![A Woman's Good Eye xx-xx-xx (2) The Scar [ Picard] — Harold's Old Time Radio cover](https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/8011e358fc60d6821e45a9f44e2177d4.jpg)
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So you're running out of closet space. The good news? You don't need to stop shopping. You just need to start selling with the RealReal. The RealReal is the world's largest and most trusted resource for authenticated luxury resale. Whether it's that mini bag that can't even fit your phone or those boots you never fully broke in, the RealReal handles everything from photography and copywriting to shipping and pricing. So you can just sit back, get paid, and make room for things that actually feel like you. And with 10,000 plus new arrivals every single day from top designers like Prada, Celine, Louis Vuitton and Loewe, all for up to 90 off retail, you're bound to find something perfectly on brand to fill that extra closet space with. Plus, right now you can get an extra $100 to shop when you sell for the first time. Make room for what feels like you go to therealreal.com to start selling and get your extra hundred dollars to keep shopping@therealreal.com that's therealreal.com terms apply a winner
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of the Anthony McCavity and American History Awards, Nancy Picard is a native Midwesterner residing in Fairway, Kansas. Her Jenny Cain novels, including iou, Bum Steer, Dead, Cozy, Generous Death, Same Way to Murder, and Marriage is Murder, have made her one of the fastest rising stars in the mystery field. The Scar by Hansa Picard. The reason Jean Williams took her son to the Botanic Gardens every day they were in Wellington, New Zealand, is that her husband was in such a lousy mood that she wanted to get out of the hotel and far away from him. I'm taking Zach to the park, gene announced on the second morning of Lyle soak. Lyle had acquired an upper respiratory infection while they were up north in Auckland. That accounted for some of his mood, but the truth was that coming to New Zealand on this vacation was June's dream, not his. Lyle wanted to visit only Australia. It would be another 10 days before they flew there. New Zealand, he complained, was too expensive and too cold, and he hated driving on the wrong side of the road. But it's so beautiful, jean said. So's Alaska, he groped, and you wouldn't have to spend a fortune to get there. Well, if he was going to pout, Jean decided she'd take Zach and they'd explore in the room. There was no point in ruining the trip for all of them. So she said with more enthusiasm than she really felt, let's go, Zach. I want to go to a playground. Zach informed her that was no surprise. Only four years old, Zachary wasn't big on museums, art galleries, and guided tours, Zack big on swings and slides and roundy rounds. Jean felt locked up and closed in and wanted to spend the day outside anyway. Right, mate, she said, mimicking an Australian accent and making her little boy laugh. Right, mate. Jack shouted, and off they went, holding hands. The main entrance to the famous Wellington Botanic Gardens lay directly across from their hotel. The Gene followed the advice of a tour book and hired a taxi to drive them to the entrance at the top of the park. It's a long, beautiful walk down, the book said, but a long, exhausting look up in the middle, exactly where adults will want to sit down and take a breather as a charming playground for little ones who love. The guidebook was right on all accounts. Two slides. Satan squealed when he saw the playground. Wow. Go for it, sweet pea. I'll be on that bench under that big tree over there. He raced at breakneck speed down the path toward the playground equipment while Gene held her breath, watching him. When he reached the first slide safely without falling to his chubby bare knees, Gene walked over to the wooden bench and sat down. Big tree, she thought, mocking herself. She peered up into its branches. Some botany's dad Meg. Big green tree. Maybe it's labeled. She looked down at its roots. Their label did indeed inform her that it was a Metrosideros umbilator. Myrtle rater later was probably the Maori word for it. She guessed the Maori g knew from her reading, if not from ever actually having seen one with the Polynesians who still inhabited New Zealand after more than a thousand years. She dug out of her purse the paperback History of New Zealand she had brought with her to read while Zack played Open. She glanced up again through the branches of The Martin Big Green 3 at the clear and sunny New Zealand sky. She sighed happily and then looked down and thumb to the page where she had last stopped reading about the Maoris. Tribe and family were all important. Every aspect of life was bound together by principles such as tapu sacredness, mana spiritual authority, and makutu sorcery. Mommy, look at me, Mommy. Zachary waved her from atop the tallest slide. Look at me, Mommy. I'm looking. She also looked around her at the other mothers and children. The women in their sleeveless cotton blouses and their flowered cotton skirts that clung to their slim legs were almost uniformly pretty and blonde. But it was the New Zealand children who took Jean's breath away. So blonde, so tanned in the summer months, so bride and milk fed and gorgeously