Chapter 33
SENSE RETURNS
Skylar rose to consciousness slowly. A moment of disorientation, first, that the ceiling was different.
There was a long crack in the paint up there like a lightning bolt, and she blinked at it in confusion.
Also, her body felt … unusual. She pushed herself up to sitting and groaned a little, because everything hurt, like she’d done the workout from hell the day before. She was also a bit sore in the …
She was just remembering the “why” of all that when the bedroom door opened and Jade breezed in. “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re awake.”
“What time is it?” Skylar asked. “Have I overslept? Wait. We’re meant to be flying home today.” She threw back the duvet and got to her feet, soreness and all.
“Not happening,” Jade said. “We’re stuck here.
Well, maybe Mum and Dad aren’t, as they have the car, but the authorities are saying to stay put if you possibly can.
It’s a mess out there, and the airport’s closed for at least another day while they check.
Luckily, the runways were above tsunami level.
Who knew? They always seem like you’re landing in a seaplane.
Turns out the biggest wave was less than eight meters, too.
Seems impossible, doesn’t it? Mad how much damage an eight-meter wave can do.
And it’s …” She looked at her watch. “Eight-fifteen.”
Eight-fifteen? Skylar’d woken by six-fifteen just about every day of her life. “How do you know what they’re saying, though?” she realized. “Is the electric back on? The TV?”
“No,” Jade said. “But the mobile network’s working. Hooray for buried cables, eh.”
She looked at Skylar with something like speculation, and Skylar smoothed her hair and said, “What?”
“Your shirt’s on inside out,” Jade said. “And it wasn’t last night. Interesting. So you two are involved. No worries,” she said, when Skylar opened her mouth. “I assumed you were anyway, or why would you come on this holiday?”
“Because our grandparents are dating,” Skylar said. “We explained this.” She longed to put her PJ top to rights, but there was no point now, was there?
“Yeh, right,” Jade said. “I’d bring some tea and toast to the heroine of the hour, but as there’s no electric, there’s no tea and no toast. Fancy a glass of water and a slice of bread with jam while you look at nothing?
You said your phone was out of juice. You could charge it in one of the cars, like the rest of us.
The only question is, will we run out of gas or battery life first.”
“Forrest,” Skylar realized. She ignored the rest. How was she a heroine for staying with the kids? Was she meant to have deserted them? “We need to get him home. His poor parents. What’s it like out there? Driving, and all?”
“Like I said, they’re asking people not to. Streets are a bit of a mess.”
“And the airport’s definitely closed all day?”
“Until tomorrow, like I also said. Then they’ll see.”
“Bugger. I need to phone my principal to tell her I won’t be there. Start of the new term,” she explained, when Jade looked confused.
“Oh,” Jade said. “I never pay much attention. How old are you, anyway?” She took a seat on the bed as if she were prepared for a long, cozy chat.
“Pardon?” Skylar blinked at her. She needed to brush her teeth. Also take a shower. She was a bit … sticky. Which was nice, but she also felt like she was wearing a scarlet letter again. Like everybody could tell.
So what if they can? What have you done wrong? Other than violate professional standards, that is. But otherwise? She wasn’t a devotee of the purity culture, and Zane’s whanau was presumably aware that he had a sex life.
Well, there was the pregnancy idea, but never mind that. She had enough to think about just now.
“You don’t look much older than me,” Jade said, “and I’m twenty-eight. But you have older kids, like Zane. So I’m asking.”
“I’m thirty-two. A bit older than you, yeh. Why?”
“Just that it’s like you’re in a different world,” Jade said. “Or a different generation. Probably just more mature, though.”
Because I seem forty, Skylar thought. Not exactly welcome news. But—Forrest. She had to try to get Forrest home somehow.
And not think about Zane too much. That was high on the agenda.
She was a world-class overanalyzer, but she didn’t have to be one today.
She and Zane had shared a terrifying time, they’d had to work hard to get through it, and they’d clung together a bit in the aftermath.
Bonding in a traumatic situation, that was. Perfectly natural.
She wouldn’t be odd around Zane, either. Easy-breezy lemon squeezy. She did this all the time. She was a fun-loving, casual woman who did Speed Dating and went dancing and had unprotected sex and … and whatever else women like that did.
She was so not prepared for this.
Skylar came into the dining room … brightly, Zane would call that. Or maybe “breezily” was a better word.
“Goodness, I’m late,” she said. “Everybody else already awake and eating, I see. That doesn’t happen often. Well, I’m awake now, anyway. My cold shower saw to that. I’d call it ‘invigorating,’ but it was more like me trying not to scream.”
