Into My Arms

by Kylie Ladd

  Skye placed Molly in a bouncy seat on top of a towel spread across the bench, then turned to the fridge.

  ‘Does she throw up a lot?’ Ben asked.

  ‘What?’ Skye said, then handed him a glass of iced water. ‘You mean the towel? That’s to stop her chair scratching the timber. Hamish’s idea. Of course.’

  For a second Ben thought she was going to roll her eyes, but instead she glanced down at the bench, running her hands along the dark wood.

  ‘It’s nice,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You have a lovely house.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, eyes on his now, deep brown and wary.

  ‘How old is she?’ he said. ‘Molly, I mean.’

  ‘Just three months.’

  Ben looked away. ‘I knew that. I was with Arran, in Syria, the night she was born. He told me, of course. We had a drink and toasted her.’ He paused. Toasted wasn’t quite the word, but whatever. ‘I should have come earlier, I know, or at least sent a card. I wanted to, but it was just . . . difficult, you know? But I really did want to congratulate you, Skye. I think it’s fabulous. She’s gorgeous.’

  Skye smiled. A real smile, he thought. The first since he’d arrived. ‘She is, and I do know. Thank you. I just wish you’d told me you were coming. I would have made myself a bit more presentable.’

  He studied her properly for the first time. She was wearing yoga pants, an old t-shirt and socks. Her hair was unbrushed, and there was dried milk on one shoulder.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You look beautiful,’ he said, meaning it. Skye went back to the fridge and poured herself a glass of juice. When she sat down to drink it he noticed that her hand was trembling.

  ‘So how’s it going?’ he went on. ‘Motherhood. Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘More each day,’ she said. ‘I was sick after I had her, and it was pretty tough at first. She cried a lot. So did I. I was just tired all the time, but it’s getting better. It’s got better,’ she corrected herself. ‘She sleeps most of the night, and Hamish gets up to her sometimes. He’s a big help.’

  Ben nodded. He could talk about Skye and Molly, but he wasn’t ready to discuss Hamish.

  ‘And she’s smiling now, which is lovely,’ Skye continued. She turned to her daughter sitting in her seat between them, and tickled her on the chest. ‘Aren’t you, Miss Molly Moo? You’re smiling and laughing, like a big smiley girl.’ The baby gurgled, throwing out her arms in delight, and Skye prolonged the game, babbling to Molly as she danced her fingers across Molly’s shoulders and up to her cheeks. Ben felt an ache in his stomach. Skye would want more children, he found himself thinking, then immediately froze. Of course she would. What did it matter? It had nothing to do with him.

  ‘Would you like to hold her?’ Skye asked, undoing the straps of the bouncy seat without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ben, though he wasn’t at all. He pushed his stool back from the bench, nervous. Skye placed Molly in his arms. She was heavier than he had expected, more substantial, and he relaxed. He wasn’t going to drop her. It was just like holding Kirra all those years ago, though then he’d been barely a teenager. Molly was looking up at him with the same implacable gaze: absolute interest, absolute trust. She was gorgeous, Ben thought. Her limbs were plump and silken, her skin looked as if it had been airbrushed.

  ‘I think she likes you,’ Skye said. ‘She must know that you’re her uncle.’

  It was true, he thought. She shared his blood, after all, his genes . . .

  Without warning, Molly began to cry. The eyes that had regarded him so calmly filled with tears, her mouth opened, her fists balled and drummed the air.

  ‘What did I do?’ asked Ben, glancing up anxiously.

  ‘Nothing,’ Skye laughed. ‘She’s just tired.’ She held out her hands for the child and lifted her to her shoulder, patting her back. ‘Nap time for you. Sorry,’ she called out to Ben as she carried Molly away, ‘I won’t be long.’

  Ben peered around the empty kitchen. He could leave, he thought, duck out the front door while Skye was busy with Molly. He’d seen them both; why prolong it? Yet something kept him there . . . he wasn’t sure if it was the murmur of Skye’s voice as she soothed her daughter in a nearby room, the remnants of her scent in the air, her gymnast’s tread, light and measured, coming back towards the kitchen. It was too late. He was trapped.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘She just loses it sometimes. A bit like her mother. Tell me about Zia. How’s he doing?’ She resumed her seat across from him.

