Arnold managed to get both him and Ada on the same flight as Helga. Andrews brothers were waiting at the airport for them, though they glanced at Arnold suspiciously. Arnold chose to stay at a nearby lodge for the days leading up to Andrews funeral. Afterwards, once Andrews family had left the house Arnold went to stay.
Helga was completely despondent. Ada was quiet and reserved. Neither spoke much. For the first time since they'd met again, Helga would leave Ada alone with Arnold and go for a walk. The first few times he was worried she wouldn't come back. She'd leave in the morning, then come back really late at night. The third time she went out, he and Ada had followed. She had walked aimlessly along the beach. She had realised they were following her and finally stopped, letting them catch up.
She would sigh and randomly stop what she was doing to stare out the window, or look at the door. Ada went back to school, Lara picking her up and dropping her off. Helga dropped her studies completely.
"Too much going on," she'd told him, before going back to her book. After two weeks his lawyer finally got in contact with him, asking what was going on.
"I'm not sure," Arnold said. "I'll get back to you."
His lawyer wasn't too happy with the answer.
He had to drag Helga out of the house one day, because the school had called. Ada was sick. So they both went to pick her up. Helga had sent Arnold in, but he had come back to tell her that the school refused to let him take Ada with him as he wasn't listed as someone who could. Helga stalked in there, dragging Arnold behind her.
"He's her father," she had snapped. They just repeated their policies and procedures to her, but Helga cut them off, demanding Ada. Then they had left. Arnold was surprised. Helga had been so quiet and sad, that to see her angry and noisy was a big surprise.
"I'm over the sulking. Life goes on without him," she snapped at Ada, who had told her she was sick because she was sad.
Arnold frowned. It wasn't like Helga to say such a thing in such a way to Ada. Arnold gave her cuddles on the couch, while Helga locked herself away in her room. Arnold cooked dinner that night for him and Ada. He made a few mistakes, which made Ada laugh, of which he was glad. But Helga didn't come out. He put some food aside for her. He read to Ada, after making sure she was properly ready for bed, then went into the spare room to get things ready for himself, when he heard sobbing coming through the wall. The set up of the house had the spare room placed between Ada's bedroom and the master bedroom. He debated with himself for a while before deciding to go check on Helga. He got no answer knocking on the door, so just opened it and looked in. Helga was sitting on the end of her bed, wrapped in a towel and crying. She had a hair dryer in her lap, but it wasn't even plugged in.
"Helga?" he asked. She just shook her head.
"I put some dinner aside for you," he said.
"I'm not hungry," she said quietly.
Arnold thought back, trying to remember the last time he had seen her eat. He couldn't remember.
"You need to eat," he said. She shook her head. What else could he do?
He left, closing the door behind him and went into the kitchen to get the dinner he had put aside for her, chucking it the microwave to heat it up then went back to her room with it.
"I don't like food in the bedroom," she told him.
"Well then, your going to have to come out and eat it, because it's not leaving this room without you," he said sternly, placing it on her dressing table and sitting next to her.
"Three loved ones in three weeks," she whispered in disbelief. "How does that even happen?"
Arnold rubbed her back.
"I wasn't even there for him," she said. "And Ada . . . he loved her so much and she wasn't here."
Arnold could hear her heart break with her sigh. She fell backwards, then rolled onto her front, her towel riding up. Arnold looked away quickly. It wasn't an appropriate time to think of such things.
…...
Olga showed up the next day. She fussed around the house, forced Helga to eat, got Ada ready for school and made breakfast, lunch and dinners. Arnold was left with not much to do, so instead he helped Ada with her homework, took her for walks to the beach, or the waterfall. One weekend they went horse riding along the coast. not Arnold's favourite activity, but Ada loved it. It made her happy, which made him happy.
But he noticed her going quiet and getting anxious about going home, and that made him feel bad.
Andrews brothers popped around a few times, but Helga wasn't up for visitors. Ada was happy to see them though. They talked to Arnold and Olga, then left after checking on Helga. They told them both to call them if they needed anything. Finally Arnold got fed up with it all, and Olga had too, so they dragged Helga out of her room, Olga practically dressing her first, then put her in the car and made their way to town where they would catch a train to the city, hop on a ferry and go for a walk up Rangitoto, dinner in town, then heading home.