“Because we used up the hot water last night,” Finlay said. “Even though we took very short showers.” He jerked away when Skylar went to kiss him. “Mum.” A hand went up to ward her off. “I’m eleven.”
“Sorry,” Skylar said. She kissed Olive, though, and George, and put a hand on Forrest’s head and smoothed his hair. “Doing OK?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “Because George and Georgia and I have been playing, even though there’s no TV. I didn’t know people took two showers a day, though. You don’t get dirty sleeping.”
There went her color, straight up to her cheeks. “Yes,” she said, “well, I …”
Geoffrey said, “What did you do to your arms? Did you fall yesterday, too?”
“What?” Deer in the headlights, that was that look.
“Your elbows,” Geoffrey said. “They’re scraped.”
“Ah,” Skylar said. “Well, I … well …” She pulled on the sleeves of her T-shirt as if that would hide the red marks. So much for breeziness. Also so much for his sexual prowess, when she came out of it with carpet burn. What had he been thinking?
He knew the answer. He hadn’t been thinking.
“Sit down,” he said, standing to give her his seat.
“Not much to eat, I’m afraid, but there’s still bread and cheese and a little fruit.
Some canned stuff for later, fortunately, but cold canned Wattie’s spaghetti probably doesn’t excite you for breakfast. I’ll fix you a plate, shall I?
And I know, a coffee wouldn’t come amiss, but here we all are, deprived addicts. ” Giving her time to recover, he hoped.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you. Though I could get it myself, of course.”
“I know you could,” he said. “But I’d like to do it for you.” Bloody hell, but she was a hard woman to help. He headed into the kitchen, but kept his ears open. Also his eyes, because she still didn’t look comfortable, did she?
“So isn’t anybody going to say?” Jade asked.
“About what?” Skylar said. Aiming for that breeziness again, but it wasn’t working.
The poor woman had had sex—pretty inadequate sex, in his expert opinion—for the first time in years, and now she seemed to think she’d have to face a tribunal over it.
But then, she’d had an early lesson in The Consequences of Your Actions, and lessons like that tended to stick around.
“About your heroism, of course,” Jade said.
“My what?” She looked relieved. She also looked confused.
“Excuse me?” Jade said. “How you ran out of Te Papa and risked your life to get seventeen people upstairs to safety? People who’d definitely have drowned otherwise? They didn’t know your name, but we do, of course. Should we ring the network and out you?”
“They had a whole part of the program about it, Mum,” Finlay said. “With this really old man who said you almost got killed helping him. I didn’t know you almost got killed.”
“That was very scary to know,” Olive agreed. “Although sometimes TV shows say things like that because it’s dramatic. They talked about the All Blacks rescuing people, too. They did that second, though. I wonder if it makes the All Blacks feel weird that they weren’t the biggest heroes.”
“They were still heroes,” Scarlett said. “Nobody’s saying who’s the biggest hero!”
“I think Mum was a bigger hero,” Finlay said. “Because she did it alone, and the All Blacks did it together. It’s easier when you do things together.”
“This All Black agrees,” Zane said, coming back and setting down a plate of sliced pears, cheese, and bread and butter in front of Skylar. “Your mum was a hero and no mistake. Definitely more than me.”
“But who’s counting?” Geoffrey said. “Well, I’ll count a bit, I reckon. As she’s my granddaughter.”
Did she get a chance to talk to Zane? She did not. Not that she’d have known what to say. “Thanks for the good time?” What did people say, the morning after? Did you just act like you’d had a … sleepover?
Probably. Casual, that was how you acted, as it was casual sex. It was right there in the name!
The minute she’d finished eating—earthquakes were a bloody good diet plan, because she was still hungry, just like she’d still been hungry last night—she stood and said, “Now, Forrest, let’s get you home, shall we?”
“Yes, please,” he said. “Because I want to see my mum very much. Also Fiona, even though she says I’m a bother. But I still hope she didn’t die.”
What do I say to that? she wondered. I can’t tell him, “Oh, I’m sure she didn’t die,” because what if she did? She decided on, “I hope so, too. Is it just your mum at home? Or your mum and dad?”
“Just my mum,” Forrest said. “My dad’s divorced. He lives in Auckland.”
“Well, he’ll be just as happy as your mum to know you’re safe, I’m sure,” Skylar said. “Oh—can I take your car, Granddad?”
“Of course,” he said. “But you shouldn’t go alone. It’s a right mess out there, they say.”
“I’ll take you,” Zane said.