healthy looking Bucky House. From her book, Jeanne learned that that was the Maori word for the invading Europeans. Maori, on the other hand, meant normal. She decided she'd never seen so many beautiful children all in one place. And the prettiest one of all was a little blonde beauty swinging by herself. Jean stared, unable to take her eyes from the child. He looked about Zack's age, and his deeply tan skin dramatically set off the blue of her arm and eyes and her curly blonde hair. When the beauty hopped down from the swing and ran toward the slide where Zachary played, Jean continued to stare. Angie. The little girl named Angie turned toward the woman calling her. At the sudden sight of the other side of the child's face, Jean gasped and then tried to hide her shock by coughing and looking quickly away. An appalling scar ran down the left side of that exquisite face. As the little girl ran toward the woman who had called to her. Gene glanced at her again, not wanting to stare but unable to look away. The scar dissected the child's left cheek. It started just below the outer edge of her left eye, curved under the eyeball, then cut back through the middle of the cheek, finally curving down and under her chin below the outer edge of her mouth. The scar was deep and as startlingly pink as the hibiscus flowers in the park. Oddly enough, Jean told Lyle that night at dinner, the scar didn't detract from her beauty. I know this sounds strange, but the poignancy of it, the. I don't know, the. The sadness of it, somehow enhanced her beauty. At least for me. Car accident, do you think? I hope so, jean said. Her husband looked startled. What? I mean, at least that might be an innocent explanation of how she got it. Oh, you mean maybe it was? With a sharp nod of her head towards Zachary, Jean stopped Lyle from actually saying the words child abuse, although that was what she herself feared. Still, Wellington was in Chicago, and New Zealand wasn't the United States. Her guidebooks called it a family oriented country for both pkeh and Maori. As Jean ate her lamb chops and browned potatoes, she thought about the woman who had called the girl away from her play. Who was she to the girl? An older mother like Gina herself? An aunt? A baby titter, perhaps? Or maybe even a grandmother? At the park, the woman, the only one there who had looked as old as Jean, had taken the child's hand and together they had walked away from the playground, heading back up the hill toward the top of the park. Jean had stared after them, feeling like weeping. She advanced back toward the slide and was surprised to see that Jackery, too, was staring after the beautiful, scarred little girl. Over dessert, she teased. You liked her, didn't you, Zack? I love her, the little boy said solemnly. Lyle sulk deepened at breakfast the next morning. Mainly, it seemed to Jean, because he couldn't abide the British custom of serving cooked tomatoes along with the fried eggs and the bacon. Wasn't real bacon at all, he complained. It was ham. And didn't the New Zealand newspapers realize that there were other parts of the world besides the South Pacific? Zach wants to go to the park again, gene said. Swing Daddy. Lyle managed a smile for his son, a youthful version of it for his wife, one that told him he knew he was being a grump but that he couldn't help it. Have fun. He coughed a couple of times. I'm going back to bed. His damned hotel, so expensive. I don't want to miss a minute of it. You might feel better if you got out. I'll feel better when I get out of New Zealand. But he softened the cynicism by winking at his son. The beautiful little girl with the scar was at the park again that day. Jane watched the child and her own son. The two outsiders tentatively greet each other and then happily play together. I'm Zachary David Williams. I'm Angela Susan Jones. What happened to your face? How come you talk so funny? I'm a United States for American this. You took a slide, Zachary. Several times Jean tried to catch the eye of the woman who accompanied Angie, but she never succeeded in doing it. The woman, short, stouter, older, and more sullen looking than the other mothers, kept her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on her charge. After a while Jean gave up the effort of making a friend for herself and pulled her book on the history of New Zealand out of her purse, skipping a chapter on Maori art in which she wasn't particularly interested in. She turned quickly past pictures of wood carvings that looked like Alaskan totems and thumb to the chapters about modern day New Zealand. Greek and Italian restaurants are enormously popular. She was happy that Zachary had found a pal. It was still an effort not to stare at Angie's face, but Jean noticed that the other people in the park rarely did, as if they were used to seeing the child there. Soon lost in photographs of spectacular scenery, lulled by the music of her own child screams and giggles, Jean really forgot about it herself. Mom? She looked up into Zack's face. I'm called Mommy. Well, no wonder. Look at the time. I'VE been lost in my book. Where'd your little friend go? And you went home. Jean smiled tenderly to see the expression of lust in his eyes. You really have made a good friend all this long way from our own home, haven't you? Come back tomorrow Mommy.
