The Scent of Apples (18 page)

I know Koro was right when he said that we forgive so we can move on, but I'm not sure how I forgive a dead person for leaving me behind.

From my perch, I see Hautai's car wheezing its way back up the hill. I'm standing out on the porch to greet them by the time they make it to the top.

‘Looks like you might be held prisoner here another night, Libby,' Hautai says, as she pulls herself from the car. ‘But no broken bones, and just a few butterfly stitches.'

A smile spreads across my face, but disappears the moment I remember Mum. I search her face to see how she's coping.

‘Hoty kindly said we can stay here the night. I'll drive us back first thing in the morning,' Mum says.

‘It's
Hautai
,' I whisper in her ear. ‘As in, Father Christmas, “ho ho ho”, and “tie” like Dad wears.' I was glad Charlie wasn't around: she would have said ‘ho' as in ‘skanky ho'.

Hautai didn't seem to mind that Mum got her name wrong. I suppose that's what happens when you're sure about who you are. It doesn't really matter what people call you.

‘Libby, you can help me change the sheets on the boys' beds, and you two can stay in there.'

‘What about the boys?'

‘They can go down the hill and bunk at Aunt Amelia's. They'll love it. Their bums won't move from the couch 'cause she's got Sky TV, and she'll feed them until they're about to pop.'

*

Mum physically jumps when the kids pile in the door after school. In among school bags being thrown on hooks and homework being thrown on the table, Hautai introduces Mum.

‘Was there blood, Libby?' Tainui asks.

‘Tainui, don't be a dork,' Rukawai says.

I think Mum might have an aneurism when Charlie bounds up to her like a Great Dane.

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Morgan,' Charlie says, as her smile spreads from her lips to her eyes.

Other than the fact that Charlie is wearing cut-off jeans and a tee shirt that says
Get your own life
, I could swear that the Charlie that pours Mum cups of tea and charms her all night is an imposter. She doesn't swear once. I can only imagine that she has some inner radar that senses how much Mum can cope with.

I wonder if Charlie might have slipped a few leaves of something in Mum's tea as I catch her slouched back in the armchair. On Mum's list of things not to do, slouching would rank in the top ten.

I have my fingers and legs crossed all night that Mum won't say something racist, but she actually seems to enjoy the company. Kawharu takes some photos off the wall and introduces her to his dead relatives, and she even laughs when Tainui shows her his Michael Jackson moon dance. If I hadn't been the person that caused the accident, I'd say that the knock on the head did her good.

When it's time to go to bed, I feel like I've been up for three days.

The boys' room is painted a wasabi green. The dark mahogany headboards are plastered with stickers, mostly advertising Bonita bananas and Yummy gala apples. The brown sheets that we throw on the beds are near threadbare, but smell like sweet lemons.

We both lie under the covers, even though the air is humid. My thoughts whizz around in my head, and I'm sure that some of them escape and are whirring in the quiet air above me. A night light plugged into a corner socket gives off a soft glow. I try falling asleep, but it's not happening. I push myself half up and lean on my elbow. ‘I'm sorry, Mum. I made us crash.'

Mum's awake too. ‘Elizabeth, I was driving. I took my eyes off the road and we skidded into a ditch.'

‘But you wouldn't have crashed if I wasn't being such a cow.'

‘It's OK, Elizabeth.'

The air is so still, I hear her swallow.

‘Who told you about Patrick?'

For a second, I think about lying. ‘Nan let it slip one day, and then Poppa and Dad.'

She closes her eyes. The rest of her face crumples in like a wet tissue. ‘They had no right to tell you.'

‘No one can keep a secret that big, Mum. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘He was gone. What was the point in telling you?'

‘He was my brother! Pretending he didn't exist made it harder.'

I hear her shuffle around in bed.

‘I fell pregnant with you straight after Patrick died. I felt like everyone was watching me. Checking to see if I was coping but waiting for me to move on. So I pretended I had.'

I had waited fourteen years for my Mum to acknowledge the fact that I did have a brother. Hearing Mum say Patrick's name, felt like the best present I'd ever been given.

Even though my brother only lived for a month, I always imagine him to be five. When I was small, I'd spend hours working out all of Patrick's details. He was my specialist subject. Anyone could have asked me anything about him and I would have had an answer. I knew exactly what shade of blue his eyes where. That he had one curl of hair that always flopped forward into his right eye, and that he had a slight allergy to milk. I knew he had a thing for dinosaurs and bugs, and he hated pumpkin, just like me.

