20. The Truth
Summer
Well, this wasn’t what I’d expected tonight. I was reeling a little, honestly. This was meant to be my calming year! My reinvention year, when I went back to being on an even keel, far from any home and any person I’d ever known except Delilah, with gentle waves of ups and downs that I rode back to equilibrium. Ever since the cyclone had hit, though, my life kept veering toward that out-of-control territory again, the way it had done after my arrest for fraud.
The very word still sent an icicle into my heart. Fraud. “I’m a good person, though,” I’d wanted to explain to the cops on the day I’d been arrested. “I’m honest. Hardworking. A rule follower! Let me show you my college transcripts, and my evaluations from work, and …” Except that nobody had cared about any of that.
I wasn’t a fraud. The judge had said so, and I knew so. No matter what anybody thought, I was authentic, and I was staying authentic. I focused on yet another tray I was carrying tonight, on the soapy feel of flagstones under my bare feet, the burbling and splashing of the fountain, the sweet, heady scent of night-blooming jasmine, the winking of the stars poking through the dark curtain of the sky, and followed Roman to the house. He stopped halfway there, though, and, confused, I stopped as well. He put his hand on my low back and asked, his voice low, “OK?”
“OK,” I said, and felt something settle inside me. I was here to help, and I knew how to help. It wasn’t my drama, and I could walk away, but for now? I’d help.
“Good.” He didn’t smile, just opened the door and held it. Matiu, probably a little older than Roman but even better-looking, followed us in. Roman took the tray from me and said, “I’ll do this.” Excuse to be busy a minute more, maybe.
In the kitchen, Daniel was seated at the table, and Roman’s mum—Lola—was making tea as if she did it here every day, or possibly as if she thought Roman should move out and give the house to her, since he didn’t need it and she’d appreciate it so much more. Delilah was leaning against the stove, arms folded, watching her.
Lola said, when Roman deposited the tray, “Oh, lovely. Wine.” She grabbed the bottle. “I meant to ask you to open a bottle, but we’ll just have this. Your tea will be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Daniel. He doesn’t drink anymore,” she told Roman. “So disciplined and wise. A bit like you, really, isn’t he? Would you like wine, Matiu? Hand me down the glasses, Roman.”
Matiu said, “No, thanks, as I’m driving. I’ll take a cup of tea, though.” He sat down next to his—uncle?, which meant nobody else had to sit there, anyway.
Delilah said, “So this is some sort of family drama? Are Summer and I supposed to discreetly fade away, or what?”
“Probably best, darling,” Lola said. “It is a bit sensitive. Discussing money around outsiders can be awkward.” She poured herself a glass of wine that showed she had no concept of a “standard drink.”
“No,” Roman said. “You shouldn’t fade away, discreetly or otherwise, and we won’t be discussing money. Get a cup of tea and sit down.”
Delilah clicked her heels and saluted. “Jawohl, mein Herr.”
Roman smiled. So did Matiu. Lola said, “Pardon me. I understood that you’re a guest here. Or the cousin of a … guest.” That look was directed at me.
“Young people, eh,” Daniel said. “Not much respect these days, especially the Pakeha ones. No upbringing.”
“You’re right,” Delilah said. “I’m basically feral. Too bad for you.”
I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t think of what to say and this wasn’t my house. I went and sat at the end of the table, beside Daniel. Defiantly, maybe. Delilah started making her tea, while Lola walked around her as if she weren’t there, posture stiff, and set two mugs down in front of Matiu and Daniel. “There,” she said. “Now that I’ve taken care of you, we can be cozy. Come sit by me, darling,” she told Roman, as if she lived here. “I may have thought it was a wee bit sad,” she confided in Matiu, putting her head on one side in a girlish way I’d never seen from an actual girl and taking a ladylike sip of her enormous glass of wine, “only to have the one child, but Roman’s done well enough for five. There’s this house, so modern and glamorous that it should be in a magazine, but Roman doesn’t understand publicity. And the house in Dunedin, of course, though that’s quite pokey, which is odd, as it’s the one he lives in most. The one in Auckland is better, all metal and glass, very chic. In Parnell, that is, with Sir John Key practically next door and a feature on the building in an architectural magazine. I did well with him, if I do say so myself. Gave him that push to succeed from a boy, and he has. He made his first million by the time he was twenty-two, can you imagine? Did you know that his new firm, Zephyr, was named one of New Zealand’s Top 10 New Green Power Ventures? You won’t see it in him now, because he’s wearing those tatty shorts, but he’s normally beautifully dressed, too. I saw to that, of course. ‘First impressions are everything,’ I told him.”
She’d have gone on all night, I was sure, if Roman hadn’t cut through her recital of his mum-sponsored accomplishments with, “I give my mum an allowance, Daniel. Enough to buy clothes, food, all that. She doesn’t own her house, so she can’t mortgage it. She can’t sell her car, and she doesn’t have any capital.”
Daniel said, “What are you saying? That I’m here to sponge off your mum?”
“No,” Roman said. “I think you’re here to sponge off me, but you’ll take my mum if that’s all that’s going.”