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So you're running out of closet space. The good news? You don't need to stop shopping. You just need to start selling with the RealReal. The RealReal is the world's largest and most trusted resource for authenticated luxury resale. Whether it's that mini bag that can't even fit your phone or those boots you never fully broke in, the RealReal handles everything from photography and copywriting to shipping and pricing. So you can just sit back, get paid and make room for things that actually feel like you. And with 10,000 plus new arrivals every single day from top designers like Prada, Celine, Louis Vuitton, and Loewe all for up to 90 off retail, you're bound to find something perfectly on brand to fill that extra closet space with. Plus right now you can get an extra 100 to shop when you sell for the first time. Buying make room for what feels like you go to therealreal.com to start selling and get your extra $100 to keep shopping@therealreal.com that's the realreal.com terms apply. Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now? Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget. You can really have it delivered or pick it up. I see kid is walking up the slide.
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Really?
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Auto trader fire car online? Really?
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Yes, I promise. And they did return to the park every day. They remained in Wellington until it was time to leave for the fjords and glaciers of the South Island. But when they had to say goodbye to Angela for the last time, Zachary and his little friend couldn't seem to grasp that they would never see each other again. Jean knelt down on the ground beside them and explained over and over that Jackie and his mom and dad had to leave and they wouldn't be able to come back to the park. But Zack said, we come tomorrow, Angie. No, darling, we won't be able to do that. Yes. He shouted at his mother. Park. Yes. Shh, Zaki, here's what we'll do. Jean grabbed her purse and took out a scrap of paper and a pen. I'll write down her name and address and give it to Angie so maybe someday she can write to you. Okay, we come to bark, zack said stubbornly. Jean gave the scrap of paper to Angela, who grabbed it and stuffed it into the pocket of her little skirt. Goodbye, Angie. Jean ached to kiss the child scarred cheek. Instead she touched her fingers gently to the curly blonde hair and then to the other perfect cheek. When Angie smiled, her wide pretty mouth and her haunting almond eyes turned up sweetly at the corners. Angie. From a park bench, the woman called Angie hugged her friend and then ran off, waving and shouting, see you. See you tomorrow, Zach. Zack argued with his mother about anything and everything all the way down the path to the hotel. Finally his fury turned to tears. Then he cried so inconsolably and for so long the Gene began to worry and to feel grateful they were leaving so the separation of the two little friends wouldn't be any harder than it already was. Honestly, Lyle, June whispered to her husband that night in bed. Zack was asleep and breathing noisily through his tear clogged nose in a single bed across the room from their double. You'd think this was that Maori legend I'd read about, the one where Rangi and Papa were separated by Danny. Do I know these people? Lyle whispered back. Rangi was Sky Father, Papa was Earth Mother, and Tani was their son, and they were all together in the primordial darkness. But Tani was also the God of the forests, and so he had to push his parents away from him in order to create night and day so that his forest could grow. The story was that Andy, the Sky Father, was so grief stricken at being separated from Papa, the Earth Mother, that his tears filled her with oceans and lakes. So it's old Ronnie's fault that we couldn't drive down here from Chicago. I feel so sorry for Zack. I swear. Trying to explain why he won't ever see Angie again is like trying to explain death to a four year old. He doesn't understand that it's permanent and she's gone forever from his life. I need that tiny fellow, Lyle muttered into his pillow, to separate me permanently from New Zealand before this hotel separates me permanently from my money. Oh, good night, you. The Jim was wrong. The separation wasn't permanent. When Zachary was 10, he received a postcard from Angela Susan Jones in Wellington, New Zealand. The front of the card had a photograph of the playground in the Botanic Gardens and she circled the tall slide with a red indelible marker. Do you remember, it said on the back, I put your address in a secret place and saved it all these years. Can you please, please please write that to me? She had signed it I still love you Angie, and printed her address Zachary wrote back when Jackery was 24 and in the second year of medical school at the University of Chicago, he announced to his parents the specialty he intended to pursue. I'll be a plastic surgeon, he said. Good. Maybe you can take a few tucks in my wallet, his father joked. It's feeling loose and flabby after putting you through med school. The Gene, who'd never before heard her son mention any special interest in plastic surgery, was surprised and a little puzzled by his decision. During the last year of Zachary's medical residency, he told Lyle and Jean that the little girl from Wellington was coming to Chicago to stay with him for a visit. Do you remember her mom written to Angie all these years? Honey?