  ‘A lot better, I think, since we found Habib. That’s his older brother—one of them anyway. Did Arran tell you?’

  Skye nodded.

  ‘It was pure luck really, that someone saw one of the posters. Then again, we plastered most of Damascus with them.’ He smiled at the memory of Arran’s persistence.

  ‘So he’s back with Zia and his parents now?’

  ‘I wish. Not yet. Arran’s working on getting him out here through the family reunification scheme, but Habib doesn’t even have an identity—any official papers, passport and whatnot. Either he lost them or they were with Iman when they got separated, and we still don’t know where Iman is.’ Ben shrugged. ‘All that has to be sorted out first, and then the application . . . It could take months. A year, even.’

  ‘And Zia?’ Skye prompted.

  ‘Zia’s brighter, definitely. He joins in more at the drop-in centre. He speaks up. He told me the other day that his mother was coming around to the family house for dinner, and that she’d started talking again. She’s still not living with them, but it’s a start. Arran did a good thing.’

  ‘You too,’ Skye said softly. ‘You helped. I’m glad about Zia. He’s had a hard time. And I’m glad that you’re still in contact with him. When Arran first told me about running into you at the commission flats I could immediately see you doing that sort of work. You’d be good at it. You’re kind, and patient. I imagine those kids don’t get a lot of that.’

  Ben felt himself blush. Rather than meet her eyes he studied the bench once more. The knots in the wood were still visible, though sanded back and varnished. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I enjoy it. It’s harder than teaching, but I get more out of it. It’s almost like being a vet after all. Something comes to you, damaged . . .’ He stopped. He’d never expressed this thought aloud before.

  ‘I know,’ said Skye, nodding, ‘I know. And there’s no lesson plans, right?’

  Ben laughed. ‘Thank God. What about you? Are you working at all? Your art, I mean, the sort of stuff you were doing at the school.’

  ‘I am,’ she said with pleasure in her voice, hands linked around her glass. ‘I couldn’t seem to do anything for ages—the whole time I was pregnant with Molly, and even before that—but I had an idea for a piece after she was born. It’s not much, but it’s got me going again.’

  ‘What is it?’ Ben asked.

  She took a bill from a pile of paperwork on the bench, turned it over and began to sketch. ‘It’s like a plaque, except done in mosaic. I want to put it in the garden when I’ve finished, make an area just for Molly, with a little seat and a birdbath, or even maybe a pond. It’s got her name on it and her date of birth, but picked out in smaller tiles so that they’re part of a larger picture. The M forms the edges of a dragonfly’s wings, for example . . .’

  Ben watched as Skye bent over the drawing, her ash-blonde hair spilling across the page. Then she sat up and dropped the pen onto the bench. ‘It would be easier to show you. Do you want to see it? It’s out in my studio.’

  She led him through the rear of the house and out the back door. As they stepped onto the deck a streak of black and white nearly knocked Ben over, barking madly.

  ‘Jess, hey, calm down, girl,’ said Skye, bending to fondle the dog’s ears. ‘You remember Jess, don’t you? Poor thing, she lives outside since Molly was born, so she’s always very happy to see me.’

  ‘Of course I do. Hey, Jess. You still chasing water rats?’ He held o
ut his palm and Jess sniffed it, then looked up at him and wagged her tail. Good dog, he thought, pleased she remembered him.

  ‘The studio’s down this way,’ said Skye, preceding him along a path between the fence and the garage to a small self-contained building at the rear of the block. ‘I love how cut off it is. There’s no phone, so once Hamish is at work nobody can disturb me. I can get lost in my work.’ She pushed open the door. Jess ran ahead and settled on a blanket in the corner.

  ‘What about Molly?’ Ben asked.

  ‘She’s usually here with me,’ Skye gestured towards a travel cot set back against the wall behind a vast workbench, ‘or I’ve got the baby monitor.’ She picked it up, listened for a second and then replaced it on the bench. ‘Nothing. She’s a pretty sound sleeper, thank goodness.’

