Just This Once (31 page)

“Sounds like Drew knows what he wants,” Sam put in.

“We’ll have a family dinner,” he promised his son. “We’ll
keep it quiet.”

Hannah had her own doubts when Drew proposed the trip the
next day. “Don’t they want their own time with you, though? To have you to
themselves for a weekend?”

He laughed. “If I know Mum, we’d have had a house full if I
were going down there by myself. She likes a do. Not likely to be hanging over
me, weeping happy tears.”

“They’re not going to have a party while I’m there, are
they?” she asked in alarm. “I’m not going to have to meet everybody?”

“No worries,” he reassured her. “Saw that one coming and
headed it off. It’ll just be us.”

“I’m not so good at family things,” she said slowly. “I hope
they like me.”

“What do you mean?” He pulled her down to sit beside him.
“I’ve seen you with your family, remember. Seems to me you know all about
family.”

“But when I’m with . . . with other people’s families,” she
explained haltingly, “I never feel normal. I’m like a . . .  a visitor, you
know? People with parents, I mean,” she said, her eyes falling. “So I’m worried
that they’ll be able to tell.”

“What?” he asked gently, one arm going around her. “That you
have lizard skin? What are they going to find out about you?”

When they were actually sitting at the table over a late
Saturday lunch with his parents the next weekend, though, Drew began to get a
glimmer of what she had feared.

“So, Hannah,” Helen asked, passing her the platter of lamb
chops. “Where do your own parents live? They must be missing you, so far away.”

“They’ve both passed away, I’m afraid, years ago. But I have
a younger brother and sister,” she added quickly. “They both live in the San
Francisco Bay area, in California. We grew up in a more rural area, though. More
like this. Not quite as beautiful, though.”

“Were you raised by grandparents, then?” Helen asked,
eyebrows lifting.

“No. My mother didn’t die until my brother was eighteen. We
pretty much stayed together, though, even after that.”

“That must have been hard to manage,” Helen commented.

“No, it worked out well. I went to school—to University,”
Hannah corrected herself, “near San Francisco, and they ended up joining me
there. My brother and I went to the same University. To Berkeley. I was working
there by that time, and we were able to share an apartment his first couple of
years. My sister lived with us for a while as well. She wasn’t in school, but
she was working. We saved money that way, too. We were lucky to be able to help
each other.”

Drew looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t realized that. But
of course Hannah wouldn’t have left Matt by himself, not at eighteen. Or
Kristen either. He knew already that she had gone home every summer while she
had been at University, working and helping out. It made sense that after her
mother had died, she would have pulled her little family together, made sure
she was watching over them.

“What did they think about your coming to En Zed, your
brother and sister?” Helen asked. “It must have been hard to leave them alone,
after all that.”

Hannah looked at Drew, eyes stricken. He reached for her
hand, held it reassuringly. “Mum, you’re undoing all my good work here. You
don’t know what a job I had to convince her it was all right to leave them for
a bit. They’re 23 and 25 now. Matt thinks he’s won the Lotto, doesn’t he. A
sister in En Zed and the chance of free footy tickets.”

“My brother’s a dedicated traveler,” Hannah explained,
grateful for Drew’s interjection. “With a newfound passion for rugby, I’m
afraid.”

“And he’s not allowed to ask you for anything,” she scowled
at Drew. “I told you that, remember? You haven’t promised him tickets for next
season, have you?”

He held up his hands, laughing. “I may have done,” he
confessed. “You can take it up with me later.”

“Anyway,” Drew turned back to his mother. “That’s Matt
sorted. And the way Hannah talks to Kristen on the phone, she may as well never
have left. They’re both coming down at Christmas, actually. So Hannah will have
her family around her then. The way it should be,” he said with a meaningful
look Hannah chose to ignore.

“Sounds like you did well,” Drew’s quieter father put in.
“Can’t have been easy for you. Drew tells me you have an interesting job here
now,” he said, turning the conversation.

Hannah gladly entered into a discussion of her work,
grateful for his tact. “The best part is the wardrobe,” she confessed. “The products
really are wonderful. I’m wearing them now. And so is Drew,” she smiled.

“That’s right,” he agreed proudly. “Merino tee, eh, Dad.”