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Yeah?
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Didn't I ever tell you? No, but I should have guessed. A day later, she called her son back. Dad, are you hoping to fix Angie's scar? Is that why she's coming? Is that why you decided to be a plastic surgeon? Sure, he said, as if it were a foregone conclusion. I'm going to take a look at it and see what I can do. Does Angie know this? Of course, Mom. We planned this together a long time ago. We've always known she'd come up here and I'd become a doctor and we'd fix her face. Zach, what caused that scar? I don't know, he said matter of factly. Because Angie doesn't know. Her mother told her it happened when she was a baby, before she was adopted. She doesn't have any memory of it, and he's adopted. An image flitted through Jean's mind, a memory of a silent woman of about Jean's age sitting alone on a park bench, her hands folded in her lap, watching the little girl. You don't care. Do you want? Oh, of course not, honey. But as Jean hung up the phone from talking to her son, she felt chilled and frightened by something couldn't identify at first, and then she realized that it was this obsession, there was no other word for it, this obsession of his that unmoved her, this fixation on a little girl he'd met 25 years earlier. Now, she corrected herself, this obsession of theirs. Zack's and Angie's, too, since they were four years old, she exclaimed to Lyle. So it's romantic, he said. I think it's nice. You do? Sure. At least it's one good thing to come out of that awful trip to New Zealand. Relax. But in spite of all his newly acquired skills and the help of more experienced surgeons, Jackie was not able entirely to erase Angie scar. And so at their wedding the guests whispered to one another about the faint disfiguring mark on her left cheek. She's beautiful. Anyway, most of them agreed and she was. And you were lovely. And so was the baby boy that was born to her. Several years later when Justin Jones Williams was six months old, Angie called Jean and Lyle to say, we're going home, Zack's taking time off, we want to go back to Wellington to see my family and show off. Justin, will you come too? Please Jean? And so she went along too, but without Lyle this time. I hated New Zealand, he said at the airport. No kidding, Jean murmured, and trust him. Goodbye. Through the endless flights from Chicago to San Francisco, from Honolulu to Auckland and then on down to Wellington, Jean took turns holding Justin, feeding him, playing with him, walking in the aisles, cuddling him when he slept. All the while she was filled with a terrible terror. Her what advantage long to remain with her family? What exactly? Decided to look for a medical post in New Zealand? What if the other grandparents wanted their share of the baby? What if she had to go home without them, once having those awful thoughts somewhere in the air between Honolulu and Auckland, when she was half nutty with fatigue, Jim felt hysterical giggles bubble in her throat and maybe that just confirmed Lyles worst opinions of New Zealand. She buried her lips in the baby's neck to hide her trembling mouth. The Joneses home was a two story cottage built on a precipitous slope. It had a garage at street level that required walking along flight of stairs down to reach the front door. The woman who answered their knock was the same short, stout dark haired woman of Jean's age who had accompanied Angie to the playground all those years ago. She turned out to be Miriam Jones, Angie's adoptive mother. Her father was Malcolm Jones, a tall, blonde, bandy legged man who was a retired government worker. Gene was weary enough to be nonplussed at the sight of the lines around Miriam's mouth and the age freckles on Miriam's hands. It was one of those moments and Jean was caught off guard by the shock of the passing of her own years. What a lovely boy, Miriam and Malcolm said of their grandson. But neither of them took him or Angie into their arms to welcome him home. At her first glimpse of her daughter's mended cheek, Miriam Jones murmured, well I see they didn't get it all, did they? And Malcolm looked at his son in law and then said to his wife, thought she was fine as you are, didn't we? Tears sprang to Jean's eyes in defense of her son and out of hurt for Andy. But she also felt a rush of joy, of which she was mightily ashamed. These were not warm, affectionate parents to whom a daughter might long to return. Fools, Jane thought, and smiled happily at them that evening, after Miriam served lamb
