Marshmallows for Breakfast (23 page)

He settled down beside her, pulling the covers back up, making sure she had half of his pillow.

“Now,” Kyle said softly to his daughter, “Daddy's got to get up really early in the morning so we need to go straight to sleep, OK?”

Summer grinned, Summer nodded. “ ‘K,” she said. “I saw a fairy, Daddy.”

“Really?” Kyle mumbled, sleep tugging at his senses. He really needed to go to sleep. And soon. His mind was buzzing with what he had to say in tomorrow's presentation. And he had to be first in line at the copy shop to get extra poster-size plans made up.

“She's orange,” Summer explained. “Her hair is blue and orange. And dress is orange dress. And shoes orange. And wings orange.”

“That's a lot of orange.” Kyle's voice was a sleep-tinged murmur.

“Daddy can't see her.” Summer explained, regret swirled with pride in her voice. “Only me. And Jaxon. Not Daddy.”

“That's a shame,” Kyle replied.

“I sleep now, Daddy,” Summer said as though Kyle had been trying to keep her up.

“Right, honey,” Kyle said, feeling chastised.

Summer closed her eyes and instinctively, it seemed, she shifted away from Kyle, turned towards her mother. When she was asleep, she wanted to be as close as possible to Ashlyn. Kyle watched her nestle herself on the edge of her mother's pillow, inches from where he had once upon a time ago slept. Ashlyn, as if sensing something had shifted in the world, hiccupped, cleared her throat, then turned over in bed, facing her daughter and husband. She was still buried in her alcohol- induced sleep, but showed the slackness of her sleeping features to them.

Jealousy prickled at Kyle. If he hadn't been there, Summer would still be standing in the doorway waiting for attention.

Kyle closed his eyes. Told himself he didn't have time to be jealous, he needed to sleep. To be as fresh and alert as possible for the presentation.

He heard it as he finally relaxed his grip on consciousness. The rapid, repetitive sound of a person choking. Someone struggling to breathe, struggling to take air in and let air out. The sound was too loud, too deep to be a child. Kyle's eyes flew open and he struggled half upright, just in time to see it happen. Ashlyn choking her body convulsing with every choke, forced herself upright, trying to breathe, trying to force air into her lungs, trying to dislodge whatever was in her throat. She coughed and choked until she finally succeeded. Until all that she'd drunk and eaten came spewing out. A slimy red, liquid nightmare that exploded all over Summer.

Kyle couldn't stop it. He'd woken up too late, his reflexes were too slow, he hadn't known what was going to happen. Whatever the reason, he didn't protect his daughter from the deluge that rained down on her.

Summer woke up screaming. She didn't know what had splattered against her skin and slapped against her hair, but it terrified her. Wrenched her from sleep, from dreaming about the orange fairy riding a yellow unicorn. “MUMMA!” she screamed. Her shout woke up Jaxon, who was on the other side of the wall, and he started screaming. While Summer's screams had words, Jaxon's was a long loud yell of fear, of knowing something bad had happened and being terribly afraid.

It kept coming. The purple-red nightmare continued to be retched out of the yawning hole of Ashlyn's mouth until she clamped her hand over it, the vomit bulging in her cheeks, spewing through her fingers. Summer stared at her mother, her eyes wide in horror, her mouth still making an awful sound.

Numb and impotent, Kyle was unable to move, to do anything. Ashlyn reached down with her free hand, threw back the covers and fled. She ran for the en suite, one hand over her mouth, her thin upper body convulsing under her oversize T-shirt. She slammed the door behind her, no lock was drawn, the toilet lid was slammed up, she continued to retch into the bowl, a loud harrowing sound, a sound that echoed of true agony. It mingled with the sounds of Summer and Jaxon. Summer's screams of horror, Jaxon's loud sobs, his worry and confusion at the screaming, at why no one had come to him.

Kyle moved then. Like a man possessed he moved, he reached out, pulled Summer into his arms, held her, despite the putrid stench of fermented red wine, stomach acid and shock that stained his daughter's skin and hair and filled the room. “It's OK, Summer,” Kyle hushed against her ear, running his hand over her sticky, vomit-stained hair, most of which was flattened against her face. “It's OK.” He rocked her in his arms, holding her close, trying to soothe her before he moved her to the bathroom. Before he went to calm Jaxon. “It's OK,” he said, rocking her. “It's OK, Daddy's got you. I've got

Her screams slowly subsided to an unrelenting whimper.

