“I'm not saying you don't love them, but you're using them, aren't you?”
Kyle looked away from his kids, his line of sight moving up towards my flat. “It's not that simple,” he said.
“I know it's not that simple. And to be honest, Kyle, if I was in your situation, I can't put my hand on my heart and say I wouldn't be doing the same thing. But you can't use them as weapons without hurting them.”
“You make it sound as though she's the perfect one, that she loves the children and I don't. She didn't just walk out on me, she left them as well. I woke up one morning and she was gone. She's the reason why Jaxon doesn't talk, you know that? He saw her leaving and she told him not to say anything, and he took her literally. Stopped talking. He only speaks to Summer now, really. A couple of sentences every now and again to me, but other than that, nothing. His mother did that to him. You think I'm going to send them back to that?
“And that ridiculous family holiday we went on … ‘Oh, Kyle, let's still go on the holiday.’ It was her idea. And you know why? Because I'd already paid for the flights and hotel so she thought she'd use it to go for an interview she had set up over there. And she's staying there. I, meanwhile, am thinking … So they must be thinking … But no. She wants rid of me for good. ‘Oh, and by the way, could you take the kids home while I sort out my new life over here and then when I'm ready, I'd like to take the kids away too.’ “
Anything I said now would sound trite, as though I was dismissing what he'd gone through. Truth be told, I didn't understand. It must be hell. It must shred at his insides. And his wife … She obviously had her reasons for doing what she did, but what they both seemed to have forgotten is that Jaxon and Summer didn't ask for this. They didn't ask to be born, especially not to two screwed-up people. They had been. Nothing could change that. It was Kyle and his wife's duty now to spare them as much pain as possible.
“I'm not saying Ashlyn is perfect. I don't know her. But you have to be as close to perfect as you can get. Don't your kids deserve that? And if you can't do that, then give them to someone else who will at least try to be.” Oh that sounded pathetic. As though I was on a TV show where everything would be tied up nicely at the end of fifty minutes. Where, after listening to my bons mots, Kyle would pick up the phone, call his wife and when she answered, the first thing he'd say would be, “Let's talk …” and they'd work out some arrangement that would benefit everyone.
The truth was, whatever I said, no matter how much he listened now, his hurt, anger and pride would seep back in over the following hours, he'd want to hurt her as much as she'd hurt him and that would mean using the only weapons he had: Jaxon and Summer. Summer and Jaxon. The two people in this who probably wanted nothing more than to have their parents reunited, to have their ripped- apart family sewn back together again.
“To be honest, Kendra, you know nothing about it,” Kyle replied. Maybe it wouldn't take that long for his anger to seep back in.
“No, I don't,” I admitted.
“But thank you for coming when the kids came to you.”
“That's fine. I'll always come. But I can't promise not to call social services if it happens again.”
Kyle's face did a double-take, hardened into a state of shock, his eyes slightly rounded, his lips pressed firmly together, his jaw rippling as he ground his teeth together. Inside I drew back a little. This was his real anger. This was when he'd really turn on me.
The back door flew open and Summer dashed in, Jaxon bringing up the rear. “Can we have ice cream? From the ice cream shop?” she asked, racing to a stop in front of her father. He ignored her because he was glaring at me. “Dad,” Summer insisted, tugging at the hem of his T-shirt. “Can we have ice cream?” she asked again.
Kyle's eyes burnt into me.
“Dad!” Summer shouted at the top of her lungs, needing to be heard.
“Yes?” he asked, finally turning to focus on his daughter.
“Can we have ice cream?” she asked. “From the ice cream shop?”
“Um,” Kyle began, “yes. Why not? Let me go put on my shoes and get my jacket and wallet and phone.”
Jaxon came to me, slipped his hand into mine. His hand was warm, the skin soft. I hadn't held a child's hand in nearly three years—since I last saw my nieces and nephews in Italy. A sense of calmness came over me, followed by the kick of sadness. I had to concentrate on the tiny little lines in his skin, his square, neat nails, to stop myself from tearing up. To stop the sadness welling up and over. Summer watched him, then said, “Jaxon wants to know if Kendie can come, too?”
“I think she's busy,” Kyle said, pointedly. He really didn't want me around. Funnily enough, I didn't want to be around him, either.
“I am busy,” I agreed. “I should probably go to work.”
Jaxon's short, fat fingers tightened around my palm, as though urging, pleading with me, to come with them.
“You have to come,” Summer said.
Jaxon's fingers continued to cling to my hand.
“You can't force her to come,” Kyle said. A rivulet of a threat ran through his voice, warning me off. I'd crossed the line by threatening his family unit and he wasn't going to put up with it. Which was fine. More than fine. The man needed a rocket underneath him. A fire that would make him pay attention to his children, fight for them. Not against his wife. But against himself. He needed to see that the problem here wasn't his wife, but him. His indifference, his anger, his resentment that these children were with him—that was the biggest threat in their lives.
“No, really, I have something to do,” I said.
Jaxon's face began to close down, like dominoes falling. His expression went from hoping I'd do something as normal as have an ice cream with his family to anxiety that I was going to abandon them.
“Actually,” I said, “I think I need an ice cream. I think we all deserve it.”