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Some mashed potatoes. She offered coffee to the Americans along with the meringue and fruit dessert called a pavlova. Jean accepted a glass of sweet sherry instead and proceeded merely to drop off to sleep in a rocking chair cradling Justin. She could barely hold her jet lagged eyes open. It was all she could do to pick up snatches of the conversation and even they seemed only dialogue and a funny kind of surrealistic dream. While I'm here, they want to hurt your father. Find my birth parents. Can't imagine why. You never knew, didn't you, Malcolm? Except what the social Welfare people said. What's the good really in the U.S. you write to the now that we have Justin, I think we ought to know. Not always. Good to know. Why? Why not? Jean eyes flew open at the uncharacteristically sharp sound of her daughter in law's voice. She was disturbed to see that as his face was flushed, making her scar more partly visible. Jean tried to shift a bit to ease her stiffness without waking the baby, but when the rocking chair creaked loudly, drawing the others attention, she settled back quietly if uncomfortably. What was going on here? What had she missed by dozing off? Why was Daiquiri looking at Angie with such a worried expression? Expression? Tell me what you remember, angie half pleaded, half demanded of her parents. If you don't, I shall have to make inquiries. That will take such time and trouble and all right. Miriam Jones raised both of her hands, an exasperated gesture of surrender. But there's so little we can tell you. The names of your biological parents were kept secret, but I do think the social worker told us you were born in Take a poor Angie touched her cheek. Did they tell you about this? No. The mother looked straightforwardly at her daughter. Except to say that you had not received any medical care at the time it happened. So it had never even been stitched by a doctor when we got you. The wind was still raw, the healing. Jean wondered if she only imagined that. Miriam's glance slid away from her daughter for a moment as she added, they didn't tell us anything else about you and you didn't ask. We were older than most adoptive parents and you are hard to place. Jean flinched inwardly for Angie's face, but then her heart warmed to Miriam when the other woman looked up at her adopted daughter and said with a formal but moving simplicity, we wanted you so. We have never regretted our decision to take it. We hope you don't regret it either, Mother. Angie looked as if she longed to rush to Miriam's side, but her mother's reserve kept the daughter pinned to her chair. Of course I don't I'm so grateful. Angie, who was so easily and openly demonstrative with her American family, cleared her throat and said awkwardly, I love you both. Malcolm shifted his weight on the sofa. Well, now you'd best forget all about it, he advised. Yes, it's done now, isn't it? His wife agreed. If they thought they would deflect their daughter and son in law with a taste of the truth, they misjudged the young couple. Jean thought they should have known better than to underestimate Angie's and Zack's tenacity when those two became obsessed about something. What town did you say? Angie asked. Another side. Take a pour. Do you want to go tomorrow? Zack asked Angie. Yes. She turned to her mother in law. You too, Gene. No, jean said, feeling they needed time alone. I'll stay here and babysit with Justin. Jean smiled at her son. Maybe I'll take him to the playground and he'll meet his future wife. I think we ought to take him with us, zack said. Yes, let, his wife said. Jean saw Miriam and Malcolm exchange glasses. They noticed her observing them, and for a moment all three grandparents were united in a strange bond that felt a gene like complicity. Was she voicing a shared fear? Gene wondered. When? She said, attempting a light tone, well, do bring our baby back. But Jean did go because Justin, who was spoiled by the airline flights where the adults gave him anything he wanted just to keep him happy, wailed being dragged from her arms after she gave him his bottle the next morning. You better come on, zack said. Please, angie pleaded. I don't think I can cope with this day. And with him, too. Jim pretended to give in gracefully. If she was sacrificing a perfectly lovely day on her own in Wellington, that she'd go with them if they insisted. Well, all right, she said happily. Although she said nothing about it to anyone, she felt a sense of relief at going along with them. It wasn't altogether connected to her joy at spending the day with her grandson. Take a poorly learned from A map was 25 miles inland, north of Wellington, along winding country roads. Angie drove, as she was the only one of them who was accustomed to the British way, while Jean sat in the front narrating the trip from the same old paperback history book that she brought to New Zealand the first time, and Zack played with Justin in the back. Jean finally gave up the reading, however, when it became impossible to make herself heard over the squeals and giggles. Angie, she said to her daughter in law, how are you going to go about this Search well, angie said. I suppose we'll just knock on doors when we only 25 in New Zealand. And Angie's accent was already stronger. Jean noticed she had also retrieved the British habit of turning statements into interrogatories. If the towns as tiny as most of these villages are, they'll surely remember a baby with this they she twitched her own scarred cheek. Im afraid it's a needle in a haystack, jean warned. But