  Ben glanced around. The workbench dominated the area, its surface strewn with pieces of glass and tiles, Skye’s tools and drawings. There was no other furniture, save for the travel cot and a three-seater couch against the opposite wall, one of Nell’s paintings hanging above it. The remaining two walls, overlooking the garden, were made entirely from glass, and there was a large skylight cut into the ceiling. Weak winter sunshine filled the room, warming the timber floor, illuminating everything.

  ‘It must be a great place to work,’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ she replied. ‘Come here.’

  He joined her at the bench, where she had cleared a space in the clutter and was brushing off a magazine-sized rectangle of tiny interlocking tiles.

  ‘It’s still not quite finished,’ she said shyly. ‘What do you think?’

  The mosaic was much smaller than he had imagined, far more intricate and detailed. Ben bent closer to see it better, his cheek brushing Skye’s hair. Iridescent blues and greens shimmered and leapt; a dragonfly hovered in the top corner of the work, hyacinths bloomed at the base. He turned to tell Skye how lovely it was but the words never left his mouth. She was already there, her face next to his face, her breath warm on his skin. He kissed her instead, and then, when she didn’t resist, kissed her harder and deeper, his lips fervent with longing. She kissed him back, her hands going to his hair, her tongue meeting his own. She tasted the way she had always tasted, and he felt a sob catch in his throat, felt his penis lengthen and harden, arching towards her. Her hands were on the buttons of his shirt; her mouth trembled beneath his. He thought she said his name, but it could have been the wind that had started up outside or Jess in the corner, whining softly, then lying back down.

  Skye pulled him towards the couch and they collapsed onto it together. Against the dark blue fabric her hair was as bright as lightning, crackling around her face. His arms went around her, her body sliding into place beneath his. The fit was so easy, he thought, so natural, so innate. Her mouth opened wider as desire built. She shrugged off her t-shirt and her bra and he gazed at her hungrily. Her breasts were bigger than when he’d last seen them; her nipples had turned from pink to a dusky rose. He leaned over her and caught one between his teeth, outlining it with his tongue. Skye moaned, and he brought his hand to her other breast while he continued to suck and tug at the first. She liked that. She’d always liked that. He remembered it instinctively, remembered all of her: the way she cupped his head as he worked at her breasts, remembered the pulse in her throat, her urgent fingers insinuating themselves under his jeans.

  ‘The couch,’ she gasped, head flung back. ‘It folds out, into a bed.’

  ‘I can’t stop,’ he muttered. His hands were on her hips; his mouth caressed its way along her belly, softer now, rounder. She rose beneath him to pull down the yoga pants, then shuddered as his hands pulled her legs apart. With her own hands she opened herself for him, and he grabbed for her wrist, sucking the wetness from her fingers. His tongue probed inside her as she undulated beneath him; her hands, now freed, tugged at his shoulders and back.

  ‘Ben,’ she pleaded, ‘Oh Ben, Ben!’

  His tongue slid along her folds to her clitoris, lingered, began to lap . . . but it was too much. He couldn’t wait. With a groan he pulled his mouth away from her body, tore at his jeans and moved back above her. She reached for his cock, holding his gaze, guiding him towards her . . . Then an outraged howl filled the room. Skye dropped his penis and sat up so quickly her forehead hit his.

  ‘It’s Molly,’ she said, looking horrified. ‘She’s woken up. Oh shit, what am I doing?’

  Outside the wind had increased, and the first drops of rain were flinging themselves against the glass.

  ‘Just leave her for a minute,’ Ben cajoled. His erection throbbed; he needed to keep Skye where she was. He reached for her breasts. Molly screamed again through the baby monitor and Skye pushed him away, leaping to her feet.

  ‘Get off me!’ she said. ‘I have to go get Molly.’

  ‘Bring her back,’ he suggested. ‘Put her in the cot here.’

  Skye yanked on her pants and bent to retrieve her t-shirt from the floor. When she looked up he saw there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Oh God,’ she moaned. For a second they stared at each other. Skye swayed, wavered, then finally sobbed, ‘We can’t. We can’t.’ Molly’s cries intensified and she bolted for the door, running out into the rain without looking back.