Ada was so excited, and the weather was agreeing with them this day, too. Olga had packed a picnic lunch, with morning and afternoon tea in there. It seemed strange travelling the whole way on a train above ground, to Arnold. When he was on trains, it was in a subway, but on the train he was able to enjoy the scenery. He was able to look into peoples backyards, they went past a playground, past industrial buildings. He felt sorry for the people whose homes backed onto the train tracks. Birthmark was pretty cool as well. He looked up to see what looked like water in the big glass dome that let in light. When they got above ground he saw it was indeed a water feature.
Auckland city was busy, though it still seemed not as busy as what he was used too.
The ferry terminal was smaller than he was expecting.
"So once we get over there, we will have some morning tea," Olga said. "Then when we're on the summit, we'll have lunch. Then we'll come down and have some afternoon tea."
Helga shrugged and Arnold watched as Ada looked over the rail, into the water. Pigeons made him feel almost at home. They were making their way around, pecking at random stuff on the ground. There wasn't as many as what you could find back home though.
Finally the ferry came and they hopped on. It stopped at Devonport first.
"Hmmm, maybe we should have dinner here," Olga thought aloud. "What do you think, Helga?"
Helga shrugged and looked away. Olga frowned. Ada was sitting next to Arnold reading from a fact sheet about Rangitoto. When they got there, they had morning tea, went into the information centre and had a read. Then they went for their walk, stopping at the lava caves. Helga lagged behind all the way up. When they finally got to the summit Ada and Arnold had a look in the old guard house that was put there during world war two.
"Andrews mum swore that a Japanese submarine was in the harbour once!" Ada told him excitedly. Arnold just nodded, and took in the view of the city. The crater was filled with trees. He looked down at his shoes. He'd need to buy some new ones. The lava rock had almost torn his current shoes to bits.
"Can we go to Devonport tomorrow?" Ada asked. "They have tunnels that were put there during the war too! And old guns! And theres a cannon and you can sit on it and it overlooks the beach and in summer you can swim out to a platoon and jump off it and swim around. Mummy was always scared there were sharks there though."
Arnold laughed.
"Are there sharks around here?" he asked.
Ada nodded.
"Manakau harbour is their breeding ground and they have fishing competitions every year," she told him. "Andrew and his brothers took me one year and I help catch a baby shark, but they made me throw it back."
"Fishing?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah! I caught a snapper once!" she said proudly. "They smoked it, but I felt sad. I don't like killing fish."
Arnold looked over at Helga, who looked like she wanted to cry.
"Lunch time!" Olga said, glancing at her sister, then looking at Ada and Arnold with a big smile.
They sat in silence eating sandwiches and some fruit. Helga held half a sandwich but didn't eat it. She just sat staring at it. Both Olga and Arnold traded worried looks. Something wasn't right. Surely she should be getting over this? Or at least getting to a point of functionality? She seemed to be getting worse!
On the way down, Arnold fell back to walk with her.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She ignored him. He sighed, then looked to where Olga and Ada were chatting away.
"Helga, you have to snap out of this funk your in," he said. "It's not good for Ada."
"Shut up Arnold," she said, then started walking a little faster to get away from him. But he wasn't going to let her run away. Not this time. He reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop.
"Helga, listen to me," he said. "If you keep this up, I will take Ada away from you-"
"So take her. I don't care anymore," Helga snapped. She pulled away and went to leave. Arnold felt anger bubble to the surface and boil over.
"Your not doing that to her," he said, grabbing her arm and yanking her back so hard she fell backwards on her butt.
"What the fu-"
"Don't you dare do that to her!" Arnold hissed, leaning in close. "After all the fucking shit you've put me through for "abandoning" her, your going to do the same thing?"
He grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet.
"Your nothing but a hypocritical bitch," he said viciously. "And don't worry. I will."
With that he stormed off down the hill, thankful that Olga and Ada hadn't seen the standoff.
…...
"So that's whats been going on," Arnold said, finishing filling his lawyer in on the details of what had been happening.
"Okay, well, I've pulled in a favour with a friend who is working over there," his lawyer told him. "I can fly out next week. Go over the details. If you can get her to say this in front of a lawyer, you shouldn't have any problems!"