Angie pretty persistent. Angie only smiled. You forget, New Zealand is a very small haystack. Small enough to examine every straw if we have to. Jean reached over her seat to pat the baby and sighed. And knowing your mother and father Justin, no doubt they'll do just that. Jack and Angie, who had heard her both burst out laughing. Take a poor was a tiny haystack indeed. Five little houses along the sunny mountain road. Nobody was home at the first two. At the third one they found a woman with three babies, but she was too young and too new to the village to remember. But at the fourth house an old man was waiting for them as they walked up to his front door. He had the same blond, thin, bandy legged look as Angie's father, Malcolm, but there was a third of amusement in this old man's smile, as if he knew a private, rather nasty joke. Im looking for my parents, angie said. Said and then she told him she's been born here and a year. Did you live here then? I have this scar. Do you see it? So there may have been an accident of some sort. Do you remember anything at all? Can you help me find my birth family? The bony old man leaned towards her to examine the scar and the sly look came into his eyes. He started to touch it, but Andrew drew back sharply from his finger. That only seemed to amuse him more. You'll be wanting to inquire across the way at the widow's house, won't you? He said. That'll be the ticket now, won't it? He cackled as if at a joke they didn't get. Angie, Zach, Jean, and even the baby turned their heads to look at the tiny blue house that stood by itself across the road. Who lives there? Jack asked. The widow, he said. What's her name? Angie asked. He didn't reply, but only stared openly at Angie's cheek. Good day, angie murmured to him. Thank you. Good day, is it? And cackled. Thank me, William. We'll see about that, won't we? His eerie laughter sent shivers down June's spine, but it made the baby laugh. They started walking across the road. The more Justin laughed, the louder the old man cackled, and then the more the baby screamed with delight until the air of Tekapora was filled with the loud, strange sound of their duet. Angie, with a desperate glance, implored Jean to quiet the baby. She tried bouncing him and trying to distract him until he just as suddenly burst into tears. Oh dear, angie said, looking mere tears himself. Clearly this returned to her native country, to her adoptive parents, and maybe today even to her roots is beginning to take a heavy emotional toll on her. She lifted her son from Jean's arms and said, seemingly as much for herself as for the boy, poor baby, please, please, please. Poor baby, it's all right. Mama's here. Fate, Jean thought later. Of course it was fate, and of course the widow would open the door to the little blue house just at the moment that Angie said those words. Mama's here. The woman standing in the doorway looked even older than the cracked old man across the street. She had beautiful silver hair that hung to her waist and plump brown features and the stillest face that Jean had ever seen, a face that looked as if it had been carved from a naked tree and then aged for generations. As if by some unspoken accord. Zack took Justin back from Angie and he and June hung back while Angie walked slowly and then ever more quickly forward until she was nearly running up to the old woman in the door, breathless. The lovely young blonde packing her woman stood before the old brown Maori one. Angie lifted her hair off her scarred cheek. The old woman raised both of her hands to touch the scar. I am Te Poo, she said. I am your grandmother. A beautiful and bored Maori girl named Teanamui. From the village of Takeabura. They met a lost and wandering beautiful pkeha boy named Joseph, a baby girl, a tragic accident only dimly remembered in the birthing, and Joseph the father stole his baby from the Annamarie and from her mother, Tapo, and the villagers of Take a Pua never saw the father or the child again. That was the haunting story the old woman told. It turned me over for adoption, angie said. My child, the old woman said. Im here, Angie whispered to her grandmother. What was my Maori name? But the old woman shrugged off the question as if she didn't remember or it didn't matter now. Please, the old grandmother said. Let me play with my great grandson for a while alone. Let me imagine that you are never taken from us, that he will always be able to visit me. Let me feed him once and change him and play with him. Let me Sing your old Maori songs to my great grandson this once let me tell him of his ancestors and his gods. All of his life he will live among Kakiras. It is the way of the world. But for this small moment in never ending time, let me sing to him of his other world. Go in your car and drive. I am his great grandmother who values him above all others. He is my beloved child whom I will never see again. And I must have this time alone with my great grandson before I die. Please, I ask you in the name of your mother who never have been you leave us. Did I do the right thing? Angie