“Anyone would be right,” she says, nose pressing against the window.
“You have been on a flight,” Ant tells her as she settles into her seat, and I do up the belt before she can escape again. “Dad did a series of lectures when you were four or five. We went with him around the North Island.”
“Really?” She tears her gaze from the window long enough to frown at him. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“You’re not missing much unless you want a speech about quantum theory for laypeople, complete with jokes. But we took a flight to and from Wellington, then drove everywhere else from there.”
“Your dad was a lecturer?”
“He was a professor at Tiaki Uni before it got rolled into the joint campus.” Ant pauses, then adds, “He’d had his accident by the time they combined facilities.”
He talks like of course Evie would have told me all this stuff already and it occurs to me she hasn’t offered a lot of her life history, deflecting when asked. Perhaps I didn’t notice because I was busy doing the same. “Do you remember Ms Kaihe?”
He nods, hugging himself as a nasty tremor rolls through his body. “Yeah. She was a good sport.”
“She seems to still be a fan of yours.”
“Well, what’s not to love?”
Evie squeezes my hand into new and interesting shapes during take-off, then stares out the window for most of the flight. When we land, there’s still a forty-minute drive to get to Dunedin. By the time the driver turns into the clinic driveway, it’s close on midday.
Inside, the receptionist waves us into a row of seats, backing against the wall, and I take one.
Ant paces the room, obviously hurting. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead no matter how many times he swipes itwith his forearm. Evie takes the seat next to me, sitting on her hands like she can quell her brother’s restlessness by restricting her movement.
“It’ll be fine,” I assure her as a clinician takes Ant into an exam room. “At worst, they’ll give him his maintenance dose and refer him back to his GP.”
But I can see how much she wants it to be over, for him and for her. I guess the most recent crisis underscored how close to the edge he is and will continue to be. His recovery involves so many interconnecting factors outside of her control, I understand the urge to just have it over, have it done, have him clean once and for all.
She won’t thank me if I interject with my experience, with Addie’s path and how it careened off the tracks even though as a family we did everything we were supposed to do.
Instead, I steal one of her hands out from underneath her thigh prison and press it tightly between mine. A gesture to keep her grounded.
“I passed the physical,” Ant says when he emerges. “Once I’m signed in, they can begin the treatment.”
Evie gulps. “You mean, today?”
He smiles, reaching out to flick her ear. “Unless you had other plans.”
She bounces onto her toes, hugging herself as Ant is guided to the counter and presented with a new batch of paperwork.
A thin thread of anxiety seems to hold back Evie’s happiness. Perhaps the very real fear the detox will overwhelm his system, cause more harm than good, maybe even cause his death.
The chance is small, but it must be in the back of her mind. It’s in mine, and I don’t care for Ant at all.
“Why don’t you take a walk around the grounds,” her brother suggests when she vibrates with a low frequency hum that sets my teeth on edge. “There’s a pond with swans if you follow thatpath,” he says, pointing. “Go enjoy yourself in the sunshine while we finish all the boring stuff in here.”
I think she’ll protest but instead she gives a nod, reaching for my hand.
“I’ll stay,” I say when Ant catches my eye with a meaningful expression. “They’ll need to sort out payment.”
When she doesn’t budge, I tug her outside, giving her a hug of reassurance.
“Everything will be okay. The hard part was him passing the physical. If they thought he couldn’t handle the treatment, there’s no way they’d proceed.”
I steer her to the path and when she tries to twist away to return inside, I add, “You’re nervous. I understand. But your brother’s already on edge. Maybe let him get settled for an hour or so.”
Her cheeks turn ruddy with the veiled criticism, but she nods and I’m grateful practicality is one of her strengths.