Two hours later, Kyle and I sat watching the children playing in a small park with swings and roundabouts. Summer, clutching Hoppy under one arm, was climbing over the roundabout. She'd dressed herself in an orange pinafore dress over a blue T-shirt and under a pink cardigan and her blue puffa jacket along with red tights, pink socks and yellow shoes. Her hair, which glittered like fine shards of jet on her head, was tucked behind her ears.
Jaxon, who had dressed himself more soberly in sand-colored trousers, a white T-shirt, black jumper and his blue-fleece jacket, was repeatedly going up and down the slide.
The four of us had spent the past couple of hours wandering around the center of Brockingham, had an ice cream in a café and then looked in a few shops before we went to the park. Kyle had managed to avoid talking directly to me the whole time. While we spooned ice cream into our mouths, he'd ignored me. When we walked down the road, in and out of shops, Summer holding his hand and Jaxon holding my hand, he acted as though I wasn't there. He avoided looking at me, except in those quiet moments when I was concentrating on something else and I would feel the weight of his gaze upon me. Scanning me, wondering if I was telling the truth. If I would follow through with my threat. I could feel his gaze, but refused to look up at him because I was scared, too. I was scared because I hadn't really thought it through when I'd said it. It came tumbling out and now I really would have to do it. I couldn't say it and not mean it. Isn't that one of the golden rules of good, consistent parenting? Say what you mean; make a statement and then go through with the promised consequences if the undesirable behavior reared its head again.
Ten minutes of silence passed as we sat on the bench. A tense silence that was starting to slip under my skin, putting me on edge. I wanted to say something. Anything to breach the divide. I wanted him to say something, even if it was to threaten me to keep my nose out of his business. This silence, it was suffocating me. In the chilly fresh air of this sunny day, I was slowly having the air smothered out of me.
“Did you mean what you said about reporting me to social services?” Kyle asked. I was so gratef
ul to hear his voice I exhaled in relief and didn't really hear his words. Then I replayed what he said: “Did you mean what you said about reporting me to social services?” He wasn't looking at me, and that was taking all his strength. His rigid posture showed he wanted to glare at me so was making sure he kept his line of sight fixed on the children.
Now I was in a difficult position. I couldn't say yes, couldn't say no, and “maybe” wasn't an option. “I try not to say things I don't mean,” I eventually said without looking at him. It was the best answer I had.
CHAPTER 7
Tuesday morning, just shy of 6:30 a.m., I arrived at work.
I was early to make up for the day before. Monday was our busiest day, especially for me—it was the day most temps were booked for the week, and other temps who'd ended their assignments would be calling in for work. Although Gabrielle, my boss, had been fine about me not coming in, I'd felt awful. She'd had to cover for me and I'd only just come back.
Gabrielle had started her own “boutique” recruitment agency but had managed to convince Office Wonders, an international recruitment agency, to finance it. If it worked, they would consider selling franchises for boutique—small, more personalized—branches. Her entrepreneurship had come at the perfect time for me. My love affair with Sydney had turned sour a day or so earlier and I was desperate to come home. Out of the blue, Gabrielle had e-mailed me and asked if I would consider coming home to take up the second-in- command position in her company. “I caught my current head of temp recruitment doing lines of coke and a potential candidate on my desk one night. I need someone I can trust,” she'd written.
I thanked God and the universe. I had an escape route home. I'd told her I was more than interested and could start in a month. With her going out of her way like that, I'd felt extremely guilty having to call in to say I wasn't coming in yesterday.
I'd also slept very badly. After saying good-bye to the Gadsboroughs, I'd decided to go to the cinema. I'd had to sit in the dark, surrounded by strangers with something else to focus on so I wouldn't obsess about the kids and what was going to become of them. Absent mother, potentially alcoholic father. Nothing I could do about it. Except sit in the dark feeling angry. I'd been tempted to have another chat with Mr. Gadsborough. Get some assurances he'd pull himself together and pay attention to his children. So many people would kill to be in this position—to be a parent—and he seemed to be throwing it away. He couldn't see the blessings in his life.
When I arrived back from the cinema their car was gone. I heard them return a few hours later and from my flat could see the light on in their kitchen. Hopefully he'd been shopping for food. Hopefully what I'd said had been the rocket he'd needed. I'd then spent most of the night lying awake in bed worrying about them.
I climbed the stairs to Office Wonders Lite, which was on the high street in Brockingham, and as I raised a hand to push open the frosted glass door I experienced a sudden, unsettling feeling of déjà vu. It could be ten years ago, when I'd first started working with Gabrielle in recruitment. The same feelings I'd had way back then came over me as my hand connected with the door and I wondered briefly if I should be doing something else. Not something better, just something else.
When I'd gone to college the first time around and studied English lit and media, I was meant to grow up to be the next Lois Lane. One half of the female Woodward and Bernstein. A hotshot reporter who would hunt out corruption and write about it. Politicians and fat cats of big corporations would quake in their expensive suits at what I was going to do with a keyboard.
