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not a single thing in the world to do except look after two nearly-grown kids and a bit of housework and cooking, with you paying all the bills, and now even that’s too much to ask and she can just waltz off for three months, while your hand’s broken? It’s just so typical of that whole family to leave you holding the bag for everything, it makes my blood boil.”
    “Mum ,” he cautioned her. “This doesn’t help.”
    She wasn’t listening , though. “I thought it was bad enough when you moved. What obligation did you have? How much was your dad there for you?”
    “Not much,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I had to do it . And it hasn’t been so bad.”
    “It hasn’t,” she said flatly. “Twenty-seven years old, your whole career, your whole future ahead of you, making a change that did nothing but set you back, sacrificing everything for a couple of kids who aren’t yours, who’ve barely been part of your life, because your dad couldn’t be bothered to have you around more than a couple weeks a year? Doing all that for the kids who had everything you didn’t?”
    “ If they did,” he said, “they don’t have it now.” He’d heard it all before, and it was more than time to shut it down. “And the other isn’t true either. The move’s given me a chance to make a real impact. I’ve got the opportunity here to help turn a team around. I believe in what we’re trying to do, and I’ll be in there playing my guts out to make it happen next season. That’ll be good for my career, no worries. There’s more to this game than winning the championship. There’s being a winner when you’re losing, too. And that’s what the All Blacks are for, anyway,” he said, trying to joke. “To give you more of those wins.”
    She snorted. “And how’s that been going for you?”
    “Grinding out the tough wins,” he said, “coming back strong from the losses, that builds a team too. We’re getting there, wait and see. You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Mum. I don’t need any sympathy, and I’m well suited where I am.” Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but whingeing about it to his mummy wasn’t going to help one bit.
    “Do you want me to come up and help?” she asked.
    “ Uh . . .” That one took him by surprise. “Would you be able to?”
    “Well,” she admitted, “it’d be tough. I just got a big commission to do a group of model homes, and they’re on a timetable. But I could do some juggling and carve out a few days, maybe even a week.”
    “No,” he decided , “thanks anyway, but I’m here, they’re in school, and we’ll get through it, one way or another.” And he didn’t trust the way she’d treat the kids. She wouldn’t be unkind, no. She’d be brisk, and managing, and impatient. He wasn’t at all sure he knew what Charlie needed, but he could tell he didn’t need that. “It’ll be three months. May as well start as we mean to go on.”
    “You could get a nanny,” she suggested. “Or even just a housekeeper.”
    “There’s a cleaning service coming in already,” he said. “Every week, so that’s not too bad.”
    She snorted. “Of course there is. Why am I not surprised? But still, darling. Hire a housekeeper, somebody to look after them. It’s not your job, and really, how fit are you to do it?”
    He didn’t know if it was the assumption that he was incapable that aroused his admittedly fierce competitive instincts, or something deeper, but he found himself making a hundred-eighty-degree turn from his feelings of the night before. “No,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it’s better if I’m … well, here, at least, while Aunt Cora isn’t. And if they see that I am, too. We’re getting the hang of it, anyway. How hard could it be? But maybe I could bring them down at Christmas.”
    “ Oh, dear,” she said, and she did actually sound distressed. “I was planning to treat myself to a Samoa holiday this year, and I already booked it,