  Ben pulled up his jeans but remained on the couch. He felt dazed, nauseated; the studio swam around him, looming and contracting. What the hell had just happened? He’d missed Skye—God, how he’d missed her—but he’d always known that he’d done the right thing. There was no future for them, nothing but pain, he’d been certain of that. Why, then, was his anguish now intensified, his grief greater than in Syria, than when he’d first opened that fucking envelope? He thought he might cry. He was just so tired of it, the longing, the loneliness, the ache that only grew, not lessened, as time went on.

  Molly continued to wail, then her sobs gradually subsided as Skye reached her. Ben stood up unsteadily and lurched to the workbench. He turned off the monitor and with a sweep of his arm knocked the mosaic to the floor, where it shattered into pieces.

  November 2012

  29

  ‘Hello . . . hello. Are there any little girls in the house?’

  Hamish put down his briefcase as he stood in the doorway and prepared to be ambushed. It was their evening ritual: he’d arrive home and take a long time fumbling with his key in the lock—long enough for Skye to hear him and alert their daughter. Molly would then waddle up the hallway as fast as her chubby legs could carry her and hide in the lounge room. He’d wait for her footsteps to stop, then open the front door, and she’d burst out giggling, throwing herself at his legs. ‘I is here, Daddy,’ she would say. ‘I is.’

  But not tonight. His knees remained unmolested; the hallway was empty and echoing. Hamish tossed his keys onto a side table and made his way towards the kitchen. ‘Skye,’ he called. ‘Molly?’

  There was no answer. The kitchen was empty, the bedrooms and playroom too. He had just begun to feel apprehensive when he heard Jess bark—but a happy bark, not a warning one. Hamish opened the door to the backyard and saw Molly throwing a tennis ball for the dog, her dress and arms streaked with dirt and Jess’s saliva.

  ‘I play with Jess, Daddy!’ she told him earnestly, heaving the ball a scant foot or so. Jess barely had to get up to retrieve it.

  ‘That’s great, sweetheart,’ he said, bending to kiss her. Her curls were damp with sweat, and she smelled of milk and playdough. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  ‘Mummy working,’ she said, waving one arm towards the studio. Jess barked and nudged the ball back to her.

  Inside the studio Skye was hunched over her workbench, sheets of butcher’s paper spread out before her, fingers dusky with charcoal. She looked up as he came in, bending forward over her drawings so he couldn’t see them. ‘You’re home early,’ she said a bit defensively.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m late. It’s half past six, and we have to be in the city in forty-five minutes. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten?’
His mild panic of a few minutes ago bubbled again beneath his skin, seguing into anger.

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ she said, pushing her materials together and standing up. ‘I was just busy, with this commission, and daylight saving always tricks me. I look outside and it’s still light—’

  ‘Has Molly had her dinner?’ Hamish interrupted. ‘She needs a bath too. What time’s Nell coming?’

  ‘Seven,’ Skye said, pushing past him. ‘I’ll feed her now.’

  ‘There isn’t time, Skye,’ Hamish said to her back. ‘You still need to get ready yourself. Tonight’s a big deal to me. To Ria, too. We’ve worked hard for this, and I don’t want to risk mucking it up by getting there late.’

  She turned on him, eyes alight. ‘Well, maybe you should have made the effort to get home a bit earlier then, so you could help me out. I’m working too, you know.’

  Not like me, Hamish wanted to say. He was proud of Skye for persisting with her art, proud and pleased that she’d won this new commission, a mosaic sculpture for a local park. Yet it didn’t pay. He’d seen the contract, he’d done the sums: once the costs were taken out—the tiles, the grout—there wouldn’t be enough left over to cover Molly’s time in child care, let alone compensate for all Skye’s planning and labour. He was working long hours because somebody had to; for their family, for the future, so she could muck around out here in the studio and not have to get a real job. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them down. This wasn’t the time to talk about it. Instead, he picked up Molly, who had come in and was clinging to her mother’s leg, glancing between them. ‘I’ll feed her,’ he said, striding out of the studio. ‘You just get ready.’

  ‘Me have spoon?’ Molly asked, leaning forward in the highchair.

  ‘Not tonight, honey,’ Hamish said, attempting to manoeuvre some spaghetti into her mouth. ‘Daddy’s in a hurry.’