Authors: Rosalind James
“Ring me when you’re back at the house, then,” he commanded.
“Tell me what’s happening. I’ll check flights, but I won’t leave now. Because of
course they will. They’ll find him. ”
The next hours were an endless fight against panic. Sitting
in the lounge, holding her sister’s hand, her body stiff and frozen with fear
and dread. Trying to force her thoughts away from images of Zack, of what could
be happening to him. Images she couldn’t bear to entertain, but couldn’t keep
from her mind either. Waiting for the phone to ring, and fearing the call at
the same time. Lucy ringing their parents, explaining. Leaving Emma
periodically to step outside and ring them again, only to tell them that there
was still no news of Zack. Waiting, with Nic ringing for updates that she
couldn’t give him. And, to her surprise, his parents’ arrival.
“Oh, darling.” Ellen folded Emma in a hug as both women’s
tears flowed. “Nothing yet?”
“No,” Emma got out around the lump in her throat. “No.”
“What do you know?” George asked, face set and grim. “What
have you heard?”
“Nothing,” Emma told him shakily. “They’ve been out looking.
But nothing.”
“Who’s out looking?” George demanded of the female officer,
still sitting patiently in the side chair. “What are they doing?”
“We have a team out,” she assured him. “And volunteers as
well. They’ve fanned out from the center, searching.”
“Right. I’ll be helping with that,” he decided. “I’m no bloody
use here. Ellen’ll stay with you, Emma. Make you a cup of tea, or something.
But I’m going out to look for Zack.”
Emma nodded stiffly. Ellen on one side of her, Lucy on the
other. Praying. And waiting.
When the call finally came over the police radio, all four
women in the room jumped. Emma’s heart was beating so hard, it seemed as if it might
actually leap from her chest. She couldn’t breathe as she listened to the woman
answering. Saw the relieved grin flash on her face, the thumbs-up. And
dissolved in racking sobs, was folded into Ellen’s arms, Lucy hugging her from
behind, as they all cried together.
“Onopoto Domain,” the policewoman said briefly as she
finished the call. “Lost. But they’ve got him. I’ll take you. All of you.”
“Nic,” Emma got out through her tears. “I need to tell Nic.”
“In the car,” Lucy said. “Ring him on the way.”
He answered on the first ring, as he had every time. “They found
him,” she said, her entire body shaking with the release of tension. “They
found
him.”
“And?”
“He’s OK. He’s safe. Thank God. He’s safe.”
His ragged, indrawn breath, then a choking sound. And
another voice on the line.
“Emma? It’s Koti. What’s happened?”
“He’s OK. Zack’s OK. They found him at the Domain. We’re
here now. I see him. Oh, thank God. I’ll ring Nic back. Tell him.”
Then she was out of the car, running through the darkness to
her son. She vaguely registered George, standing in the little group of police
around the small figure, before she was pulling Zack into her arms, sinking to
the ground with him. Crying, and taking his sobs, his tears, into herself.
“Oh, baby,” she finally got out. “I was so
worried.
What
were you
doing?
What happened?”
“It was my . . . s-s-stone,” Zack stammered through his
tears. “I w-w-wanted to . . . chuck it back in the sea. But I couldn’t
find
it,”
he wailed. “And I thought you’d be angry, so I tried to . . . I tried to go
home. I just wanted to go
home
,” he sobbed. “But I kept getting loster,
and then I got scared because it was dark, and there might be animals, so I hid
behind a tree so they couldn’t get me. And I was so
scared,
Mum!” He buried
his head in her side as he wept.
“Oh, baby.” She smoothed his hair again and again with a
trembling hand. “What stone, though? Why?”
“The one Nic gave me,” Zack said, his lip quivering. He put
his hand into his shorts pocket, pulled out the white oval. “From the beach. I
had it in my pack. And I wanted to chuck it away.”
“But why?”
“Because he doesn’t
want
me.” The tears, starting
again.
“Oh, sweetie. Yes, he does. He
does.
He’s been so
worried.”
“No, he doesn’t! Liam and Connor
said!
I said it
wasn’t true, but they said it was in the paper. They said he did wrong things.
I said he didn’t, but they said it was news, and news is
true.
