“I know that one day I'll be able to give the kids stability,” she was saying. “One day soon. I have to get sober properly, though. I have to get sober for my kids.”
“What about getting sober for you?” I asked.
Ashlyn glared at me with eyes slick with tears. “Summer and Jaxon are the two most important things in my life.”
“I know. But you didn't drink for your kids, you drank for you. Because you've got this sickness. So maybe getting sober should be about doing it for you, so you can be in good shape for them, rather than pinning success or failure on them. I'm always hearing that you have to take care of you first before you try to take care of anyone else.”
Even in the darkness I saw her cheeks flame up as fury spiraled into her eyes and embedded on her expression. She was angry. She hadn't heard what I said, she had heard me criticizing her love of her children. Which I hadn't. I was pointing out that “doing it for her kids” was a fast track to unhappiness. Because if she did slip again she would tell herself it was because she didn't love her kids enough, she would tell herself that she was a bad person, she would tell herself there was no point trying to stay sober. She had to do it for her.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have said anything, you obviously know what you're doing.”
“I'm telling you this,” she was struggling—and spectacularly failing—to keep anger out of her voice, “because I love my children. More than anything. I'll do anything for them. Being around me at the moment is not good for them. They need Kyle. He's steady and stable …” Her voice cracked. “I don't want to do this,” her words came out in a teary rush. “I want to be with them. I want to hold them every day in a bear hug. I want to watch Summer dance to TV theme music and Jaxon talk to his imaginary dog. I want to wake up every morning and know that they're going to say or do something different from yesterday.” Tears were dripping off the end of her pert nose but she didn't wipe them away. “But that's all about me. They want a normal life. With me and Kyle back together, I know it. And that can't happen right now. Maybe in the future but not now.
“You have to decide what you're going to do.” Ashlyn was talking about me now. About me, to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You have to decide if you're going to stick around or not. Summer and Jaxon love you. It tears me up inside to say that.” She put her hand over her heart, to show where it hurt. “They were constantly accidentally calling me Kendie, which reminds me how much you must be around them.” Her thin hand pressed harder on her heart. “I won't let them be hurt anymore. If you aren't going to be around for the foreseeable future, until the time when they don't need you, then you leave now. You go now. Don't let them fall even more in love with you and then you go off, decide to live your life somewhere else. If you stay in their lives now, you're in their lives forever. If you can't commit to that, then you leave.”
She slid off her swing, stood in front of me with her arms folded. Maybe against the cold, maybe to put the frighteners on me.
“I've been a terrible mother, and I'm going to stop anyone else doing that to them again. You stay for good or you leave.”
Just to be dramatic, I think, she turned and walked away.
I watched her leave as what she said sunk in. What she'd asked of me was the equivalent of me taking a pregnancy test and discovering that I was pregnant. Realizing I had to make a choice: keep the baby or not; stay with Jaxon and Summer or leave; say good-bye to the possibility of happiness and marriage and adoption with someone I hadn't met yet or stay forever where I'd always be second-best.
Being with them was fantastic now, being apart from them was a hell I never wanted to live through again, but could I do this? Could I commit to a forever with two children who'd never be mine?
CHAPTER 42
At around ten o'clock the next morning, after showers and breakfast and a cup of tea for the road, Kyle and I started to take Summer and Jaxon's belongings to the car. They'd accumulated quite a lot in the past six weeks—more clothes and toys and books and DVDs—and it took a lot to pack them into their bags. We resorted to shopping bags and when they ran out, it was armfuls, pushed on the top of the neatly packed stuff in the back of the car. Summer and Jaxon sat on the sofa with their mother, going through the map of how we were going to get back to Kent.
Ashlyn was still in her nightdress, although she'd returned Kyle's T-shirt to him and replaced it with an oversized cream cardie with chunky ribbing. After stuffing the last load in the car, we returned to the living room. Summer looked up from the sofa at Kyle and me as we hung around the doorway, waiting for the good-byes to begin. She turned to her nightdressed mother, patted her hand and said, “Mumma, you have to put on proper clothes. Dad won't let you wear your nightdress in the car.”