Daniel said, “That’s always the way, isn’t it? Always the way. A man can’t get a break no matter how hard he works. My own son accusing me, just because I had a drink problem once, when all I’ve done is come to meet him with no thought of anything else. I was excited, and then I saw you and said, yeh, he’s a Te Mana, and was proud. Not much of one, you aren’t, treating your father like this.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Matiu said, his eyes sparkling as if there was nothing that didn’t amuse him. “I see some similarities.”
“Did Hemi talk to you?” Daniel demanded of Roman. “Fill your head with lies, just because I used to have a problem?”
“It’s an addiction,” Lola said, putting a comforting hand on Daniel’s. “It wasn’t a choice. You did your best, I’m sure. I can see how much you care about your family.”
Roman didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure he trusted himself to. He’d sat down beside me, though, straight across from Daniel. No wine and no tea, just his two hands on the table and his gaze fixed directly on the older man’s. I could see his chest rising and falling under the T-shirt, the temper he was trying to control, and I wanted to put my hand on his the way Lola’d done with Daniel, but I wasn’t sure if he’d welcome it.
Matiu said, “That it, then? Am I taking my swabs and driving home?”
“You go on, if you like,” Lola said. “You’ve been lovely. Daniel and I can stay and?—”
“No.” That was Roman.
“It’s late,” Lola said. “You can drive Daniel and me to the airport on the way to work on Monday morning. That’ll give us tomorrow to get acquainted.”
“No,” Roman said again. “I could say it’s because three of my bedrooms are in use already, and there’s no place for two more people?—”
“Three?” Lola said, her eyes sharp. “But—” Her gaze slid to me.
“Three,” Roman said.
“Mate,” Daniel said. “Have you looked at the girl? Maybe you’re not my son after all, if you’ve got somebody like that living with you and she’s not in your bed.”
“Oh, nice,” Delilah said. “You’re actually a jerk, you know that? Wow, Roman. I thought my mom was bad, and she cooked meth!”
Roman stood up. Not fast. Slowly. Fists on the table, upper body leaning slightly forward, leveling a look on Daniel that I wouldn’t have wanted to face. It was honestly scary enough that I got a shiver down my back. “Get her name,” he said, his voice like ice, “out of your mouth.”
Two beats. Three. Nobody spoke. Matiu didn’t smile, and Delilah, sitting on Roman’s other side, peeked around him at me and mouthed, “Wow.” I had to agree.
Roman sat down again and said, his voice absolutely composed, “But my lack of beds wouldn’t even be the reason. I don’t need a father, and I’m not interested in your excuses for not being one. And I’m busy this weekend.”
“Darling,” Lola said. “For your mum?”
Matiu said, “A word.” And stood up.
Roman looked at him warily, then stood himself and said, “Come with me.” He added, after a minute, “You too, Summer.” More of a summons than a request, but I came. Curiosity. Support. Whichever.
Roman stalked down the hall, and Matiu and I trooped along behind him all the way through the semicircle of house to a room I’d been in only to mop it out and dry the baseboards. An enormous office, it was dominated by the L-shaped table set against two blank walls, with three monitors arranged around a work area, and a narrow conference table set closer to the far wall. That wall was made entirely of glass, as if you were perched amidst the green hills, native bush, and the tranquil sea below. At night, you saw nothing but blackness, pierced by the stars, and with the light on, you saw nothing but your own reflection.
Roman put his hand on the chair at the head of the table and told Matiu, “Sit down.”
Once we were all seated, Matiu rubbed his beautifully sculpted nose and said, “If you’re wondering whether I’m sorry I volunteered—I am. I’m doing it for Hemi, maybe, but mostly, I’m doing it for Koro. If you’re whanau, he needs to know.”
“I’m no part of it,” Roman said.
“You are, mate,” Matiu said. “You’re Maori. That’s obvious. And whanau matters.”
“I. Am. Not. Maori.” Roman’s voice was quiet, too. And icy once more.
“Right, then. Give me a moment here.” Matiu took it, and then he said what I’d been thinking. “There’s a resemblance. That’s obvious. Especially to Hemi. Like I said—not necessarily a compliment. I know Daniel’s no prize, but the rest of us aren’t too bad. Mainly, though—the old man’s going to be a hundred. The thought of one of his mokopuna out there alone, no whanau to turn to, not knowing his place in the world, hurts his heart. Sounds like it’s a big ask for you. Pride, eh. But you’d be doing a good thing for Koro if you took the test. And if it comes up a match—if you came to this party, gave him a chance to meet you, let him see everybody else meeting you, that’d go a long way. Give him a chance to start to make it right for you, cuz. I think you’ll see why if you meet him. It’s never a bad thing to come up against that much mana.”
“You’ll do a lot for him,” Roman said.
“Clearly,” Matiu said, “or I wouldn’t be here. My night off, and I’ve got four kids.” Another flash of white grin. “And a wife who’s missing me, I hope. What do you say? Swab your cheek, send a text with the result, let you decide whether to turn up?”
The silence stretched out, both men looking at each other. Roman was a photo negative of Matiu, I realized: dark where the other man was light, but almost … the same picture? Finally, Roman said, “All right. Take the swab. I may as well know the truth.”
“The truth doesn’t always feel better,” Matiu said. “But it’s good to know it anyway. Hard to move forward without the truth.”