Could we continue, quietly, keeping it hidden?
Why do you keep swallowing suddenly, like you’re stuck on a confession? What are you afraid to tell me?
Am I still Ika?
Those words stay buried.
I shift my hand on the shoebox. How topsy turvy. What should be buried, and what unearthed.
“The oldie van!” Grandpa calls out. “They’re overtaking us!”
And they’re doing it with cheek. John’s practically pressed to the side window, laughing.
“Step on it,” Grandpa yelps.
“Not one to hoon,” Trent says.
The word smacks into me. Hoon.
That damn word that stuck in my mind the day Trent first came to collect me. Hoon. I’d snickered, imagining that word ever coming from his mouth. He was too measured for it, too calmy spoken. But he just said it.
This silly word. Hoon.
Appearances aren’t always the truth.
Between us, appearances aren’t the truth at all.
We arrive at the farm at the same time as the van. Lush paddocks, trees lining them, a hill in the distance, and a long driveway to the house just past a rustic-looking barn.
We pile out of the vehicles and creak our hips into the house. “Two to a room,” Trent calls, and the oldies shuffle over carpeted floors to claim their spots.
Trent claims the furthest room from the facilities for us. No bunk beds here—a double and a single bed. I wait for him to claim a bed first. If he chooses the single, I’ll know what he means. The double becomes more ambiguous.
The double, he chooses.
My heart skids a little. I tell myself not to hold my breath. It’s simply the bed closest to the door. Still, I stand there wavering between hoisting my things onto the other side, or restraint. I stiffly drop my bag next to the wardrobe. “I left the chicken in the car.”
I hurry out to collect the shoe box.
Keep it together.
Today is about the chicken.
Today we’re holding a wake.
I hear footsteps behind me, slow, matching mine.
I cradle the box and take a turn about the farm, traipsing from one paddock to another behind the barn until I find myself before the frondy leaves of a nikau palm that’s just starting to form a trunk. There’s a bench beside it and I take a seat.
“You found our tree.”
I glance over. Trent’s here. But I knew that. I felt him follow me.
I watch his slow approach. “Then shouldn’t you water it?”With your dreams? Your moemoea?
He sinks his hands into his shorts’ pockets. “Your eyes are dancing too hard.”
“What were some of Trenty’s dreams when he was growing up?”