Each adult drew back a little, surprised. We'd all assumed one of the others had explained. No one had actually told the kids Ashlyn wasn't coming back with us. No one had actually told the kids that they wouldn't be seeing their mother for a while. Ashlyn looked up and locked eyes with Kyle. He closed his eyes in silent agony. In the excitement of being reunited with them, we hadn't taken the time to explain the situation to the kids.
Summer noticed the pause that followed her statement. She cocked her head, narrowed her eyes at her mother.
She didn't resist when Ashlyn's thin, reedlike fingers with their long oval nails took her hand. She didn't move as Ashlyn's other hand took hold of Jaxon's hand. “Summer,” Ashlyn said. “Jaxon.” She paused to look at each of her children. She was taking a mental picture of them. I could tell from the way her eyes hungrily devoured each line and curve of their faces, their hair, their bodies.
“I'm not coming back with you. Not yet, anyway. Not for a while. I have to get better.”
“Why not?” Summer asked. Her voice was quiet, small, but on the knife-edge of a scream.
“I have to get better,” Ashlyn said. “There are things I need to do. I haven't been feeling too good for a while and I need to be well so I can come back to you. I'll see you really soon, though. I promise.”
Summer tugged her hand free from her mother, the hackles of her body visibly rising, the rage swirling with incomprehension taking over. She came apart piece by piece, moment by moment. The betrayal she wore on her face; the agony escaped as she crumpled forwards and, in short little hiccups, started to cry. Her tiny sobs became a high-pitched whine, and then loud sobs. “Why not, Mumma?” she asked through her sobs. “Why not?” She began rocking backwards and forwards. “Come home, Mumma, come home.” This wasn't about this time. It wasn't simply about us leaving Ashlyn behind this time—it was about all the time her mother had lived away from them. It was the months and months of her not having her mother.
And after the reunion yesterday, seeing Ashlyn and Kyle hugging, why wouldn't Summer and Jaxon expect Ashlyn to come back? For their family, imperfect as it had been, to be rebuilt?
“Come home, Mumma. Come home.” Summer's ragged, breathy sobs tore through me. Kyle folded his arms tightly against him, trying to hide how much each sob slashed at him. Jaxon slid out of his seat beside his mother and went silently across the room, sat down on the floor by the kitchen door, pulled his knees up to his chest and then put his head on his knees.
“I'll be good. I promise. I'll be good,” Summer wailed, her cries louder and more distressing with each word. “I'll be a good girl, Mumma. I promise. I promise.”
“Oh, Sum, it's not you,” Ashlyn scooped her daughter up in her arms. “It's not you. You're a good girl. You're always a good girl. It's me. It's Mumma. I have to stay here until I get better.”
“Come HOME!” Summer screamed over her mother's comfort. “PLEASE! MUMMA, PLEASE! PLEASE! MUMMA, PLEASE!”
“Summer, darling,” Ashlyn said, barely audible above Summer's constant screams. “Oh Summer, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” Ashlyn's words had no volume, muted by tears. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”
Kyle moved. I thought
he was going to Summer, but he moved towards the kitchen. To Jaxon. To his son, the quiet wheel, the little bundle in the corner whose heart was breaking just as much as his sister's but who wouldn't do what Summer was doing. It wasn't in his nature. He was like his father, came apart from the inside out, but quietly. Absolute agony dressed up in a hush. Kyle crouched by his son, took him in his arms and picked him up. “You all right, mate?” Kyle said as he pulled Jaxon towards him. Jaxon wrapped his legs around his dad's waist, buried his face in his dad's neck, linked his arms around him. Clung to his dad and allowed himself to be carried into the kitchen, away from the pain.
I should leave. I should let Ashlyn calm her daughter in her own way, in her own time, I thought. But I couldn't. I couldn't walk out on Summer while she was falling apart. She was in agony. And I hurt. Like Ashlyn and Kyle must, when she hurt I hurt, too. There was no denying it, I was linked to Summer. I was tied to Jaxon. Anything that affected them affected me.
