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know.”
    Aroha looked up eagerly at her mother.   “Do I know him?”   The look of hope on her face was almost too much for Verity to bear.
    “No.   You’ve never met him.   We went our separate ways before you were even born.”
    Aroha’s face fell visibly at the news.   “Did you love him a whole lot?” she asked tentatively.
    Verity stroked her daughter’s deep brown hair.   “Yes, I did,” she said, her voice cracking with pain at the confession.   Once upon a time she had loved Aroha’s father far too much for her own good, and that love had caused her more hurt than she could well bear.   “More than I loved anything else in the entire world, except for you.”
    “I thought you must have,” Aroha said with deep satisfaction.   “That’s why you called me Aroha, isn’t it?   Because Aroha is the Maori word for love.   I learned that in school today.   I knew you must've loved my dad a whole lot or you would've called me something different.”
    Verity felt a shiver run through the small of her back.   Her daughter was growing up faster than she had realized, and growing up smart, too.   Soon there would be no hiding anything from her.   Soon she would have to tell her daughter the whole truth.   “Yes, that’s why I called you Aroha.   Always remember that, kitten.   Whatever else happened later between your father and me, you were born out of love and you are the most precious thing in the world to me.”
    “What happened to him?”   The worried note was back in Aroha’s voice.   “Why did he go away?   Didn’t he love you back again?   Didn’t he want me?”
    Verity turned her head away so her daughter could not see her blinking away agonizing tears.   She couldn’t explain to her beloved daughter, not yet, what had happened.   She had no words to tell Aroha of the choices she had made, the choices that had driven Aroha’s father away for ever .
    She sat there on Aroha’s bed, holding her daughter in her arms, remembering back to the glorious summer her child had been conceived, when she had fallen in love for the first time and her life had changed forever.
    She and Taine had been inseparable that summer.   Every spare moment they had, they spent it together, just content to be in each other’s company.   Before the summer was half done, she was utterly and completely head over heels crazy about him.   And he, she was sure, had felt the same way about her.
    Even now, ten years later, she could hardly believe that he, one of the Hunter clan, had looked twice at her, a poor Maori girl from the wrong side of the tracks.   She’d been so happy to be with the man she adored, she’d not cared about anything else.   She hadn’t even wanted to explore her dream too closely for fear that too close a scrutiny would cause her bubble of happiness to burst.   She was content simply to lose herself in the moment, soaking up all the love and joy she was bathing in, without a thought for the future.
    They were both saving for college – Verity because her mother could not pay for her to go, and Taine because old Mr. Hunter insisted that his children pay their own way even though he could afford to pay for them all twice over.   He thought it built character not to have things handed to them on a plate, Taine explained.  
    Neither of them had had much money to spend on fancy dinners, or even cheap dates like pizza and movies, but it hadn’t mattered.   They had made their own fun – picnicking by the lake and braving its icy water for a swim, walking along the water’s edge holding hands, and, one fateful night, finally making love together in the open air under the stars.
    She shrugged as she thought about it.   Young and foolish as she was, she had simply not thought of the possible risks – or of how likely they were.   She had closed her eyes to the inevitable consequence of having unprotected sex with Taine.   She had thought herself invincible,