In the en suite there was silence. Ashlyn had finished throwing up, but she hadn't returned to the scene of her crime. She was hiding. She was passed out. She was choking on her own vomit. Kyle didn't know, he didn't care, either. Right then, if he never had to see her again it would be too soon.

The stench, which grew more putrid with every passing second, which seemed to seep into him through his skin, was unbearable. He had to get Summer into the bath, had to wash this off her. Cleanse her of this act. His eyes strayed to the bed sheets, stained red, an almost bloody reminder of what Ashlyn had done. Of what she'd been doing for far too long.

Moving slowly, so as not to further traumatize the trembling, whimpering child in his arms, he slid off the bed. Cradling Summer, he moved out of the room, whispering to her that she was safe, that she didn't need to be scared. In the corridor he stopped. Didn't know what to do. Go to Jaxon, or whether the state of Summer, stained with red and limp in his arms, would further terrify him. Loud sobbing was coming from his room; he was probably pinned by fear in his bed. He needed someone to go to him, to comfort him as well.

Fuck!
was Kyle's only thought.

He moved to Jaxon's room, used the tip of his bare foot to gently kick open the white door, stepped over the threshold. Jaxon's small body was cowering in the corner of his bed, his eyes wide with horror, his face drenched in tears. “Hey, buddy, it's OK, it's Dad,” Kyle said softly, using the volume and tone of his voice to try to calm his frightened son. “It's OK, I'm here. OK? I'm here.” Kyle took a couple of steps forwards; Jaxon was still crying. “We've got to go to the bathroom right now. So, you gonna come with us?” Jaxon took a huge ragged breath, his cries subsiding. “Yeah?”

Jaxon nodded.

“OK, good. Come on then.” Kyle shifted Summer in his arms, moved her over his shoulder so he could hold out his hand. Before offering it to his son, he wiped off the red slime on his pajama leg. The smell still clung to them, it still turned his stomach, but he masked it. If he showed his disgust it would further upset his son. “Come on, mate, let's go for a bath.” Carefully, cautiously, Jaxon got off his bed and slipped his hand in his dad's. In the bathroom, just across the corridor, Kyle had to let go of Jaxon's hand to tug on the light. Jaxon rubbed at his eyes from the sudden brightness. With one arm still cradling Summer, Kyle used his free hand to push the plug into the bath, turned on the taps. The sound of gushing water filled the room.

Jaxon moved across the bathroom, molded himself to his dad's leg. He didn't want to be away from him. He didn't understand what was happening. Why Summer was red. Why they were having a bath in the middle of the night. Why he'd been woken up by the terrible noise. But he did understand his dad. His dad was solid, calm, there. He needed to stay right beside him.

When the bath was half full, Kyle shut off the taps and, gently, with one hand, took off Summer's T-shirt, left it in a reeking heap on the ground. Took off her night nappy, then checked the temperature of the water before he lowered her into it. She struggled a little when he tried to loosen her grip on his neck, so he had to stay like that, leaning over the bath, Summer's arms clamped around his neck, her terror not allowing her to let him go, and Jaxon sitting on the floor, wedged beside him, his thumb in his mouth and his other hand rubbing at his eyes.

Kyle didn't know how long they stayed like that, but the water had cooled by the time tiredness made Summer go limp, releasing him. Jaxon was asleep, leaning on him. Quickly, so he could get her out of the cool water, Kyle cleaned the slime off his daughter, cleansed her skin of the red vileness, washed it out of her hair. He pulled the towel from the rail above the bath, coaxed Summer to stand up and enveloped her in its soft white folds. He scooped her up in one arm, weighted her so she was in a secure position, then he gently woke up Jaxon and scooped him up in the other arm.

Walking slowly, he moved out of the bathroom, leaving the red water in the bath, Summer's stained clothes and dirty nappy on the floor, and went back to Jaxon s room. He rested his son on the bed first, then his daughter. They lay like two little shells on top of the covers. Working on autopilot almost, Kyle rummaged through the drawers until he found another pair of Jaxon s pajamas— Spider-Man. Jaxon wouldn't mind, he decided as he took out another nappy and snapped it on before dressing Summer in the red and blue top and trousers.

