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asked her if she’d given you
the letter, and she just said, sorry. As if she’d told you, and you’d said . .
.”
    She took a breath, went on. “I thought she might be
sympathetic, being a woman, you know. But I guess not. It sounded like she’d
heard it all before.”
    Nic handed back the stack of paper. “Why didn’t you get a
lawyer?” he demanded. “Somebody who wouldn’t have given up till he’d bloody
well tracked me down?”
    “I asked,” she told him, clearly on the defensive now. “And
they told me, if you were working overseas, it wasn’t possible to pursue you
for maintenance. There was no point, if you wouldn’t cooperate. The laws don’t
. . . don’t extend.”
    “What about when I came back, then?” he asked. “Zack couldn’t
even have been two then. And he’s six now. Why didn’t you try again then?”
    “I did,” she said, her voice heavy with remembered defeat
and anger. “I did. I didn’t kid myself that you wanted anything to do with him.
But I sure could have used some help. So I tried again.”
    “And? I wasn’t overseas then. So what happened?”
    “Same thing,” she shrugged. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Protecting
your privacy, they said. One guy even told me, ‘Do you know how many women I
hear this from? That a player is their kid’s mystery dad? Sorry, love, can’t
help you. Find somebody else to pin this on.’ I’ll never forget that one. He
made me feel like a whore.”
    Nic winced. “What about a lawyer, then? Why didn’t you try
harder?”
    No softness at all in the blue eyes that looked steadily
back at him. “I walked into the lawyer’s office and told him my story. And he
said, ‘OK, you’re telling me your baby’s dad is an All Black now? And you want
to get him to take a paternity test? Did you ever have an acknowledged
relationship with him? Have a flat together? Anyone who knew you were his
girlfriend? No? You slept together for a week, overseas? The courts are going
to think that’s awfully convenient. No judge in En Zed is going to order a
paternity test on the basis of that. It’s going to look like harassment of a
sportsman, plain and simple. Not worth my time to pursue, and not worth your
money to hire me. Save it for the kid.’”
    “I still remember, you see.” She pulled out a piece of
notebook paper, creased where it had been folded again and again. The last item
in the folder. “I wrote down what he said. It seemed so final. My last try.”
    He stared down at the yellow lined paper, her neat writing
filling the sheet. “I never knew,” he said slowly. “You have to believe me, I
never knew. Or I would’ve helped.”
    “It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s all in the past. But
when you say I didn’t try . . . I tried, Nic. Over and over. Do you think I
wanted Zack not to have anything?” she asked fiercely, her eyes bright with
unshed tears. “I’ve done the best I can. But it kills me. He knows what we
can’t afford. He tries not to ask. But it kills me when he does ask, and I have
to say no. And his feet grow, and he grows, and . . .”
    She stopped, took a deep breath. “So, yeah. You left. And
you left me holding the bag. And I’m still holding it.”
     
    “So what do we do?” Nic asked after a long silence. “Now?”
    “What do you mean, what do we do? I do what I’ve always
done. Raise my son.”
    “Are you working, though?” He wasn’t sure what to ask, what
to say.
    “Of course I’m working. What do you think?”
    “Doing . . . the art? Something with that?”
    She laughed, a quick sound, the bitterness coming through
again. “Not exactly. I’m a CAD operator at Morrow & Associates. The
engineers.”
    “OK. Uh . . . I guess we need a DNA test, right? And a court
order?”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m his dad. And I want him to know it, and
to do what’s right.”
    “No,” she said immediately. “No. You’re not telling him. Not
now.”
    “I have a right, Emma,” he insisted. “A right to