Then, everything changed. At some point everything became too difficult. Focusing on studying was a struggle. I worked hard, often pulled all- nighters to get essays done, but my grades kept falling from their usual average in the low seventies. Fell and fell, and no matter how hard I worked, I couldn't get them up again. I didn't have the confidence to argue a point in class. I knew I certainly wouldn't be able to hold my own in the media, not against a group of driven, ambitious people who were hell-bent on getting to the top. It was hard enough clawing my way out of bed of a morning let alone contemplating spending a few years clawing my way to the top of the press pack. My friends and lecturers became worried about me and I was press-ganged into going to the doctor. I sat opposite him in his small, sparsely decorated office while he told me that I was obviously depressed, that it was probably a result of being under too much pressure at college and that I should try to relax. I should drink less alcohol and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. “Take up exercise, as well, young lady. Looking better will make you feel better.”
I'd nodded at him and left, realizing I had to hide my feelings better. I had to buck up my ideas. My plans to become a journalist might have evaporated but I still had to perform for my parents, my friends, my lecturers. I still had to prove to the outside world I wasn't a complete failure, that I was normal. I pushed myself hard, to the limit and then beyond. Pretended I was OK so I could get through college. It was such a struggle, long nights revising and reading and forcing myself not to give up. I finished with a first, a degree better than anyone had anticipated.
My parents, lecturers and anyone else who cared were overjoyed with my results, not realizing what it had taken. And, after that, I was spent. Couldn't do any more than I had done. I took up temping to pay my bills, and—I told my parents—so I could go on to do a master's degree. And, because it was easier than working out what career I wanted to begin, I applied for courses in media and ended up getting on one in south London. I didn't make any real friends there—people tried, but I wasn't interested because I was just there to keep my folks off my back. And once I finished, I ended up as a recruitment consultant because I met Gabrielle Traveno.
I was fresh out of college for the second time and wanted temp work to tide me over while I looked for a job. I'd decided to try an office on Oxford Street in central London that I'd walked past a few times. It was behind a glass door and under a square purple sign that read Office Wonders. I pushed open the door, climbed the narrow staircase and opened the door at the top of the stairs.
It was a large, open-plan room with desks and computers and filing cabinets at the end where the window looked out onto Oxford Street. At the other end of the room was the waiting area with comfy purple chairs for temps and other employment candidates pushed back against three of the pale purple walls. Almost all the chairs were taken up by smartly dressed young women. Each of them in a dark skirt suit with a white blouse or shirt underneath. And each of them carried some variation on a bag that looked like a shiny black briefcase. I was the only one in a burgundy trouser suit and I had my scuffed black slouch bag slung across my body. When I saw them, my confidence in getting a job wavered. Is this how temps are dressing nowadays? I asked myself as I unhooked my bag and stood up straight, wishing I'd thought to wear makeup.
At the business end of the office only one woman was running things. She had a young woman sitting in front of her, whom she'd probably been in the process of interviewing but she was on the phone with someone, trying to be professional and polite, while a look of harassment tugged at her eyes.
Her blue-black hair was cut into a sharp side bob that ended at her chin. She was statuesque, her frame curvy, dressed in a navy-blue suit. As soon as she put down the phone, it rang again and irritation flickered across her face before she picked it up. Another phone on another desk started to ring. And then a third. Instead of joining the row of women who'd obviously come for an interview, something in me knew that if I didn't answer the phone I'd snap. It'd been a long day, even though it was only noon and I knew there'd be a “Temp Murders Seven over Unanswered Phone” type headline splashed across the papers in the morning if I didn't answer it. Without really thinking I went to the desk, picked up the phone, answered the call, took a message. I'd worked a similar phone system before, so once I'd taken the message, I hit **8 and picked up another call. And another one. And another until I'd answered about seven calls an
d the harassed woman had finished her phone conversation.
Ignoring the woman in front of her, she came striding over to me. She was tall, quite imposing.
“You must be my new trainee recruitment consultant,” she said.
“Erm, no, I'm just here about getting some long-term temping work,” I replied, suddenly aware that the other people in the office were all staring daggers into my back.
“You misunderstand me, you MUST be my new trainee recruitment consultant,” she said. I noticed how smooth and glowy, creamy white her skin was, on her face, on her neck, across her chest. Up close she was beautiful; the kind of woman you would always look at twice. Striking.
“I just want to temp,” I repeated. I didn't want a full-time job with commitment and responsibility and having to think about it after I left work. I wanted to walk out at the end of the day and not worry about it until I walked into the office the next morning.
“Fine,” the woman said. “Do it for six months, If something better comes along I'll let you leave with a week's notice, no questions asked.” Erm…
“The pay is better than temping, plus you get benefits. And bonuses if you get us more clients.” She was talking in a language and using words that didn't interest me. I wanted less commitment, not more of it. I wanted to be free, not shackle myself.
The black phone on the desk beside us started ringing and automatically my hand reached for it. “Don't touch that phone unless you mean it,” the woman warned. Don't tell me I can have something if you're going to snatch it away, her look said. I can't handle it.
It was the look on her face. The desperation. The desolation. Years later, I realized it was something else as well. It was the quiet torment buried in her clear blue eyes—I'd seen it several times before when I'd looked more than fleetingly in the mirror.