2022-07-22 - A Mother's Reflections

Mikaere's quiet, after he puts his phone away. They walk back to the car park, and wash volcanic sand off of their feet. They get back in the car— Tui drives— and head back up the hill, up the unpaved road that winds its way through the Waitakeres, back down towards Huia and the Manukau.

Mikaere closes his eyes, though Tui's pretty sure he's not sleeping. She watches him: half an eye on her youngest, half on eye on the road. He's home... but he's also not completely home. This country is in his blood, his soul, the way it is in hers, but there are pulls on his attention, too.

It's a long cord, the one that tugs on his attention, drawing him back across the seas. Not a chain, not even a rope, though she half-wonders if more strands aren't being added by the moment.

She hasn't told Laura that he's in town. She won't.

They wind up towards Titirangi: a return to civilisation.

She'd known he was texting Jules long before he admitted as much, this morning. It was the look on his face, and the way he turned away from her. She saw, too, how the hunch in his shoulders softened; she saw how he smiled.

He's different, now. So much more grounded than he was twelve months ago— so much more sure. That's why he's here, of course. She knew before he even said anything, and the moment she saw him, coming around the corner at the airport? She'd seen in then, too. He glows like a volcano; he shines like a star. Once, she wasn't sure he ever would, not the way she'd imagined.

Being away has done him good. Jules, she expects, has done him good.

This will be a turning point, though, she imagines. She remembers receiving her own moko; remembers the way it made her feel, the way it changed her perspective.

(She remembers, too, the way James looked at her afterward. He never did get used to her new face.)

For Mikaere... she doesn't like to speculate.

If they had more time, she'd have suggested driving instead of flying. It's a beautiful drive: straight down the middle of the north island, then onto the ferry across the Cook Strait, through the stunningly beautiful Tōtaranui to Picton, and then the long drive around the north coast. It's a long trip, though, and she knows Mikaere doesn't have time for it; in truth, she acknowledges, neither does she. The semester is finished, but she'll be due back.

Tui hates flying. She always has, and she's never really known why except that it feels wrong to abandon the land and sea of her ancestors. Her son is a child of the wind and sea; Tui, however, has always felt closest to the land, her feet firmly planted upon it.

(Mikaere knows this. He's distracted, anxious in a way that he's trying to hide, but he still does his best to distract her for the short flight south.)

This is a homecoming for Tui, a return to the villages and landscapes of her birth. It's a journey she makes regularly, and even so, every time her heart begins to rise in her chest: home, home, home.

Pōhara is not the village of her youth, but it is connected to it: the marae, shared between three local iwi, is still a place of long familiarity. Wā kāinga: home.

The tohunga find her son worthy. Tui has never doubted this, but she can see the burden lift from Mikaere's shoulders.

"Tomorrow," promises the tohunga-tā-moko. "We begin tomorrow."