“We got presents!” Summer said and dashed out of the room, Jaxon hot on her heels, before I could call out that I didn't need presents as well as the cake.
“She'll like my present better than yours!” Jaxon yelled after her, taking the steps right on her heels from the sounds of it.
“No she won't!” Summer screamed back.
They were arguing. Summer and Jaxon were actually arguing. It was only a little spat, but only a few months ago that would have seemed impossible. They used to cling to each other, desperate, unable to exist without the other one to show the other side of their personality. Now, that twin stranglehold they had on each other had been loosened enough for them to have a little rivalry.
I pulled out a chair, removed a long blue sausage balloon and sat down. Kyle did the same opposite me. He picked up a red cone party hat, played with the thin, stringy white elastic before he handed it over. I put it on without hesitation.
Once his hands were free, he found something else to occupy them by pulling candles off the top of the cake. He focused on his task but I could tell he wanted to say something.
“I… erm … Ashlyn called me,” he said. He began fiddling with the twisted body of a pink candle. “She called me, not the kids. She told me.” He looked up into my face—obviously he knew that I knew. “Everything. Is that what you were doing when you kept getting out of the car? Were you making her confess?”
“I told you, I forgot something,” I said.
“OK. We had a long talk. We've agreed that I should get custody of the kids. I've applied for the residency order and it'll probably be approved because Ashlyn's not going to contest it. She's accepted that she can't be their main care giver and she doesn't want us to get into that situation again.”
“Kyle, I'm really pleased for you,” I said.
“Never thought I'd be pleased about it as well, truth be known, but I can't think of anything better.
“I can stop worrying about Ashlyn as well. She's in treatment. It wasn't until she said it to me that I realized that she never actually admitted she had a problem. She started going to meetings because I said she had a problem, not because she admitted it to herself or anyone else. She's admitted that she's got a problem and she's asked for help.”
“That's the first step, they say, admitting you've got a problem you're powerless over.”
He smiled to himself. “That's what she said.”
“She's lucky to have you, you know, Kyle. So many women in her situation are married to good men who wouldn't have a clue where to start if they were thrown into this situation. But you really stepped up to the plate. After a few false starts.”
“And with a lot of help from a certain person.”
“I'll tell Mrs. Eyebrows next door that you said thanks,” I said. I hadn't seen her in a while. Probably because I hadn't screwed up in public for a while.
Kyle laughed. A small laugh that illuminated his face. He was so handsome. A sweet man with a good heart.
“I've got a problem, too. I accept that now,” he continued. “I helped her to be an alcoholic. By pretending it wasn't happening for so long, covering for her, getting so mad with her when she screwed up, silently blaming her for ruining my career, it didn't help. If I could do it all over, I'd get help. Talk to someone. Silence wasn't helpful.”
“Maybe you could talk to someone now?” I suggested gently.
Still fiddling with the pink candle he smiled at me. “I already do.”
“A professional,” I said. “Or maybe other people who've lived with alcoholics.”
“Maybe … We'll see … We're still going through with the divorce. Moving forwards, not backwards, you know?”
I nodded.
“We've agreed to try to keep it civil, but we're realistic. Things might get nasty but no matter what, we're not going to use the kids as weapons like we were doing before. It shouldn't take too long for it to be sorted; it's the financial stuff that's going to take the longest to sort out. It's scary, the thought of not being with Ashlyn. I've spent most of my adult life with her. It's hard to imagine being with anyone else.”
“Whose present do you want to open first?” Summer yelled as she ran back into the room after Jaxon, interrupting our conversation. The two youngsters both stood to attention in the doorway, hands behind their backs, keeping their presents out of sight.
“Don't make me choose on my pretend birthday,” I said, neatly stepping out of the line of fire.
“OK, Dad, you choose,” Summer said.
The agony of a parent put in an unenviable position passed over Kyle's features. “Jaxon, you go first. Seeing as Summer was born first, you're the youngest in the room.”
Jaxon grinned and stepped forwards, took his present from behind his back. It was in a poster tube, decorated with Jaxon's drawings and scrawls saying “Happy Birthday, Ken.” I uncapped the tube, reached in with my forefinger and thumb to pull out the poster. I unrolled the glossy sheet and held it up. On large, shiny poster paper were some plans for a two- story building. At the top of the page, typed in small letters was: “Kendie's house.”
“That's your new house,” Jaxon enlightened.
“My new house,” I stated, staring at the poster. I examined it carefully. On the first floor was a large living room. Connected to it was a kitchen and then a smaller room that had “Kendie's special room” across its center. At the plan's center was a staircase to the second floor. On the second floor there were four rooms. Bedroom 1, bathroom, then “Jaxon's room” and “Summer's room.”
“There's a room for me and a room for Summer for when we come to stay with you,” Jaxon said.
“I see.”
“Dad helped me to do it on his computer. He said he'd build it for you if you give him lots of hashese.”
“Cashese, I think you'll find I said,” Kyle corrected quickly. “Cashese, as in money.”
The lump of emotion in my throat swelled, almost choking me. I lowered my head, unable to blink back the tears. A couple broke free, dripped onto the poster. I used my sleeve to mop them up, watching the moisture soaking into the white cotton of my top.