asked the others anxiously a few minutes later outside the blue house. How could I say no to her? Of course you couldn't, june assured her. No way. Agreed, though June noticed that he kept glancing back at the tiny blue house. She's your grandmother, after all. You'll be fine. But what'll we do now to kill an hour? Let's take a walk, angie said, and let me get used to the wonderful, incredible idea of being part Maori. This is what my parents were afraid I'd discover. As if I could ever be ashamed of it. My mother was Maori. My curly hair, the shape of your eyes, and I'm not as fair as most New Zealand women. You two go on without me, jean suddenly said as the young couple started walking down the side of the road. I'll stay here, maybe find a rock to sit upon. You need time to be together and I need time to be alone. I think Jean saw that it relieved her son to hear her say that she would stay behind. The old woman was Angie's blood relative, yes, but she was still a stranger to them. Jane waved them off with a kiss. Across the road the old man was still out on his porch, hanging onto a railing and staring across the little blue house, almost as if he were waiting for something to happen. He noticed Jean and waved her toward him. She shook her head and walked in the opposite direction. The rock she finally found was a boulder in the ditch beside the road. There in the sun, she pulled out of her purse the old history book she had been reading aloud to the kids and turn to the section on nari kocha after near decimation, resurgence of moral population and the shift by the younger generation to the urban centers, harder on the older generation during the loss of their ancient wounds. So sleepy, so warm, and her eyes were closing. Besides, she remembered vaguely having read the same chapter more than 30 years before. She turned the page to a chapter about Maori art, which she suspected she had skipped the first time ever to marry crafts and customs, including wood carving. A monstrous face stared out at her from the page. A face with its huge tongue stuck out. A face on which ceremonial lines were deeply etched. Jean said to the scary face. And then she laughed to herself. The custom of tattooing in which a straight edge blade is used to carve the lines deeper into the face and breasts of women, the face and buttocks of men, thereby to inject the dye more deeply and to give the design more the look of carving than of the tattooing to which western eyes are more accustomed. Something about that paragraph, Jean thought. Read that paragraph again. Tattooing straight edge blade, deep grooves. Her glance shifted to the carved with a face on the other page. Some of the carved lines meant to represent tattoo started below the figures eyes and then curved back, bisecting the cheek and running down below the chin. Genesque creamed and left to her feet. And then the wailing started. A loud dodge, like wailing. A woman's voice coming from a tiny blue house. And the old man across the way began to cackle again and to watch Jean running down the road from the rock. Oh, but she wasn't young enough. She wasn't 42 now. She was 74. And her breath was coming hard and painfully. And she was so frightened, so frightened. And she wanted to scream and scream, to cry out for Justin to crawl away, to crawl down the dirt road to her. Justin, Justin, Baby. Baby. And the old man called out to her. It's the call of morning for the dead, which only the women can sing. And she will put on her black dress of mourning. He cackled and cackled, a crazy old pakeha, watching Jean stumble down the road toward the tiny blue house. J. Paul A name means the endless night before the birth of the gods. Did you know that? Did you know that her heart was beating so unmercifully. Oh dear God, she would have a heart attack. She would die on this road before she reached the baby and the other old woman. The old woman like a carving. Like a carving. Like a tattooed carving. No. Jean flung herself into the blue house. Blinded by the sudden plunge into dimness. She began to sob helplessly. No, no, no, no. Then she could see the old woman. TABLE dressed all in black as the old man had predicted. A straight edge knife raised over the naked baby boy who lay crying on the floor. Jean threw herself at table. Both old women fell to the floor near the baby. The knife sliced through soft, soft skin, carving its ancient tattoo. In nearly 30 years, the myrtle tree, Metrosideros umbelata, beside the bench in the playground, had grown magnificently. Hello, tree, jean murmured to it. Big green tree. Seated there in its shade, Jean watched Zachary put Justin on his lap at the top of the tallest slide. Mom, jack called out to her. Watch us. I'm watching. They whooshed down from the top of the tallest slide down to the bottom, where Angie waited with open arms to embrace them both. Jean smiled and turned her left arm over to expose her wound to the healing warmth of the. This story is taken from A Woman's Hour. Edited by Sarah Palatsky. All rights reserved. Narration by Jim Alishman Music by Craig Harris.