Matt took his phone off the charger and selected Nadine’s number from his phonebook. He couldn’t wait to tell her the great news. He was sure that his father would be excited for them.
‘God, I hope I can get through this time,’ he said, turning to Aimee, who sat at the table looking through page upon page of archived journal articles. She nodded, clearly absorbed by her reading.
He smiled at her profile and pressed the call button. It rang for quite a while.
‘Hello?’ Came an unsure sounding voice.
‘Nadine, fantastic, I’ve been trying to reach you.’ It was great to hear her voice.
Silence.
‘Nadine?’
A sniff, then the heart-wrenching sounds of a woman bursting into tears. Matt knew instantly something was seriously wrong. He tipped his way down to the edge of the couch, took up residence next to a cushion and waited. He saw that Aimee had looked up from her papers to see why he had gone quiet. She didn’t look away.
‘I’m sorry Matt.’ Nadine finally managed to utter between her gasps for breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘What is it?’ Matt asked, fearing and expecting the worst.
‘You only just got to know him.’ Nadine sobbed again.
‘Dad?’ Really expecting the worst now. Aimee got up from the table and came over next to Matt.
‘He’s gone, in his sleep the night before last.’
‘He’s… dead?’ The worst it is. He felt something touching his knee and realised that it was Aimee’s hand.
‘They said it was peaceful. He was given extra morphine for his pain. His body couldn’t cope with it. I’m sorry, I completely forgot you were here…’
Matt felt the sensation of bile rising in his throat and heat rushed into his head.
‘I’ve been trying to call. I can’t believe it, even after… are you alright?’
‘I’ve got friends here, I’ll be OK. It’s almost a relief for me, after so many years of him in pain. But you only just got to know him.’
The world span around Matt and was on the edge of losing control. From a massive high to the lowest of lows in but a few seconds. He was supposed to be calling to tell Nadine to look out for his Dad, and his exciting news. Instead, she was breaking her terrible news. He really felt for her right now. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that he hadn’t yet had the chance to develop a full relationship with his father. But Nadine. This must be torture for her.
‘I’m just happy to have had a chance to meet him,’ Matt said. ‘And having done so, I’m going to make sure that I complete his work down here. I’m going to find the answers he was looking for and see that he gets the respect he deserves for his contribution to New Zealand.’
Aimee smiled at him. Her hand on his knee brought Matt an amount of comfort that she was probably unaware of. It also helped to hold down the anger that twitched through his legs. He forced a smile back.
‘Have you had any luck?’ Nadine asked.
‘We have. In fact, I was calling to tell you we have some good leads and are going to head to Dunedin to follow up on them. I thought Dad might want to know.’
‘He would have loved to have known. He was so excited that you were here. So happy that you would continue his work. He talked about nothing else the last few days.’
The anger twitched beyond Aimee’s hand. As it rose through his gut it evolved into a wave of determination. Thankfully it escaped his mouth in that latter form.
‘Then we’ll continue in his honour.’
‘That would be great, Matt.’
‘But first I’ll come back for his funeral.’
‘No, don’t worry about it. We’ll have a tiny service, probably only a handful of folk. You don’t need to come out of the way. He would have wanted you to go on with the investigation down there.’
Matt felt guilty, but he understood what Nadine was saying.
‘Alright, we’ll do just that,’ he said. ‘Look after yourself. I’ll get in touch again when we have more information.’
Matt hung up the phone and looked at Aimee. She sat, looking back at him with a comforting expression on her face. Not smiling, not frowning, not angry, or even sad. Just an expression that made Matt feel at ease. He needed that. Everything was so confusing. Meeting your estranged father after thirty years, and then losing him again a week later. The whole situation was beyond bizarre. Questions whirled around Matt’s head. Why did he have to die now? What sort of luck did this family have? How on earth did Matt end up in the south island of New Zealand investigating a pseudo-history that his father had worked on? Was Hemi right? Was his father murdered?
‘I don’t know what to do…’ He pondered out loud.
‘Just do what you do best, Matt.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Absorb yourself in your work. Find the answers to your father’s questions. You can respect him that way.’
‘How come you know me so well?’ Matt asked her, pleased that she was able to understand his misgivings.
‘Don’t know,’ Aimee said, looking down briefly. ‘Fate, I guess.’