And they
said . . .” He broke off, crying hard now. “They said he . . . he didn’t want
to be my dad. I told them he gave me an All Black bedroom, and I have a jersey,
and
everything!
But they said he didn’t want me. They said he
said.”
“They were wrong,” Emma told him fiercely. “Nic’s your dad,
and he does want you. He loves you, and he wants you. That’s
true.
”
“But it’s
news,”
Zack sobbed.
George had been standing nearby with Ellen, but now he
squatted on his haunches next to Zack. “Mate,” he said. “You know I’m your
Grandpa, don’t you?”
“Yeh,” Zack said doubtfully, his woebegone face turned up to
his grandfather’s.
“That means I’m your dad’s dad. And it means I know your
dad. And I can tell you. Your dad wants you, and he loves you.” His voice was
gruffer now, but he plowed on. “Just as much as I love him, that’s how much
your dad loves you. And that’s heaps.”
“Really?” Zack asked uncertainly as he sniffed.
“Really,” George assured him. He put out a work-hardened
hand to tousle his grandson’s hair. “Just that much. I’m his dad, and I know.”
“And right now,” Emma said, standing up, holding her son to
her, feeling weak with relief and emotion, “we need to ring your dad. So he
knows you’re OK, and he can talk to you himself.”
Ellen and Lucy fixed dinner while Emma ran Zack a bath
and sat with him while he took it. She couldn’t bear to leave him, not tonight.
He recovered quickly under the influence of warm water and hot soup, and was
soon showing his grandparents his Legos and All Blacks poster. Emma’s own
recovery, though, wasn’t nearly as quick. By the time she’d got Zack off to
sleep with a story and a song, she didn’t think she’d ever been more exhausted
in her life. Lucy offered to stay, but Emma knew she needed the quiet, time
alone to recover.
She’d thought she had no more tears left, but they’d started
again in earnest once she had shut the door behind the others. Tears of remembered
terror, of relief and gratitude. For what she’d feared, and for not having to
endure it. And in the midst of it, the ring of her mobile. She groped for it.
Nic. She took a deep, shaky breath, pushed the button to answer.
“Hi,” she said, the tears welling up in seemingly
inexhaustible supply. “Aren’t you . . . aren’t you at training, or out with the
team, or something?”
“You’re joking, right?” His voice didn’t sound much firmer
than her own. “I’m buggered. All I want is to be there with the two of you.
How’s Zack?”
“Asleep at last.”
“And how’re you?”
She laughed a little, and was amazed to find she still could.
It seemed like so long since she had laughed. “Better than I was. That was . .
. it was the worst. For you, too, I know.”
“And we haven’t even—” He stopped, started over. “There was
something else in the
Herald
today. I just heard about it, since . . .
since Zack. Since I found out he was OK. It hardly seemed to matter, when I
heard it. But then I started worrying that you’d seen it. And that you would’ve
believed it. Because it isn’t true. None of it.”
“It isn’t?” She wanted so much to believe. Thoughts of Zack
had driven everything else from her mind for hours. But once he was safe at
home again, the remembrance of the story had seeped back in, a niggling unease at
the edges of her consciousness. “I did see it. And I didn’t know what to
think.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I
didn’t
do that.” His voice
sounded pinched and tight, far from his usual deep, controlled tone. “I didn’t
cheat on Claudia, ever. Even with you, however tempted I was. And you know
nobody else could’ve tempted me as much as you. I sure as hell haven’t cheated
on you.”
“Why would she say it, then?”
“
I
don’t know,” he said in frustration. “Publicity?
Her moment in the spotlight? I barely recognize her. Couldn’t have told you her
name. One of those girls who hangs about when we’re celebrating after a match.
I won’t say she hasn’t taken anyone back to her place, any of the younger boys.
But I don’t do that anymore.
I was a fool and lost you once. I wouldn’t
risk that again.
”
She was silent, digesting what he’d said, not sure what else
to say. What to ask.
“If you need somebody to vouch for me,” he went on hurriedly.
“My roomie during any of those trips, any of the other boys. Everyone knows who
goes after what’s on offer, and who doesn’t. And I don’t. I realize there’s no
way I can prove it. I’m gone too much. All I can ask you to do is believe that
I love you, and I don’t want anybody else. I need you to believe that.”