“I love it,” I said to him, wiping my face dry with the back of my hand. “It's wonderful.” I managed to look at him. “And when I get some hashese, I'll get your dad to build it.”
Jaxon grinned. Summer stepped forward, presented me with her bundle of paper and ribbon and tape. It was impressively wrapped, and I had no idea what could be in it. I took it carefully, sure that it was fragile, and began the painstaking task of unwrapping it, piece of tape by piece of tape, removing layers of paper here, layers of paper there until in front of me I had a side-plate-sized basket. The base was terra- cotta red, the weaving around the sides was a mixture of red, black, yellow and orange straws. Around the base Summer had written in white paint “For Kendie” but she'd misjudged the space she had to write it all so the d, the i and the e were smaller with the e being tiny. The weaving was uneven and imperfect.
“It's for your earrings and your funny rings,” Summer explained.
“It's beautiful,” I whispered, the emotion welling up through every cell in my body.
“Dad helped with the weaving, but I picked the colors and painted your name on the bottom. Your real name, not the one everyone calls you.”
My bottom lip began to tremble. Summer was aghast as tears fell from my eyes. “You mustn't cry at everything,” Summer said, patting the back of my hand. “Even Dad doesn't cry that much anymore.”
“Excuse me, what?” Kyle said.
I bit my lip and tried not to laugh and cry at the same time.
I opened my arms to them. “This is the best birthday I've had in years,” I said. They came and hugged me. They smelled so good, felt so good. It was so easy, so uncom plicated being with these two. It made my heart feel so real being able to hold them, being privileged enough to know them. While they hugged me and I clung to them, simply because I could, I felt the weight of Kyl
e's attention on me and opened my eyes. Our gazes locked again and his full, soft lips slid upwards into a grin. I grinned back, the wish I made coming to mind. My wish was this: I wished for him to find the right woman to love. I suspected she was Ashlyn, but if not her, someone who could see everything wonderful about him and to love him how he deserved to be loved. If anyone deserved to be held and loved and taken care of, it was Kyle.
This birthday party, these presents were fabulous for more than one reason. They showed that they didn't need an outsider to help keep things on an even keel anymore. They were working—thriving—as a family; they didn't need me.
Which meant I could go to Australia if I wanted.
As if on cue, my mobile, which I'd left on the table, bleeped. Summer and Jaxon disentangled themselves from me, went to help their father cut up the cake. I picked up my phone and called up the text message.
I'll always want you back. I'll send you money for the
flight. Love you. Will x
They didn't need me, Will did. I could go back to Australia if I wanted.
WATER
CHAPTER 45
I'll miss this, I thought as I walked around the supermarket, pushing a trolley that already held kidney beans, chickpeas and stock. I didn't have my helpers with me today. They were staying the night at Ashlyn's place after spending the day with Naomi.
Naomi… After what she did, I thought Kyle was an incredibly magnanimous person to forgive her like he did. Me, I would have kicked her arse from here to next Easter, only stopping at Christmas to give my foot a rest. But he didn't want to alienate his family. He really was taking this putting-the-kids-first thing seriously.
As I turned into the soft drinks aisle and headed for the mineral water at the other end, my mobile rang. I rooted it out of my bag and because I didn't recognize the number, I answered it cautiously. “Hello, Ms. Tamale, I'm ringing back with a price on flights to Australia,” the pleasant voice on the other end said.
“Oh, hi,” I replied. “I haven't got a pen right now, but could you give me an idea of how much it'll cost?”
She read them to me. “Do the prices vary if I go via Hong Kong instead of Singapore?” I asked, leaning against the trolley handle and idly running my eyes over the objects littering the wire bottom. There was tapping on a keyboard on the other end of the phone before she read out some of the figures. I'd never let Will pay for my flight, but I was investigating how much it'd cost me to pay for my own flight and working out how much I'd need to save up before I went.
I couldn't go straight away. I had to save not only for the flight, but also for the time I wouldn't be working while I was over there. I also needed to slowly remove myself from the Gadsboroughs.
In about six months, maybe if I went all out to get new business at work, I'd have the money. And now that Ashlyn was back in Kent and working in London, I reckoned she'd start seeing Kyle again and in about six months she'd be ready to move back home.
In that time I could extricate myself slowly from the family. She really wouldn't want me around all the time, and I'd find it impossible. Despite what I tried to pretend to myself, I'd find it difficult being around Ashlyn, having a reminder twenty-four hours a day that she was their mother. I did know it, but sometimes it was easier to ignore it, to live in a state of make- believe. So, Australia would be a good clean break. Once again not being able to have children would send me there, but this time I knew someone was waiting for me. Will would be there.
Will.
Now that I could think about him without the fear of what might have happened to his wife, I grinned all the time about him. It was a slow grin that grew from the center of my face. Gabrielle was often asking me what I was smiling at, and I'd say nothing. I'd sneak a look at his picture, which I kept on my mobile, and stardust would dance across my stomach. I'd never felt like this about a man before and, yes, we were going to be sensible and take it slowly and not rush into anything when I eventually got there, but I couldn't help myself. He couldn't help himself. We made each other giddy.