‘Do I look like him?'

‘Exactly like him. But his hair was straight. You even have the same dimple on your chin.'

I know Mum well enough not to push my luck, but something inside eggs me on.

‘Do you still miss him?'

‘Every day.'

‘The ache doesn't go away, does it, Mum?' I push the covers off with my feet as the air in the room gets hotter.

‘I don't know, Elizabeth. I don't think so, but I'm starting to think I don't know much at all.'

Mum pulls the covers up tight around her. Again I hear her swallow, before she says, ‘You were right about a few things. I wouldn't have let you come to stay at Charlie's and I'm sorry. They're a lovely family.'

The car accident must have sliced more than Mum's foot. I've never heard her say sorry. She's unravelling right before me. Like all her tightly woven threads have been cut through.

‘You know, for the first month after you were born, I wouldn't let anyone else hold you in case they dropped you. I was so afraid something would happen to you that I held on way too tight.' She sighs. ‘I had to go away for a bit, and by the time I'd got my head sorted you'd bonded with everyone but me. I know everybody worried that if they brought up Patrick I'd come undone again. So we just didn't talk about him.'

I lean back on my pillow and think of how many times I've shut down an image of Poppa to protect myself from the pain.

‘Watching you grieving for your poppa just pushed all my buttons. I wanted to tell you to let out some of the pain, but I don't know how to do that for myself.'

‘We could try talking, Mum.'

‘We talk, Libby.'

‘Not really.'

‘Well, I don't think I'm much of a talker. But I suppose we could try.'

As I fall asleep, I think how alike Mum and I are. Death marched into our house uninvited and stole from us. But worse than our unwelcome visitor was the fact that we've both let the grief keep robbing us, every day.

Mum wakes me up early. She's keen to get home. We said our goodbyes last night, but Hautai is already out on the porch, stripping some flax.

‘I hope you didn't get up for us?'

‘No, I always get up at 5 a.m. It's the only time of the day that no one bugs me.'

‘Thanks for everything, Ho tie.'

‘Any time, Anne. Look after each other, you two.'

Hautai wraps her arms around my mum and presses her blue lips to Mum's red cheeks. I would have bet all the apples in our orchard that I would never see Mum in this embrace.

The digital clock flashes the number seven at me, and it feels like I've only just got into my bed. Most of last night I spent on my computer reading about other people like me. To find hundreds of websites with stories about people who pull their hair out feels like I've stumbled across something as large as the Grand Canyon. The eighth wonder of the world is that people do strange things to themselves, but that it's only a small part of who they really are.

A lot of the stories were full of pain, but acceptance as well. I went to sleep with a feeling of hope.

I grab a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans from a drawer, and slip the matchbox with the wētā inside my pocket. I hope Patrick will like my gift.

I sneak quietly out of the house, inhaling the familiar scent of apples. The birds are up early, sweeping out their nests and chirping to the neighbours. I duck under the drooping willow branches and crouch down at the edge of the river by Patrick's rock.

Slipped into a small crevice is a sprig of lavender. From my window last night, I saw Mum snip a few sprigs from the topiary hedge by our front door. I tuck the wētā under Mum's offering.

‘Looks like you might have had some more visitors, Patrick.'

A twisted limb from one of the many kōwhai trees lining the bank has fallen out into the river. Cabbage leaves and rubbish from upstream cluster together to form a dam. The water meanders down and when it hits the bank, it swirls around in a circle, like it doesn't know what to do next.

I roll up the bottom of my jeans and wade out a little way. I tug hard on the limb, but one small branch seems to like its place in the iron sand and is refusing to budge. I wrap my hands around the branch like I'm going to strangle it and pull with everything inside me. It pops out of the water, like I've got super-powers. I land on my arse up to my hips in water about the same time I hear clapping from the riverbank.

Toby walks straight out into the water, soaking the bottom of his jeans, and offers me a hand up. I take it, and between us we drag the dead branch back to the side of the bank.

‘That branch had it coming,' Toby says.

‘Yeah, I reckon it did.'

We both look at the spot where, moments before, the limb had blocked the flow of water. I remember Poppa telling me that
Waikato
meant flowing water. I wasn't going to let one measly fallen branch make him into a liar.

Our jeans make a sloshing sound as we wind our way back up the path. As I watch Toby's long strides, I wonder how someone who has no blood relatives in his life can actually stand up, let alone stride.