“I’m glad to see that kind of success story coming out of
New Zealand,” Sam said. “We don’t have a wide variety of exports, but one thing
we do have is sheep. I’ve read about 2
^nd
Hemisphere. Good on them
for making a go of it.” 

“Dad’s a vet,” Drew told Hannah. “So you could say he knows
sheep. Large animal as well as pets. Country vets have to do it all.”

“Just like James Herriot,” Hannah observed with delight.

“Not as good a writer. Or as rich,” Sam pointed out. “But
the life’s not so different, for all that.”

After lunch, Hannah stood to help clear the table, but Helen
shooed her away when she would have helped with the dishes. “Sam’s my
washing-up partner. Always has been. You two go on. Take Hannah for a walk,
Drew. Show her about. It’s not raining, for once.”

Drew laughed and obeyed. “You can see my mum has her
opinions,” he told Hannah once they were walking on a path by the stream that
ran beside the road into town. “My dad’s quieter, but when he does talk, you
listen.”

“I noticed that,” she said. “They’re both wonderful. Thank
you for rescuing me, though. I was so worried that they would think I was a
terrible person, leaving my brother and sister like that.” She shook her head, still
upset by the conversation.

“Hannah.” He turned her to face him. “You didn’t abandon
them. You recognized that they have their own lives now, that’s all, and that
you could try something new yourself.”

“Your dad reminds me a bit of mine,” she ventured as they
began to walk again. “He was quiet too. My mom was lively. Beautiful, like
Kristen. A little unstable, maybe. Wrapped up in my dad. But he was different.”

“He always called me his pal,” she said after a minute. “He’d
say, ‘My pal and I are going to do some fishing today.’ Or, ‘Come help me fix
the sink drain, pal.’” She swallowed. “Maybe that seems strange. But his son
was little, still. And my dad and I . . . we were close, always. Right up until
he died.”

“You always say, ‘when he died,’ when you talk about him.
Was it sudden, then? He wasn’t sick?” Drew probed cautiously.

“No,” she answered soberly. “He died in a car accident.
Well, no. It wasn’t exactly that. It was a hit-and-run. He liked to bicycle
home from work for lunch. He was a teacher at the high school. We always
wondered if it was a student. Somebody young, who just ran away, especially
when he saw who he’d hit. But we never found out. He was just . . . gone.”

“How did you hear about it?”  

“The police came. To school. They went and told my mom
first, of course. It was bad, though. They asked her who else should they tell.
Who else could help. She told them to come to school and get me. She didn’t
have a lot of close friends. Just some people at the bank where she worked
part-time.”

He frowned. “So they came and got you to help your mother?”

“Not exactly. First we had to get my brother and sister.
They were little,” she reminded him. “Seven and nine. The police were so nice,
though. They took me to the elementary school. Waited with me while I told
them. Took us all home, to my mom.”

“You told your brother and sister that your father was
dead,” he said slowly. “How can that be? Wasn’t there someone else?”

“If there was, they didn’t show up. That’s not fair,
though,” she amended. “The neighbors were kind. They brought food, as soon as
they heard. Women are amazing. They didn’t just bring cakes, things like that.
They brought casseroles. Dishes already wrapped up, ready to be frozen, with
cooking instructions. Some of them kept on bringing them, too. That was a
lifesaver during those first few weeks. I could pull something out of the
freezer every night. My teachers were helpful too. Some of them were wonderful,
in fact. They’d take me aside. Talk to me.”

“And after a while,” she said bracingly, “it got better. My
mom got better. And I started to know what to do. How to help. Things settled
down.”

Drew was overwhelmed. He’d known it had been bad. But he
hadn’t imagined it could have been like this. “Don’t they have social services,
then, in the States?” he asked slowly. “Someone to help people in your situation?”

“What do you mean? There’s foster care. But we had a mother.
And we weren’t neglected. I don’t mean it to sound like that. We ate, and we
went to school. We had enough money to live on. It might not have been that
much fun, but we still had a family. And it got better,” she insisted again.
“Especially once I got older. By the time I was 16, I had a job, and a plan. Everything
was better once I had a plan. I knew what I was doing, then. I just kept
following the plan.”

