Page 119 of Kiwi Gold

“Lachlan.” I tried to laugh, but I couldn’t. “You can’t. Men don’t … it doesn’t happen like that.”

“Yeh,” he said. “It does. Your dad talked to your mum twice, and she starved herself for him, because he was the only man she wanted. He came to her door for thirteen days, too. They both knew, and that’s how it is for me, too.” His mouth twisted in something that was almost a smile, but couldn’t quite manage to be. “‘O white bird,’” he quoted, “‘do stop asking why. I belong to my love, and my love belongs to me.’ I don’t want to do this for fun. I don’t want to do it and wonder how long it’ll last. I’m here to say—I’m in this, and I’m in it for good.”

He put out his hand, palm spread, and I put my own hand against it. My right hand, where the gold of the bracelet shone. His fingers slid through mine, and he closed them over me. “This is what you have,” he told me. “My hand, and my heart. If you want it.”

“Lachlan.” I was laughing, and I was crying. “It’s all I want. But—my business. I’m not … I’m solvent, but … but you can do better.”

“No,” he said. “That’s one thing I’m sure of. I can’t do better. A woman worth rubies, your dad said, and that’s what you are. Besides, I’m meant to be insolvent myself, remember? Though the conversation didn’t go too badly today, with the Saudis. Who knows. Either your dad or I will get that contract, I think. I’m not there yet, not everywhere I want to be, not even close, but I know … I know that I want you, and I want the girls. I want a family, and I want to know we’re starting, even if we’re not there yet. That we’re starting together, if you can want that.”

I put my hand over his mouth. “Maybe,” I said, “we don’t have to get everywhere by ourselves first. Maybe it’s better to get there together.”

He smiled. Sweet, and strong, and forever. “Then,” he said, “let’s get started.”

51

KIWI GOLD

Lachlan

I married Laila on a Saturday morning in June, at six o’clock in the morning, on Long Beach, on the Otago Peninsula. Amidst the fur seals and the penguins and the albatrosses, with the wild wind blowing. And with Matariki and her daughters appearing on the horizon for the first time at this winter solstice, ushering in the Maori new year with their lessons about generosity, about openness, about enthusiasm, about embracing all of life with all your heart.

Nobody else had thought it was a good idea when we’d told them. Not the date, not the time, and definitely not the marriage. Not even the way we’d knocked down the walls between the flats and had started to reconfigure the space. My mum had frowned, my sisters had gasped, and Torsten had bellowed. The only ones who’d loved the idea were the girls. Yasmin and Amira, who were going to be mine, and who wanted to be, because they loved me. Maybe I’d loved Amira enough first for her to trust and love me, and maybe she was learning to trust anyway. Yasmin? Yasmin loved easily, and she trusted, too. That kind of trust was a precious gift, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

So, yes, they were the only ones in favor. When February had turned to March, though, and Laila was wearing a ruby ring surrounded by diamonds, they may have started to change their minds. It could have been the ring, or it could have been the way her heart called to mine, like a lodestar. Surely, a pull that strong had to be visible.

Now, we stood, the little group of us, in our puffy jackets, and watched the constellation rise, a bright white clump of stars barely over the horizon for these brief shining moments before dawn. The six daughters, and that other star, the brightest one. Matariki, who was unselfish love.

We watched the stars shine, and my sister Lexi pushed the button on the little Bluetooth speaker. The guitar plucked out the notes like pearls, and the golden voice spooled out the song.Ana La Habibi.A song for a mother to sing to her daughters, and a wife to sing to her husband. And, if she needed it, for a husband to sing to his wife, because that kind of love went both ways.

I belong to my love, and my love belongs to me.

We listened, we watched the stars shine, and then we watched them fade. And when the gold of the sun was a faint line on the horizon, Torsten asked, “Ready?”

Amira said, “I’m ready.”

Yasmin said, “I’m ready, too.”

My mum said, “I’m ready,” and slipped her hand into Torsten’s. My sisters nodded, and Poppy and Matiu and Karen and Jax and their kids stood there and probably wondered who on earth would do it this way.

We would, that’s who.

And finally, my stepfather, Peter Hughes, said, “I’m ready.”

Yes, he was here, and yes, that was imperfect, but so was life.

Laila and I weren’t new. We were bruised, and we may even have been a little battered. But we were sure, and we were here, offering each other everything.

The celebrant, who’d been bemused but willing, said, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

Torsten Drake, who’d won that Mali contract and then had asked me to become his partner, said, “I do,” and put Laila’s hand in mine.

Her eyes were steady, and her hand didn’t shake. The man said the words, and we said them after him, and finally, I slid the gold band onto her finger as the sun rose over the horizon and shone a path across the sea, like a golden road you could walk together.

I looked at the ring on Laila’s finger, and then she was sliding the ring onto mine. Both of them fashioned from Saudi gold, forged from the samples I’d taken from that find in Mali, the one I’d made after tramping over dry hills and through deep gorges, after conferring with Drake over maps and charts, talking it out, following our noses and giving our all.

It had been Saudi gold, but now, it was Kiwi gold, and it was ours.

“With this ring,” Laila said, her voice strong and sure, “I thee wed.” A woman for a lifetime. Gold on her wrist, and gold on her hand. Golden eyes, and a golden heart.

Gold calls, you could say. I answer.

* * *