‘Toby, are you mad with your mum?'

He stops walking and looks down at me. I think he might be cross, but his eyes tell me that he's not.

‘No, I'm not mad, Libby. Grateful.'

‘How can you be grateful?'

‘Well, she gave me life. That's a pretty big gift. Besides, her not being around has meant other things have opened up. Like coming to live here.'

I nod like I understand, but I'm not sure that I do.

‘And like your dad asking me to be manager.' Toby's grin spreads across his face.

‘When did he do that?'

‘Last week.'

‘Toby, that's wicked! Did you say yes?'

‘Mmm-hmm.'

‘So you're not leaving?'

‘Not until you're old enough to fire me.'

We both walk back to the house in silence, the cloudless blue sky floating above us.

The Ranburn rest home is actually way nicer than I thought it would be. Purple hollyhocks and sunflowers stand as tall as the handrails around the veranda. An English nurse called Sophie shows us to Nan's room. Her window overlooks the Waikato River.

She would have liked that.

Nan looks like she's just taking a nap. A thin wisp of hair has fallen over her face. I find a hair clip and pin it back for her. Someone has covered her nightie with a red crocheted blanket.

They said her heart just stopped beating.

‘She'll be happy now, Libby.'

I smile at Dad. ‘Yeah, she will. Poppa and her are probably dancing already.'

I kiss her on the cheek, and smell her violet scent. It fills me with a sense of warmth and comfort, as it always has.

‘I know it's time to let you go, Nan,' I whisper into her ear, ‘but it's still hard. Tell him I said hi.'

*

Sitting in the rest home car park, Dad puts the key in the ignition, but instead of turning it on, he stares out the front windscreen.

‘When I was really little, I wanted to be an orphan,' Dad says.

‘Why?'

‘So I could do whatever I wanted without my parents interfering.'

‘I sometimes feel like that about Mum.'

‘Oh Libby. It's just her way. She fell in love with you and Patrick the moment you started growing in her belly. I didn't understand her grief about Patrick until you came along. But by then we'd drifted apart and it was just too late.'

‘That's no excuse for meddling in my life.'

‘Your mum's just trying to do what she thinks is best for you. Sometimes parents get things wrong. There are all different ways of loving, Libby.'

Dad drops me back at the house. Mum comes out to the car, and they stand in the driveway talking about Nan. Mum looks like a tin soldier, with her arms rigid at her sides; but at least she's not clanging pots around the kitchen.

Because of Nan and everything that's been going on, Mum and Dad are going to take turns at dropping me off at Hunterview as a day girl. Dad said I could change back to the local school if I wanted, but Hunterview's my best chance of getting the credits that I'll need for uni. The day Poppa fell out of the tree, I forgot about the future. Koro's garden shed with all its wonders reminded me how much I love being with plants. Now that both Poppa and Nan are gone it seems even more important to carry on what they started and, like Nan said, do what makes me happy.

*

Mum pours hot water over the tea leaves in Nan's old teapot. She brings the pot and two cups to the table. Warmth spreads through me at her simple gesture.

My fingertips brush across the familiar raised pattern of pansies.

‘Are you all right, Elizabeth?'

‘Yeah, I think so.'

‘Good.'

She pauses, and a small blush appears on her cheeks.

‘I might go and see about those art classes at that new school in town.'

‘Wow. That's cool, Mum.'

I wonder again if the knock on the head was more serious than it looked. Mum and I sit opposite each other like we're on a date. It doesn't feel natural to be chatting, but I hope that in time it will. When plants need to survive, they adapt and find a new way of being – maybe humans do too.

*

This morning when Mum told me that Nan had passed away, I ran to the barn without even thinking. It wasn't until I was standing inside that I realised what I had done. The sun streamed in the church windows, dumping its red sunshine on the concrete floor.

It sounds silly, but I could feel Nan's and Poppa's presence. The smells and the images felt like they were whispering to me. Telling me that they're still here and always will be. I sank down onto my knees on the concrete floor and sobbed until I had no more tears left. I was crying for them, but mostly for myself. I knew Poppa and Nan could never really leave me. They're a part of me, and even dying can't take that away.

Toby comes into the barn at the end of my meltdown. Without a word, he climbs up the side of the vat and tips open the lid. ‘What do you think, Libby? More protein?'

I climb up the other ladder and take a huge whiff of the air. ‘It might need a bit more time, but it smells pretty good to me.'