Summer started to fight her mother, twisting and turning in her mother's hold, fighting because she wasn't hearing what she wanted to hear. “MUMMA COME HOME! COME HOME!” She wasn't asking for much, didn't think it was too much for her mother to do this one thing for her. For them. Without thinking, I moved nearer to the sofa, towards them. I wanted to hold Summer, to soothe her.
“It's OK, Summer,” I said before I could stop myself. “Your Mumma is going to come home, just not yet.”
Summer escaped her mother's hold, ran the short distance and threw herself against me, flung her arms around my waist and buried her face in my solar plexus. She was still crying, still screaming, but the words had gone. It was just sound. Just a harrowing lament, a constant howling at the pain this was inflicting upon her. For the first time she'd realized her mother wasn't coming back. She wouldn't have her mother and father together again. This, literally, was as good as it got. They'd be in the same room, they'd talk, but they weren't going to be home together. They weren't going to be a family. It was over. Her family was over. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.
I crouched myself down to Summer's height, enveloped her in my arms, took every cry and wail as it hammered against my body. Took it, absorbed it, accepted it. I stroked my fingers through the smooth locks of her onyx-black hair, held her, tried to soothe her. Summer's cries subsided as she wore herself out. They fell and fell until she was simply quivering in my arms, hiccupping back her distress. “Make her come home, Kendie,” she whispered against my cheek. “Make my mumma come home.”
I pressed the flat of my hand against her back, held her close. “She will one day,” I replied. “Just not yet.”
Pale, trembling and her face wet with tears, Ashlyn came to us. When I looked into her eyes I saw grief. Deep, heart-wrenching grief. She didn't want this, either. “Why don't you just come home?” I wanted to ask her. “You can get help at home. You don't need to do this.”
“Can I talk to Summer, please?” she asked stiffly. As though she needed my permission to get an audience with her own child.
“Of course,” I said. “Of course.” I gently unwrapped Summer from me, although it wasn't easy. Summer clung to me, didn't want to face her mother. If she faced her mother, it'd be real. She'd have to accept that her family was finally over.
Reluctantly, she turned to her mother. Faced her with mottled skin, puffy eyes and a quivering body. She looked defeated and broken. The light of hope had gone out of her eyes. It was an expression that shouldn't ever be seen on a six-year-old face. It was an expression that shouldn't ever be seen on anyone's face.
I left them to it. Opened the front door and escaped out to the car. I opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. I hadn't slept much last night after my “chat” with Ashlyn. I lay down across the passenger and driver's seats, covered my eyes with my hands and listened to the silence. Listened to the sound of my heart, beating loudly and rapidly in the hush of Kyle's car. Filling the space with the agony of what had just happened.
I hadn't thought of this. That getting the kids back would mean breaking their hearts.
Lying back in the car, I took my mobile out of my jeans pocket and looked at the screen. There was something I had to do. I brought up the number, stared at it, my eyes boring into the number and the name above it until it blurred into a mass of black as the screen went dark.
I hit the green call button before I could talk myself out of it.
“Hey-lo,” she purred into the phone.
“It's me,” I said.
“Oh. Hello, Me. How are you? Why are you calling me, Me? What's happened?”
“I'm in Cornwall. Penzance.”
Gabrielle lowered her voice. “OK, I get the picture, you've been kidnapped by the Pasty Patrol, I'll send help ASAP. They'll be wearing balaclavas and carrying bangers and mash, eel pies and a canister of smog.”
I smiled into the phone. “Hold on there, I'm leaving in a minute. I've only been here a night—”
“A NIGHT?!” she broke in. “It's too late. I can hear it in your voice. You've got an accent. You'll be spending weekends down there next and then you'll want to do a sea change. You'll be moving down there. Oh God, why? Why do the good Pastify so young? Why?”
“Gabrielle, stop,” I whispered into the phone. I didn't want to start laughing. Not with all that was going on in the house. “I'm ringing to tell you we've found the kids.”