“Lucy said that Cooper’s is talking about canceling their
contract with you,” she said slowly. “And that some of the others were
considering it too.”
“Yeh,” he admitted. “Because ‘mums buy bread,’” he mimicked
savagely. “And I’m not looking good to mums just now. That’s what my agent told
me. But that doesn’t matter. That’s the least of it. What matters is you,
whether you can still trust me. Don’t give up on me, Emma. Please. I need you
to believe in me.”
“I do,” she said, the tears coming again now. “It’s going to
take a lot more than that for me to give up on you. I believe in you, and I
love you.”
“Oh, God.” She heard the ragged sound of his indrawn breath.
“Give me a sec here.”
He came back a minute later. Exhaled down the line, a long
breath. “All this. I just . . . I can’t do this. I’m buggered. This was too bad,
today. It’s too hard, being here alone. I need to see both of you, to have you
here. Would you come be with me?”
“What? Now?” she faltered. “To London?”
“I need you here. It’s not the reputation thing, or the
endorsements,” he hurried on. “Everyone else I care about, everyone who knows
me, my teammates, my family, they’ll know what to believe. It’s not about that.
It’s about you and me, and Zack too. I know it’s a big ask. It’s so far. And I
know it’d be a leap of faith. But . . . can you?”
It was a leap, she realized, that she’d already taken. “If
you need me,” she promised, “I’ll come. I’ll bring Zack, and we’ll both come.”
“You will?” He sounded startled.
“Of course I will. That’s what loving someone means, doesn’t
it? Being there for you, when you need me?”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice shaky again. “I
know I don’t. But I’m going to do my best to try.”
“I just don’t know . . . what.” She tried to think, but her
mind was mush. “How to do it.”
“I’ll do it,” he promised at once. “There’s a flight at twelve-thirty
tomorrow afternoon. I know that, because it’s the one we took. If you can get
to the airport tomorrow by ten-thirty, I’ll email you the tickets, for you and
Zack. Don’t be late,” he warned her. “Don’t leave it to the last minute, not
this time. I’ll get someone to find a room for you, too, and send you the
booking. All you need to do is email me your passport info. Numbers, full
names, expiration. You do have them, don’t you?” he asked in sudden alarm.
“Passports?”
“Yeah. We both do. Tomorrow morning? I’ll have to go into
work,” she realized. “I can’t do it on the phone. It’s going to take some time
to sort all the projects out. And I don’t know what Roger will say. I don’t
know what’ll happen.”
“Whatever happens, it doesn’t matter. Because I’m here for
you. You know that.”
“I do,” she said. “I know. And I’m here for you too.”
Lucy was asleep already, when Emma rang. “What?” her sister
asked fuzzily. “What happened? Zack? Something else?”
She was alarmed at Emma’s recital. “I know it’s been a bad
day. It must be hard to even think straight. But . . . you
believe
him? Enough
to drop everything and
go
there? How can you?”
“Because I do,” Emma said helplessly. “Because I love him,
and he loves me, and I believe that he’s telling me the truth. And we need to
be together right now.”
“He has
no
track record,” Lucy reminded her. “OK, I
believe that he cares about Zack. That was obvious, today. But he told you once
before that he loved you, remember? What did that count for?”
“That was then, and this is now. What has he done, these
past months, that’s been less than honorable? What?”
“Nothing. That you
know
of,” Lucy pointed out.
“And what do I know now?” Emma challenged her. “I know what
Claudia’s mum said, which wasn’t true. He’s rung me almost every night he’s
been gone.
Including
when he was in Wellington. Maybe there are men out
there who can hook up with some girl, and then ring their partners a half hour
later to say ‘I love you,’ but Nic isn’t one of them.”
“Bottom line,” she told her sister. “I can believe the man I
love, who’s given me absolutely no reason to doubt him these past months, and
who
needs
me right now. Or some woman I’ve never met, making allegations
that don’t even
sound
like Nic. ‘We talked all night?’” she quoted
furiously. “‘He just wanted to be comforted?’
Nic?
Not bloody likely. If
I need proof she doesn’t really know him, there it is right there.”
“You need to think harder about this,” Lucy cautioned. “You
need to stop and think it through before you make this kind of decision. You
can’t just jump in impulsively here, Em, the way you do. I think Nic needs to
prove himself.”