Arnold frowned. His lawyer was sounding a little too chipper about all this.
"So, she'll be in touch with you sometime next week," he was told. "She an expert in family law over there."
"Thanks," Arnold said. "I better go."
"Alrighty then, catch up with you next week," his lawyer said, hanging up first.
Arnold hung up, feeling a bit guilty. Helga was going through a hard time. Was draggin her through the courts over custody of their daughter a good idea? And what was all this going to do to Ada? He went back in the house and saw Ada watching TV with Olga. He wasn't sure what it was, but they were speaking in Maori. It looked like a kids show, the actors dressed up all silly. He heard Ada singing along with a song they were singing.
He was heading towards his room when he noticed the nursery door was open. Helga had shut it up when Wirimu went to live with a cousin of Andrews. Helga had been devastated. She'd become attached to the child, and her and Andrew had been in the starting stages of adopting him. He peeked in and saw her sitting in the rocking chair, crying. He went to ealk away, but stopped. Something was wrong. And maybe she was so emotionally overcome she would talk to him. So he went in.
"Helga?" he asked.
She looked up. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her face blotchy. She quickly wiped her eyes.
"What?" she demanded.
Arnold walked in and knelt in front of her.
"Tell me whats wrong," he said. "Please?"
Helga was quiet for a moment, then broke down.
"It was perfect, almost perfect. I had Andrew, Ada and Wirimu. I had my family, my complete family, and then poof!" she said. "Gone. Now I've my father, I've lost Andrew, I've lost Wirimu, and I'm losing Ada. I've lost my family."
She started crying hard. Arnold didn't know what to do, but the guilt he felt at what he'd just told his lawyer, started weighing a ton. He stood up and hugged Helga awkwardly.
"You havent lost Ada. You still have your sister and your mom," he said.
Helga laughed.
"Mom, sounds so funny after hearing Ada call me mum for so long," she said, wiping tears from her eyes again.
Arnold took a chance. He leaned down close, so he was eye level with her.
"And you have me," he said. "You have me and Ada. We can be a family, Helga. Just like we're supposed to be."
Helga looked up at him.
"And Wirimu?" she asked. "I cant get him back. He was my baby, Arnold. Maybe not biologically, but I raised him that first year."
"I cant do anything about Wirimu," he admitted. "But you can have another baby, Helga."
Helga shook her head.
"I can't replace him," she said, looking at the empty cot.
"You wont be," Arnold said, frustrated. "Give me a chance, Helga, please."
"Why? Last time I got pregnant to you, Arnold, look what you did? Why would I put myself there again?" she asked.
Arnold stood up again, and looked down on her.
"I'm not a teenager anymore, for starters," he said. "And neither are you, so stop being so overdramatic."
Helga glared at him.
"I am not being over dramatic!" she cried.
"Yeah, you are. Your being over dramatic and stubbourn. Get over it," he said.
"Go away, Arnold," she said, standing up and glaring at him.
Arnold shook his head.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
The standoff lasted only a few seconds, before Helga broke it by moving forward and kissing him.
…...
Olga heard a bang in the hallway and looked down quickly, in time to see Arnold and her sister tumbling into Helga's room. She turned away.
"Good thing Daddy's dead," she murmered to herself. She looked up to see Ada look at her.
"What was that noise?" she asked.
Olga shook her head and smiled.
"Arnold's helping mummy move some furniture, and they dropped something," she lied.
"Oh, okay," Ada said, going back to her TV show.
Olga lost her smile. She was hoping to God that her sister wasn't going to get hurt by him again.
…...
Arnold watched Helga sleeping and smiled. He kissed her cheek and ran a hand through her hair. She looked peaceful. He looked at the ceiling, then at the time. 2 am. He sighed, then frowned. In the morning . . . What was she going to be like? And Olga? She may not have seen, but she was old enough to know why neither Helga nor he was available to help get Ada ready for bed.
He frowned. At her age, she should be getting herself ready. He thought back to her trip to the states, and he reaction to sugar. Wasn't she a little old to react that way?
He pushed it out of his mind, to focus on the now. The soft warm body next to him, that he used to close his eyes and imagine was next to him, now was next to him. He breathed in her scent. Put an arm and leg around her, so she couldn't get away.
He wasn't going to let her get away again.