“Oh thank God,” Gabrielle breathed into the receiver. “Thank God. I was starting to think… That doesn't matter, thank God you've found them. And they're safe? They're OK?”
“Yeah, they're OK, mostly. It's hard for them to leave Ashlyn again, but they'll be fine.”
“As long as they're all right, that's all that matters. Thanks for letting me know. I know you've all been going through hell. It was hell for me, too, so thanks for letting me know.”
“I also rang to say I'm sorry for what happened in the pub.”
“Sweetie, you don't have to say sorry.”
“Yes, I do. Just because we're friends, doesn't mean I shouldn't have to say sorry. You deserve that respect.”
“You don't have to say sorry because I don't think you did anything wrong. If someone had pushed me like I pushed you, I would have gone carnival freakshow crazy on them. If you'd asked, that'd be one thing, but you didn't. And it wasn't my place. So don't say sorry. If anything, I should say sorry, not you.”
“You were only trying to help.”
“OK, let's not get into the cycle of us both trying to take the blame. Let's say we've both said sorry and let's hook up when you get back from,” she lowered her voice, “Cornwall. Just you and me.”
“Cool. Thanks, Gabs.”
“Thanks for calling, Kennie. Give my love to Summer and Jaxon.”
“I will. See ya.”
At the car, Ashlyn hugged her children as though she might never see them again. Summer was now defeated instead of calm. She'd hugged her mother and then climbed onto her booster seat, allowed her mother to strap her in, then sat in silence. It was a silence that was better suited to Jaxon. Even when she wasn't speaking Summer was noisy. Now, she was quiet and still, rested her forehead against the window and stared out of it.
“Take care of your sister,” Ashlyn whispered to Jaxon as she helped him into the car and strapped him in.
I looked away when Ashlyn turned to Kyle, busied myself with checking Summer and Jaxon's seat belts, that their booster seats were firmly in place, the food bag was settled securely beneath my seat. I could hear them, of course. Their mumbles, their promises, their chat. When silence fell, I presumed it was safe to sit up and I came upright just in time to see Kyle brush a lock of his wife's hair behind her ear, cup her face in his hand, staring at her as though he didn't know what to say. He had so much to say but none of the words to say it—I knew that look well.
“I love you,” Ashlyn's lips said.
Kyle nodded, but said nothing.
Tell her you love her too, I almost
screamed. It was painful, knowing that they were still in love with each other but were doing this. Not talking, not being honest. They slid into a hug and Kyle broke away first, pulled Ashlyn away, looking at her. Drinking in her image as though he wanted to remember her forever. As though he knew he wouldn't be seeing her like this again. He opened the car door, got in. Anguish was scored into the grooves of his face, into the lines that had developed in the time Jaxon and Summer were gone. As he buckled himself in, struggling to stop himself from breaking down, Ashlyn came to my side of the car, tapped on my window. I rolled it down, a little afraid of what she might say.
“Bye, Kendie,” she said, her eyes searching mine. “Enjoy the trip back, OK?” Remember what I said about you deciding to stay or go, she was saying. “I've got a lot of thinking to do. I need to work out who I'm doing things for,” she continued. I'll think about what you said, she was saying.
“It was good to see you, Ashlyn,” I replied.
She stepped away from the car, her lips pressed together into a brave smile, her eyes wide and terrified. She slowly backed away until she was standing on the doorstep of the cottage. The kids waved out of the back window, Kyle beeped his horn, raised a hand and then began to move out of the driveway.
“Stop the car!” I said urgently, unclipping my seat belt and fumbling for the door handle. “I forgot something.”
Kyle hit the brakes, pulled on the hand brake. “What did you forget?” he asked, a small frown creasing his forehead because we didn't bring anything with us. Technically, there wasn't much I could have forgotten.
“Oh, you know …” I replied, cracking open the door and clambering out before he could ask me any more questions.
I marched up the path, the gravel crunching under my shoes, making me unsteady on my feet, but not in my purpose. With every step I was more certain of what I was doing. I could see the confusion on Ashlyn's face as I approached.
“Kendie?” she asked.
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