Chapter 54
FIGHTING FOR THE CROWN
What were reasonable people doing at five-thirty on a November Monday morning?
Sleeping, presumably. So why was Skylar (a) at Zane’s house, (b) wide awake, and (c) lifting weights?
Because the rugby gods had decreed that the second half of the Nations Championship, which was only being played to determine, let’s see, the best international rugby teams of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, would be played at the ungodly hour of four-thirty in the afternoon on Sundays, London time.
Which sounded fine, and like a lovely Sunday afternoon out for the family.
Except that in New Zealand, that lovely Sunday afternoon started at three-thirty the next morning.
Which explained, of course, why Skylar had stayed over Sunday night for the third time this November in order to watch with all the kids, no matter how heavy-eyed she’d be in class today.
She couldn’t have kept Scarlett and Finlay from watching if she’d tried, even though Finlay had proudly announced last week that he’d fallen asleep with his face on his maths book.
The three of them were watching, anyway.
The other four kids? They’d quickly fallen asleep on the couch every time, but were always certain afterwards that they’d seen “almost all of it.”
That was it. Detachment. Except that she couldn’t feel detached.
The scrum wheeled, and the referee blew his whistle to reset.
Zane stood up, his hands on his hips and his broad chest heaving as the rain plastered his hair to his head and his tight black uniform to his body, then got into position again, his arms wrapping around his props as they grabbed him in the same way, crouched, and got set to go again.
It’s just a game, she told herself, and knew it wasn’t true. It was Zane’s livelihood, and his passion. And it mattered.
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown.
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
The nursery rhyme had meant England and Scotland, but that was how this looked. And how it felt. Fighting for the crown with everything they had.
Front raises. The purple weights out in front of her now as the men pushed and strained and shoved.
Zane’s foot caught the ball and sent it back, and the No.
8 picked it up and got it away to the waiting halfback, who’d been posed like a Border Collie waiting for his chance to get to those sheep.
And now, everybody was running. The ball being taken forward two meters.
Five. Eight. All balletic movement from the backs, showing their silky skills, passing and catching and sidestepping, and every time one went to ground, everybody piling in on them.
The All Blacks trying to protect the ball down there, and the English trying to rip it out of somebody’s hands.
Closer to the tryline now, and it was the forwards’ turn. A game of inches down here, big bodies slamming forward, trying to run over their opposite numbers. The halfback wrestling that ball out of the breakdown and handing it off again, and another big man charging the defending line.
Upright rows. She was so nervous, she had to do something.
Sixty-five minutes in now, and fifteen minutes left to play.
An eternity, but if the All Blacks could score a converted try …
nine points was so much more comfortable than two.
Scarlett and Finlay were both sitting forward on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, the half-drunk mugs of cocoa Skylar had fixed during the halftime break congealing on the coffee table, and Skylar was lifting for all she was worth, thinking, Come on. Come on.
There. A break! The ball going back into Zane’s hands, and he was stepping out in that way he did, the way that said he wouldn’t be denied.
The tackle coming, and he flung the ball even as he was going down.
Back into Gordon’s hands, and Gordon was showing that sidestep, all his darting, twisting moves.
Skylar forgot to lift, because they were so close now. Surely they would …
The tackler all but flew at Gordon, grasping his legs, his hands slipping in the rain. Surely Gordon could keep going. Surely he …
He went down. Another English player was into the breakdown in a flash, diving for the ball, trying to wrestle it free.
He was even more of a bull than Zane, a bullet-headed, thick-necked, heavy-muscled specimen who looked like he chewed iron filings for breakfast, and he’d already stolen the ball twice during this match.
“Nooo,” Scarlett began to wail, and Duncan stirred, sat up, and opened his mouth to say, “What?”
As usual, it all happened so fast, it was hard to tell what, in fact, was happening.
Zane had tried to explain the breakdown to the kids and her during his week at home after Sydney, and she still had only the foggiest idea.
It always just looked like a bunch of men, their bodies bent double, wrestling for the ball.
She could see, though, that Zane had barged in there a fraction of a second after the England player, and he’d—
Wait. The ball was in All Blacks hands again, the pile instantly righting itself and moving on, but the England player was still down. On his stomach. Completely still.
The referee’s whistle. The trainers on the field with their bags, bent over the injured player.
The England No. 7, it was. She knew, because they had it up on the screen, and now, they were showing the replay.
The man going into the breakdown, and Zane going in to counter his attempt to steal the ball.
What exactly had happened, though? She couldn’t tell.
Duncan was saying, “What?” again, and Finlay was saying, “I don’t know. Something happened.”
The players standing around, hands on hips or on the tops of their heads, their breath coming out in white puffs. They must be freezing out there, but they gave no sign of it. And the replay, over and over.
“Looks like when Mahuta went in,” one of the announcers was saying, “he caught the back of Smithson’s shoulder, and Smithson’s head has gone forward too far. Chin on his chest right there.”
“Looks like an injury to the neck, Benji,” the other announcer said. “We’ll hope it’s not too serious.”
The trainers were motioning now, though, and a cart was coming out. A motorized cart.
Five more minutes. The trainers working a backboard under the injured player now, and the enormous, wildly enthusiastic crowd, which had been singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” at absolutely every opportunity, including during the haka, nearly silent.
Finlay said, “It looks like Zane caused it. If he gets a yellow card, that could be bad. Maybe even a red, if they say he hit the 7’s head.”