“Thanks so much,” I said as the woman finished reading me figures and airlines. “I'll have a think about it and call you back.” I cut the line and put the phone back in my bag. I started off towards the bottled water again but was cut off by another trolley moving at a diagonal in front of me and stopping, so it blocked my path. I looked up. Kyle. I grinned at him, but my smile drained away when I saw his face. He didn't look pleased to see me, in fact there seemed to be thunder rolling in his mahogany eyes as he stood staring at me. The smooth lines that molded his features were hard, his jaw stiff as though barely reigning in his anger.
“Hi, Kyle,” I said cautiously. He didn't reply, simply glared at me. When a man with his trolley tutted loudly because he couldn't get by, Kyle turned his look on him. The man suddenly realized he really would prefer to go in the other direction, turned his trolley around and left. Quite quickly. Kyle's head swung back to me.
“So,” he said, in lieu of a hi, “you're moving back to Australia. When the hell were you going to tell me and the kids?”
My mouth flooded with saline then dried just as quickly. He wasn't meant to find out like this. And certainly not now. I was going to tell him and the kids in a few months, when they were used to me not being around as much.
Stunned by being found out, I said nothing. In response, Kyle flattened his palms on his eyes, ground his fists into his forehead. “Why, why?” he said in frustration, his face tipped up into the ether of the supermarket. “Why does this keep happening?” He took his hands away. “Why?”
Up and down the aisle, people were heading our way. I stepped out from behind my trolley, pulled Kyle's to one side and touched him to get him to step aside. He jerked himself away from my touch and moved aside on his own.
The first person to sidle past us, to witness Kyle's very physical reaction to my nearness, was our neighbor with the abused eyebrows. Her eyebrows virtually shot off her face as she looked at Kyle, his face crumpled with anger, his body rigid with fury. She walked on, but then stopped by the pop, started eyeing it up as though she was going to find next week's lottery numbers on the labels.
I moved closer to Kyle, lowered my voice so Mrs. Eyebrows couldn't hear. “It's not like I'm leaving tomorrow.”
“Why do you have to leave at all, huh?” he replied, loud enough to be heard in Scotland. “Answer me that. Why do you have to leave?”
I glanced over at Mrs. Eyebrows—her eyes were bulging out of her head as she stared at the fizzy drinks. “Shhh,” I hushed. “Keep your voice down.”
“No,” Kyle replied, even louder. “Tell me why you have to leave.”
“I won't tell you anything if you don't quiet down.”
Kyle folded his lips into his mouth and nodded his acquiescence.
“Look, like I said, I'm not going tomorrow or anything. Maybe in a few months. The thing is, the three of you don't need me anymore, I can go now.”
“What?” he almost shouted. I raised my eyebrows—after looking at Mrs. Eyebrows (she was openly staring at us)— and gave him a silent warning. “OK, OK,” he said quietly. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You're all doing so well now and it looks like pretty soon Ashlyn's going to become a bigger part of your lives again, so you don't need me, I can go.”
“What the—? Do you think you're some kind of Mary Poppins, dropping in wherever you're needed then off you fly again? Kendra, you're a part of our family. We want you around.”
I had to tell him, to explain. “I… I want to be with Will.”
He drew back a little, stared at me in confusion. “Who's Will?” he asked.
“My … The …” I motioned vaguely over my shoulder.
“The guy in Australia?” Kyle said, catching on. “You haven't seen him in, what, eight… nine months? How can you go back to him? What's so special about him?”
“Everything. Nothing. It's not him. It's how I feel when I'm with him.
I feel normal. Like a normal person. Things like not being able to have kids don't feel as bad. I haven't felt like an ordinary person in so long, but when I'm with Will, when I talk to Will, that's how I feel. Like everyone else.”
He stared at me for a moment as though trying to unravel the knots of secrets that made up who I was, as though if he looked long enough, he'd find out what was wrong with me. “Why do you hate yourself?” he asked quietly.
I felt my face do a passable impression of Mrs. Eyebrows as my eyebrows went up in surprise. “Sorry?” I asked.
“You told me once that you hate yourself. Why?”
I turned around to glare at Mrs. Eyebrows, to make sure she wasn't overhearing this part of the conversation, which should have been carried out behind closed doors, if at all, but she had gone. Obviously our whispering had cut short her fun. Or maybe she was running off to the manager's office to get them to announce over the loudspeaker: would the couple quietly rowing in the soft drinks aisle either move on or speak up so everyone can hear?
“I didn't.”
“You did. The day we went to the museum. I tried to take a picture of you and you said you hate yourself.”
“In pictures, I hate myself in pictures.”
He shook his head. “No, there was definitely a period in between saying you hate yourself and in pictures.”
“Are you some kind of grammar freak because, seriously—”
“I knew the second you said it you didn't mean only in photographs. Tell me why you hate yourself.”
He'd been holding onto that all this time, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it up. “It's hard to explain,” I said to Kyle, knowing that trying to fob him off incorrectly would make him even more curious.