He stared at Summer, who was virtually asleep. He had to dry her hair. She couldn't sleep with wet hair. He didn't want to go into the bedroom though. He knew Ashlyn's hair dryer was in their bedroom. Maybe… He dashed out into Summer's room, went through all her drawers until he found the small pink, baby hair dryer Ashlyn's mother had bought them. It took nearly ten minutes to get her hair dry. He didn't use a brush or anything, just waved it around her head until her hair went from sticking to her head in shiny black clumps to settling in dry black clumps around her face.

Jaxon, who was out for the count, didn't protest when Kyle pulled back the covers and put him in, didn't protest when Kyle laid Summer beside him. Kyle was tired now. It was flooding every sense, every synapse, every nerve in his body. Rest. He needed rest. Checking that they were both still asleep, he dashed down the stairs, snatched up the pillows and seat cushions from the sofas and armchairs, then got the tartan blanket from the blanket box in the playroom before racing back upstairs.

He lay the cushions on the floor beside the bed, something soft in case Summer rolled over and accidentally fell out of bed. And then he sat in the easy chair under Jaxon's window, pulled the blanket over himself and tried to sleep.

When Ashlyn finally appeared the next morning, Kyle was on his fifth cup of tarlike black coffee. Despite how exhausted he was, he hadn't been able to sleep. He'd dozed off for a few minutes, but every noise, even the wind moving gently against the window, the creak of the floorboards settling, snapped him awake. So terrified was he that it'd happen again. Something would happen to his daughter or son, right in front of him and he wouldn't be able to stop it.

“What time is it?” she croaked, rubbing at her eyes. She hadn't cleaned herself up properly. She'd changed her clothes, but the scent of vomit still wafted around her, her hair was a matted mess, and she had the flower motif imprint of the floor tiles in their en suite bathroom on her left cheek. She must have passed out in there. Spent the rest of the night.
Slept.
She was disoriented, bleary eyed, still pissed for all he knew. Kyle surveyed her with disgust. Not for how she looked, but this: showing her face like this with no shame, no regret, no apology on her lips.

He turned his back on her and stalked over to the sink. Once there, he didn't know what he meant to do, so he stood glaring into the white porcelain. They'd chosen the sink together, when they were renovating this place. Before the kids had been born. They'd driven from reclamation yard to reclamation yard until they found it. “Our sink,” Ashlyn had declared when she saw it. “Yup, that's our sink.” He'd laughed and kissed her on the neck because even though he was the one who built buildings, those things were far more important to her. He stood glaring into the sink now. He'd washed up. Down here and upstairs in the bathroom. He was still in his pj bottoms with the red vomit streak on his right leg because he hadn't been able to bring himself to go into the bedroom.

“Oh, God, it's nine o'clock. Shouldn't you be at work?” Ashlyn said.

Kyle raised his eyes, stared at the corrugated metal splash-back and wondered, quite casually, how much noise the cup would make if he threw it against the wall. Frustration and anger and blind rage were bubbling up inside him; they were going to boil over at any minute, of that he was pretty certain. If he didn't throw the cup, he'd put his fist through the wall, or say something truly nasty to his wife. Something he meant and probably wouldn't take back even if he could.

“Where are the kids?” Finally, number three. Her third question had been about the kids.

He inhaled deeply, exhaled to calm himself. “They're still asleep. They were up late.”

Silence. A long drawn-out silence from behind him, then a sharp sucking in of breath as she suddenly remembered. “Oh, God,” Ashlyn breathed. “I wasn't feeling well.”

“You were drunk,” Kyle replied.

“I'd had a couple of glasses, which I probably shouldn't have because I wasn't feeling well. Did Summer see me being sick?”

Anger flashed through him. He turned to face her. “You were pissed out of your mind. And Summer didn't see you, she felt you. You threw up on her. As you well know.”

“I'm sorry,” Ashlyn said. She
had
felt unwell. Her stomach had been playing up all day, meaning she shouldn't have had those three or four drinks. But sometimes a few drinks made it better. She often didn't feel ill if she had a few drinks.