought to suck her further into the abyss and she doubted she possessed the energy to climb the ladder back up. She heard Logan put Phoenix into her cot, his footsteps treading along the hallway to the kitchen. Then she heard the gentle strum of his guitar, soothing strains crossing the house as he waited for the kettle to boil. She recognised the tune, an old Māori song he often played. She imagined him standing in the kitchen with his foot on the seat of a chair, balancing the guitar across his thigh as he played left handed. The song made her feel grounded. Logan sang of Pokarekare Ana and her lover’s yearning for reunion. “E hine e hoki mai ra. Ka mate ahau I te aroha e.” He repeated the lyrics in English and Hana listened to his gentle baritone. “Oh, girl return to me, I could die of love for you.”

Hana slipped off the bed and her jacket rustled. She chose her place beside Logan, not her bigoted father whose homage to forgiveness and grace proved nothing more than lip service.

“Nga iwi e! Nga iwi e!” Logan changed the song to one he said Reuben taught him as a boy. “All you people! All you people!” He sang many other songs but avoided those invoking strong memories of his father and his mother’s deceit. Hana reached the kitchen door as he finished. She lingered there, watching her husband’s long fingers stroking the strings. His brow furrowed and his mind strayed as he created a bridge of music before launching into anything else.

“Did you know Poppa Reuben could play?” Tama stood at the sink and pressed bread into the hole in his face, eating on the run as though his security might disappear without warning.

Logan nodded. “Yep. Get a plate and sit down.”

“I didn’t know you could play. You sound like him.” Tama grabbed a clean plate from the draining board and added two more slices to the one in his hand. Plain bread, no butter. As though he didn’t have time for niceties. He spoke with his mouth full. “He sang that song.”

“Yeah, he gave me this guitar.” Logan hefted the instrument against his thigh, but his fingers didn’t still their strumming.

“For real? Where did you hide it all these years?”

“Alfred hid it in the storeroom next to the kitchen. Ma took me to Reuben for lessons as a kid. I thought he was my guitar teacher.” Logan’s jaw flexed against the bitter truth and Tama’s face creased in disgust.

“That’s sick!”

“Yep.” Logan struck a bung note and the guitar reverberated as he leaned it against the wall. Hana ground her teeth, the jarring sound deliberate. He turned towards the kettle and yanked a mug from the cupboard above.

Hana picked her moment to intervene as Tama’s lips parted with another ill-advised comment. “Sorry about before.” She clasped her arms around Logan’s waist from behind and held on, anchoring herself in this life and not the one long since passed. He relaxed and ran his long fingers over hers, feeling the dead coldness of her skin.

“I’m making you a drink, babe,” he replied, dumping a tea bag into the mug and lifting the kettle.

Hana shook her head against his back. “I thought I’d walk over to see Maihi,” she replied. “Phoenix will sleep for a while.” Logan turned on the spot and hauled her into his chest. Hana sniffed his shirt, calmed by the summer sweet meadow scent of him; hay, horses and sunshine. “I’ll take my phone. Text me if you need me to come back earlier.”

Logan nodded, knowing he couldn’t rush her. Pressing and cajoling forced her to run. Instead, he smiled and kissed the top of her head, infusing her with his love.

Hana wrinkled her nose at Tama, disturbed by the way he gobbled the bread. “Sorry you lost your burger.”

He shrugged in reply. “Nah, the fat’s bad for me, anyway.” He waved a floppy slice of bread and waggled his eyebrows. “Uncle Logan can pump more weight than me. Need to beat him somehow.”

Hana nodded, assuming they’d train together in the room next to the garage where Logan kept his exercise equipment. “You might as well work out before you get a shower. I’ll see you later.”

Hana closed the front door and chased her wellies around the porch. The heaviness in her heart matched the greyness of the day and the oppressive clouds. With a sigh, she stepped off the porch and skirted the house. Her jacket flapped in the cold breeze and she pulled her hood up to cover her hair. The rain eased as she climbed the fence into the paddock and began her long uphill climb.