Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I’d been overjoyed when he called me with news of his engagement.
Not only for the love, but for finding his place in life. Back at the huge high school where we’d come together as a group, where the diverse student body was a matter of school pride, Aaron had still managed to stick out. His parents had been refugees from war-torn Sudan, Aaron one of the first generation born on New Zealand soil. The eldest son, the eldest cousin, the first child born a Kiwi.
He’d carried the weight of his entire family’s expectations on his thin shoulders.
“They survived refugee camps and the loss of most of the members of our family to relocate to a place so cold that my haboba’s kneecaps creak from it,” he’d said in a speech for our senior English class. “The least I can do is make them proud.”
I’d never understood whether he was being serious or ironic when he said things like that, whether the words were his or a repetition of those spoken to him by his family, especially his treasured grandmother with the knees that couldn’t bear the cold. For all his sweetness, Aaron was in no way an open book.
Quite different from blunt and almost-too-honest Kaea.
“Situation is in progress,” Kaea said today. “Wife number three. My soulmate, this time. I know it.”
Phoenix snorted from the driver’s seat, his voice overriding a radio report about a scandal to do with a high court judge. “Didn’t you use that line in your first wedding speech?”
“No.” Vansi turned to grin at Kaea. “He said they were destined to be, two hearts in sync.”
“Destined for divorce court,” Phoenix added dryly as the newscaster began to speculate about the spring weather.
Unabashed, Kaea threw out his arms. “Hey, hate the game, not the player.” At twenty-nine, with two divorces behind him, he had the confidence of a handsome and intelligent man who knew women would never be a challenge for him. It was a kind of curse, I’d always thought, the ease with which he could charm lovers. He valued none of them because there were always more waiting in the wings.
“Wait, hear that?” Phoenix turned up the radio.
“. . . polar blast. Farmers are concerned about the effect of the late cold snap on the lambing season.”
“Only in New Zealand,” Vansi said with a roll of the eyes that I heard more than saw. “Sheep news on prime time.”
“Wouldn’t worry about the weather,” Kaea added. “Remember last year they were going on about a polar blast and it ended up a day of cold rain?”
Phoenix nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll be safe at the estate regardless. If the place has survived close to a hundred and fifty years in the mountains, it’s not going to buckle under a bit of rain.” Reaching forward, he switched off the radio. “Signal’s starting to crackle anyway. Did Darcie ever answer my question about cell reception at the estate? I forgot to check.”
“Yeah—apparently it’s usually only available in a single high part of the estate’s main house, though she says she gets the odd bar out by the bridge sometimes.” Kaea shrugged. “Be a proper break, right?”
Phoenix’s profile underwent a subtle shift, his skin no longer as taut. And I realized how hard it must be, to live life tied to the scream of medical emergencies. It was a wonder he’d been able to take this break; maybe the hospital had been forced to give their junior doctors more time off by some health and safety authority.
“Anyway, enough about that.” Kaea shifted his gaze to me, waggled his eyebrows. “You never say much about your dating life in London, Mysterious Ms. Wylie. Anyone serious?”
“Just me and my camera.” And my oncoming blindness.
A year after the doctors first ended my world as it was, I still hadn’t told anyone about the diagnosis. It had a fancy name, but at the bottom of it, it was a time bomb with which I’d been born and hadn’t known of until that fateful doctor’s appointment. I’d gone in thinking the thin and bald man with brilliant blue eyes was going to tell me I needed glasses, come out to a world that would never be sharp again.
I’d always known I was adopted. Hard not to when my hair was black glass and my skin olive in comparison to my parents’ much paler hair and “winter white” complexions—as described by themselves. Complete with my mother’s big laugh and my father’s deep chuckle.
My ancestry had never been a big deal to me. I’d never felt any desire to go to China, trace my roots. But . . . would I have picked up a camera had I known what lived inside me? The lens that was slowly going dark as tiny crystals formed in the delicate tissues of my eyes.