“He isn’t going to get a card!” Scarlett said. “He didn’t do anything!”
“Oh,” Finlay said. “It looked like he did.”
The officials on the field conferring. The replay running, again and again.
Skylar guessed she could see it, when they slowed it down, Zane coming in the same way he always did, feet planted, upper body driving forward to knock the other man off the ball.
And the man’s head dropping so, yes, his chin was on his chest.
The man being lifted onto the cart at last, and the thing driving slowly off the field and into the tunnel.
The players on both teams applauding, and the crowd, too.
The announcer saying, “We’ll hope for good news, Benji,” and the other man saying, “Always worrisome, those knocks to the head and neck.” The referee talking to the two captains, and the microphone picking up the sound.
“Nothing malicious in it,” the ref was saying.
“No attempt to target the head. Penalty only.” The crowd booing in shocked disapproval, England kicking the ball out for the restart, and the moment was over.
Skylar watched the rest of the match out of the corner of her eye while making lunches, because the delay was threatening to make them late.
The All Blacks won by those same two points, but somehow, she couldn’t take her usual pleasure in it.
She kept seeing that man lying motionless on the ground, and imagining his girlfriend or his wife up in the stands, her hands at her mouth, her heart in her throat.
Imagining her fighting her way out of her row, out of the stadium, because she couldn’t sit there anymore and not know.
Getting a lift to a hospital—some hospital—and sitting in a waiting room, clutching a paper cup of coffee that she wouldn’t drink.
Waiting, the same way Zane had said he’d waited for her.
Trying to bargain, but there was no bargaining possible.
Sometimes, your world narrowed down to that plastic waiting-room chair, that cold cup of coffee, those minutes ticking by with no news.
And Zane’s face, when the game was over. Set. Expressionless. What was he feeling? What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell, and she needed to know. But she wouldn’t, not for a while.
She texted, though, as she ate her breakfast standing up after a lightning-quick shower, surrounded by cereal bowls and eggy plates and children. Well done today. I hope Smithson’s OK. I hope you are. It was all she could think to say.
Then she couldn’t think about it anymore, because Granddad and Maureen had gone to Hawke’s Bay for the weekend to let Granddad meet more of the whanau—romance still progressing on that expedited timeline, then—and Granddad wouldn’t be back until later today.
He was only coming back for the kids, while Maureen was spending a few more days away to help Zane’s eldest sister, who’d just had her second baby.
Which meant that Skylar was responsible for Zane’s kids for a little bit longer. Which was at least a distraction.
At three-ten that afternoon, she watched the last pupil out the door, blew out a breath, and pulled out her phone. She hadn’t heard from Zane by lunchtime, even though he usually texted after the match. Surely he’d have answered by now, though.
Nothing. And it was … She did the math in her somewhat fuzzy head. After four in the morning in London. He’d be asleep, of course, and after that effort? He had to have been exhausted. Too tired to text her back after the match, though?
No. Zane was never that tired. He had an engine that wouldn’t quit. Then why?
Could it be her? The two of them? Again, she couldn’t believe it.
They’d talked yesterday, before the match.
She’d said, at one point, after all the child-updates and so forth, “Pity I finally got the approval to have sex again on the week you left the country. Here I’ve been, ready and willing, and without you to put me out of my misery.
” He’d had things to say on the subject, too.
And when she’d said, “You were so kind, still wanting to hold me and sleep with me all that time, and not getting much out of it. I should’ve made you happy, at least. I don’t know why I didn’t,” he’d answered, “Because you weren’t in a place to feel it, that’s why.
I can go six weeks without sex. I’ve done it before, and not just lately.
What d’you imagine I did after all my kids?
If I just wanted a willing body, I could get it.
I thought we’d established that that isn’t what I want.
” He’d sounded so sure, and her heart had filled once more.
This time, it wasn’t hormones that were making her weepy. It was love: gratitude, respect, understanding. Being seen. Being known. Whatever combination of feelings and thoughts and dopamine and serotonin made up love, real love, she had them. And maybe she was believing that he did, too.
She began straightening her room, marking papers, and reminding herself that it was fine that she’d still be staying at Zane’s this week, as Maureen wasn’t going to be around.
And besides, she liked being there with all of them.
She wasn’t going to deny that anymore. What was the point?
She also managed to spend some time reminding herself, If he didn’t ring or even text back, he had a reason.
Her phone rang on her desk as she was thinking that, and she rushed to grab it.
Oh. Jade. Wait. Zane’s sister was calling her? Why?
She got some more of those flutterings of the heart even as she swiped and said, “Jade? Hi. What’s up?”
Jade’s voice still had humor in it, and Skylar relaxed a bit. It couldn’t be Zane, then. Or the kids. Besides, four of the kids had been right here in Skylar’s school all day. Granddad would already have them at Zane’s, delving into their after-school snacks and hopefully tackling their homework.
Oh, wait. Jade. “They rang me,” Zane’s sister was saying, “because I’m the kids’ secondary contact, after Nan.
Dunno why Zane did that, as I don’t have the first idea what to do.
What do I know about kids’ fights? Bugger all.
Not that I didn’t get into the occasional barney as a kid, because I’m hot-blooded that way, but as for knowing what to do about them … ”
“Wait,” Skylar said. “Back up. What’s the trouble, exactly?”
“I told you,” Jade said. “Finlay and Scarlett are in the principal’s office. Fighting after school, apparently. First, I’m at work, and second … help.”