Chapter 32 Tsunami
tsunami
The sea’s reckoning, sudden, immense, unstoppable. And it’s not the first wave that hits the hardest.
There’s a dulling of heat behind my eyes, like a cloud passing over the sun. Except—not quite. My hand, knotted with Trent’s and resting on my stomach, still burns with mid-morning.
I blink, lazily.
The shade is coming from a shape leaning over me.
It’s—
I freeze. My fingers around Trent’s feel like they’re on fire.
It’s not . . . it can’t be . . .
Grandpa. Cane in one hand, the shoebox gripped in the other.
I inhale sharply.
Trent doesn’t stir. His breathing stays even, deep in sleep.
I carefully, slowly unlace our fingers, like maybe, maybe Grandpa hasn’t noticed.
But his gaze sinks to our hands and holds.
The cane presses deeper into the grass, like he’s doubled his weight onto it. I throw myself upright, reaching to steady him, but . . . he’s not struggling.
He lifts the hand holding the shoebox to his lips. Shhh.
His gaze flicks to Trent, then back to me. His finger curls: come.
My heart thunders. What kind of reaction is that? Why doesn’t he speak, shout, demand an explanation?
Why is he so calm?
A knot in my stomach tightens as I follow him across the paddock to the base of the hill.
“Grandpa . . .”
He points to the lone tree at the top. “Up there.”
Each step up the hill, my legs feel heavier, and the wind hits in waves. He’s not saying anything. He’s not fuming under the surface. His gait is slow, but even. His eyes . . . they’re fixed in the distance and his lips are pressed in a sad sort of grimace.
Halfway, he passes me the shoebox.
I take it, and it feels like a shiver in my hand.
There’s something about this box.
I first saw Grandpa with it the day we cleaned the relics out of his room. He’d slunk off into the garden; he’d been morose all day after.
It’s not heavy in my hand, and if I didn’t hear a slight shift of material inside, it might be empty.
My nape prickles.
The empty-weight of this box is more unnerving.
I hold it tighter, like that might give it more weight, more meaning.
I’ve seen Grandpa with this box multiple times over the last months. Always trucking it around, from his room to the garden and back again.
He hadn’t been willing to throw this old box away. He wasn’t ready yet.
He even brought it all the way to the farm.
It had been strange, hadn’t it, that they so sharply stopped me from using it as a coffin. Grandpa . . . Grandpa and Trent.
My heart thumps against the box so hard, I can feel it vibrate.
The box has a pulse.
I curl my fingers around the lid.
Without looking over, Grandpa pats my hand. Not yet.
We climb higher and higher. Grandpa breathes out deeply. Reverent. Like he’s walking not just towards the lone tree capping the hill, but towards something he’s already grappled with.
My stomach doesn’t stop tightening. Stopping at the craggy edge gives me the dizzying feeling that I’m about to fall. I sink to the grass, bowed over the box.
Below us grassy paddocks stretch in all directions, and there is Trent, starfished in a patch of sunlit grass.
He’s small from all the way up here. His burnt-orange shirt against light grass.
Grandpa groans his way down onto the grass beside me, his eye shifting to Trent as well.
“He means well, my grandson,” Grandpa murmurs.
And . . . the way he says it, the forgiving twitch on his lips . . . the lack of shock on his face at our entwined hands.
Blood rushes around my ears. “You . . .”
“I figured it out a long time ago.”
My throat sticks. I’m clutching the ghostly box. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“He resurrected Ika to make me smile. But you did more than that—you brought his smile back too.”
I’m crushing the box against my chest.
“I didn’t want the truth to take you away. So I played along. Hoping Trent would realise he was doting on you, not his lost little brother.”
“Things got tangled,” I choke out. “We were afraid our lies would kill you.”
“Mm. When I saw it, I knew I had to talk to him.”
It hits like a surprise wave, punching the air from my lungs.
“You talked to him.”
Trent knew Grandpa knew.
“When you were in Palmerston North.”
I’m pulled underwater sharply, tossing, turning: which way is up? I’m bashed with bits of conversation that suddenly take on new meaning. The day before I left for Palmy.
“I have beef with this one anyway. I’ll use the time to set him straight while you’re gone.”
“Not too straight.”
“Ha. Romance would be good for him. I won’t damage his chances.”
I hear it now. A boyfriend would be good for him. Better than a fake brother.
They talked while I was away. While I was penning postcards so they wouldn’t forget me; while I was worrying my feelings might prove fatal . . .
My teeth clench. I remember Ika’s side of the bedroom—packed away, empty, the air thick with cologne and something that felt like grief.
Trent knew Grandpa knew.
But if he did . . . surely, he’d tell me. There’d be no reason not to.
So why did he look so afraid to talk that night?
Why say, You’ll run away?
A strange quiet rolls over me. And I’m hit with the image of a beach where the tide is pulling back, back, back, leaving flopping fish and a million shells behind.
And dread drags at my legs, pulling me deeper into the sand.
I know what this is.
The first wave was Grandpa seeing. It wrecked my nerves. The second was Trent already knowing.
But this third wave . . .
The box falls and opens. Newspaper clippings spill out.
It’s coming back to take what’s left.