“Until you came along,” she said, smiling and trying to
lighten the mood. “You pretty much wrecked my plan. And could we please talk
about something else now? This is too sad, and I don’t want to be sad. Tell me
what I’m looking at. Tell me about growing up here, with your parents, and your
brother. Did you always live in that house?”

He wished she would let him comfort her, but was glad she
had shared so much. He would back off now, he decided. Let her change the
subject.

“Yeh. My parents moved in soon after they were married, when
my dad qualified as a vet and came into the practice here. They never moved.
They like being a bit out of town. A bit of quiet. That’s how I come by it, I
suppose.”

“You know,” she said, “every young football player in the
NFL talks about buying his mother a house with his earnings. I’m guessing it
wouldn’t be too easy for you to offer something like that to your dad, though.”

He laughed. “Like to see his face if I did. Suggesting that
he couldn’t support his family. He’d have something to say about that. My
parents are like me, though. A good holiday for them is a trip to the
Coromandel, some fishing. I’ve shouted them some trips overseas when I’ve been
playing somewhere like Ireland or France. They’ll let me send them the tickets,
maybe a hotel room. Have to tread lightly, though, with my dad. Still my dad,
isn’t he.”

She nodded. “I can see that. So when did you start playing
rugby?”

“When didn’t I play rugby? Started when I was just a wee
fella, kicking the ball, throwing it with my dad, like every other Kiwi boy.
Started playing in a league when I was six or so. Right here in the Domain.” He
pointed to the large grassy park they were passing, which indeed was outfitted
with several sets of rugby crossbars.

“That must have been touch rugby, then. They don’t have
little boys tackling, do they?”

“Touch rugby’s mostly just for fun. What you play at the
beach, or during the offseason. And girls play touch rugby.”

“Didn’t you get injured?” she asked, shocked.

“Knocked about a bit, that’s all,” he said dismissively. “I
loved it. We all did. Well, maybe I loved it more than most. By the time I was
a teenager, it was my focus. I did all the usual things too. Had friends,
fished, went to school. But I knew I wanted to play. So I stayed fit. Worked on
my skills. Got picked up by a club when I was nineteen, and been playing
professionally ever since.”

 “What will you do after you finish playing, do you think?”
she asked. “I’m not saying that’s soon,” she hurried on. “But I’m sure you’ve
thought about it.”

“No worries. I’ve thought about it, yeh. Your body gets
bashed up all these years, can’t help but have an effect. Reckon I’ll coach, in
the end. Do a bit of that already, as captain. It seems like a logical
extension.”

“Will you go somewhere else to do that? I’ve noticed how
many of the overseas players and coaches are from New Zealand.”

“No,” he said positively. “I’ve been asked. I could make
twice the money even now, playing in England or France. Not interested. Even in
going to Aussie. Good thing. Be a traitor then, wouldn’t I. But nah. I’m doing
all right. And I wouldn’t be happy living somewhere else. I’ve seen the world.
Nice to visit, when you live someplace this small. But I’m a Kiwi. Reckon I’m
lucky, spending my life in paradise. There’s a reason we call it Godzone, eh.”

“I don’t blame you,” she agreed. “This is the most beautiful
place I’ve ever been. And it seems . . . cohesive, I guess is the word.
Everyone here seems so proud of being from New Zealand. Which makes me wonder
why people do leave.”

“Wages aren’t as good here,” he explained. “It can be hard
to raise a family. You can earn more in Aussie or the UK, doing most things.
Including playing football. And some people miss the opportunities you get with
a bigger country, the variety. Miss the culture, want to be someplace where
they can go to the opera. Not too much for that myself. I’m a pretty simple
bloke. I just want to get into the bush, go fishing, camping. Auckland’s too
big for me. Too busy. I’m always glad to get away from it, first chance I get.”

“I’m beginning to understand why you don’t have much in the
way of opera or art,” she said. “I’m guessing that if you ask the average New
Zealand man, would you like to go to the ballet tonight? Or to the rugby game?,
it’s not going to be much of a contest.”

He laughed. “You’re right about that. Know which one I’d
choose. It’s all about sport here. And being outdoors. Fishing, hunting,
camping, being on the water. That’s the Maori influence on us, partly. Only
Maori call themselves Tangata Whenua—people of the land. But there’s a bit of
that in all of us. The land, and family. That’s what matters to New
Zealanders.”