“Look,” Dad says to him, “look what you’ve done. You call yourself a man? What kind of man makes his wife cry like that?”
Nausea rises inside me. I can hear Thea in the kitchen with Mum—they’re about to come in with the tea. I can’t have her witness this. Mark’s shoulders are shaking—I think he’s crying too, and Dad’s eyes are also shining.
Suddenly, it’s all too much. I’ve done everything I can for my family. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to try and help them, and where has it gotten us? We were struggling before, and now we have another five thousand to add to the debt. Well, I can forget about getting the ride-on mower mended. I wouldn’t take a wage myself, but I have my own rent and bills to pay. I don’t know what to do anymore. I have nothing else left to give.
Despair sweeps over me. I love my father, and I don’t want to add to his stress when he’s so ill. And I love my brother, and I want to help him. But everyone has their limits, and I’ve finally reached mine.
“You need to get help, Mark,” I say. “Clearly, you have a problem. And it’s not up to us to solve it for you. You need to want to be better.” I get to my feet. “I’m going to take Thea out for a drive. While I’m gone, you have to think seriously about where you go from here. Because I’m done.”
I pick up my purse and walk out of the room, meeting Mum and Thea coming down the corridor. “Come on,” I say to Thea brightly. “We’re going out for a bit.”
Her face lights up. “Oh, okay! Let me just pack up my pencils.”
“No, you can do that later.” I pick up her hand. “We won’t be long,” I say to Mum. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.” Against my will, my bottom lip trembles.
Her face falls, but she says, “It’s okay, love. You two go for a while and enjoy yourselves.”
I walk past her, bringing Thea with me. At the front door, we shove our feet in our shoes, and then we go out, crossing the front lawn to my car.
I open the back door, and Thea climbs in and sits on the booster seat I always have in my car for her. I make sure she’s buckled in properly, close her door, and get in the front, and soon we’re on our way.
“Where are we going?” Thea asks.
I swallow hard, trying to calm my emotions. “I thought we could go to the Waiora.” The waterfall and natural pool is open to everyone. Lately they’ve been doing some work around it, making it safer and creating some new facilities, but as it’s Sunday and out of season, it will probably be fairly quiet.
“Can we swim?” she asks. She knows I keep a bag in the car with a swimming costume and a towel for us both.
“Isn’t it a bit cold for that?”
“The sun’s out,” she persists.
“We’ll test the temperature when we get there,” I promise. The pool is usually on the cool side because it’s fed by the waterfall, but kids never care about how cold the water is.
“Why was Mummy shouting?” she asks.
I glance at her in the mirror. “Don’t worry about that.”
She glares back. “Everyone always says that. I’m not stupid.”
“I know…”
“They argue all the time. They’re in trouble, aren’t they?”
I hesitate. She’s not my daughter, and I don’t want to cause problems because I’ve told her things they’d rather she didn’t know. Most people believe children should be shielded from problems and worries.
But I can see her frustration, and her fear. All she knows is that something’s gone wrong and her parents are arguing and upset. I can only imagine what she thinks might have happened.
Well, I’m not going to lie to her. We’re close, and I want her to think she can always come to me if she needs help.
“Wait till we get to the Waiora,” I say, “and we’ll talk about it.”
She sits back, apparently mollified by that, and looks out of the window for the rest of the short journey.
The main road heads through the hills to the Midnight resort, then curves around it, and I pull off into a public car park close to the waterfall. It’s empty, so I doubt we’ll find it packed with visitors. I turn off the engine, then get out and open the door for Thea. I collect the bag I keep in the boot, lock the car, and take her hand, and we head along the path toward the waterfall.
I haven’t been here for a few months, but I’d heard they were doing some work. I can see evidence of it already. This used to be little more than a muddy track, but they’ve put gravel down so it will be less slippery in the rain. The trees on either side have been trimmed, and at one point where the slope steepens, they’ve cut a few steps to make it safer and added a handrail.
We can already hear the river and the sound of the water tumbling over the rocks, and then we emerge from the trees to see the waterfall resplendent in the morning sunlight. I’ve been here when the river is so shallow that the falls are little more than a trickle, but it’s been raining, so the flow is relatively heavy now. Upstream, they’ve erected a bridge across to the side that belongs to Kahukura, the commune now called The Village, which is much safer than the old wobbly stepping stones and also provides a great viewing platform looking downstream over the falls to the sea in the distance. We stay on the public side, though, and make our way down the new steps to the Waiora itself.