Marshmallows for Breakfast (32 page)

“My husband thinks I'm the worst person on earth because I liked a drink, but no one got hurt. I think that's why he wouldn't go to meetings with me; he didn't want to know that I wasn't as bad as he made me out to be. In the grand scheme of things, I wasn't like the other people in the rooms.

“The main reason I wanted to meet was to tell him I want the kids. The letter was just a courtesy, a prewarning of my intentions. I was hoping we'd be able talk it through. I can't imagine Kyle's coping very well, and I know from what they say on the phone they miss me as much as I miss them, so, would you tell him that I want my children. I'm fine now and I want my kids.”

I couldn't help but think she was talking about Kyle, their father, as though he was a babysitter. She'd stepped out for a while and now that she was back, she wanted him to disappear.

Her eyes met mine, then tried to dig into my head, trying to ferret out my unspoken thoughts and unexpressed feelings. “You don't like me very much, do you,” she stated.

“I don't know you, Mrs. Gadsborough, so I can't make any judgements on that. I try not to be judgemental.”

“I wouldn't like me if I were you. Here I am, a mother who left her kids. Is there any greater crime?” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied mildly, “lots.”

That grin, the slow, easy grin that was often captured in the photos on display in her house made its way across her face. I marvelled at how you couldn't tell that she'd once been a drinker. Not from just looking at her. Her skin was flawless under her makeup, her eyes clear. “Kyle must be incapable with you. Smart, sassy, no bullshit… Are you two … ? Or have you ever … ?”

“No,” I replied. Just no. I wasn't playing that game, didn't want her to start making up stories, to make suppositions, to try to name me in her divorce. “No.”

“That was straightforward. I thought I'd have to coax it out of you or work it out for myself.”

“I have nothing to hide, I have no interest in your husband other than as a friend. So, no.”

“I didn't want to leave them,” she said suddenly. There were tears in her voice, her body deflated a little. For the first time since I sat down at this table, I realized that I was being presented with the real Ashlyn.

“I really didn't.” She shook her head slowly, her eyes falling shut. “I couldn't take them with me. I didn't know where I was going … I thought about taking them with me but I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go to my mother's. I can't spend more than three hours with her without her driving me crazy. And I couldn't stand that right then.”

She stood in the upstairs corridor of her home, her bags sitting by the front door, dressed in her coat, the scarf her babies had bought her for Christmas wrapped around her neck as a reminder of how it felt when they wrapped their arms around her for a hug. She was shaking, tears had been running down her face while she'd been packing. She had to leave. She had to go. She couldn't stay another second here. Everything had gone wrong here and she couldn't stay. She'd just said good-bye to Jaxon. She thought of taking him with her. Of getting him dressed and taking him with her. But she didn't know where she was going. She had enough cash for a taxi to take her to the other side of Brockingham. She had a new, unused credit card stowed safely in her purse. But she had no idea where she was going. And she couldn't take Jaxon and leave Summer—it'd kill them to be apart.

“I'll come back for you,” she mouthed at Jaxon's bedroom door. “I promise, I'll come back for you.” She turned to her bedroom door where Summer was asleep in the big bed. “I'll come back for you, too,” she said to Summer through the door. “I promise you.” She almost changed her mind then. Almost decided to go back to the flat and unpack her bags. But she'd been here before. She'd packed to leave before but had decided to stay. And if she kept staying she'd suffocate. She'd die. She couldn't breathe here. She couldn't think, she couldn't feel, she couldn't live. Another day here would kill her. Or she'd kill herself. Alive or dead she had to leave.

The sound of the taxi pulling up outside made up her mind. She'd packed before but hadn't ever called the taxi. Now she had to go. Her escape was all mapped out, the plan was set in motion, she had to go.

Wiping her eyes determinedly, tears soaking into the wool of her gloves, she turned and made her way downstairs. She couldn't look as the taxi pulled away. She couldn't look at the house because if she did, she might just change her mind.

“I couldn't cope. There, I've said it, I couldn't cope.” She ground the palms of her hands into her eyes, smudging her carefully applied makeup. “Being a mother is isolating. I
found it so hard to say to Kyle that I couldn't handle it all on my own. And I certainly couldn't say it to my mother. I didn't want them to think I wasn't good enough. And all my other friends seemed to be doing it so well. I say friends. I don't really have friends, not anymore.

“There's this idea that you meet lots of women in mothers’ groups, at the clinic, at the park. But what happens when you just have nothing in common with them? When you're sitting in a room surrounded by them and you have nothing to say. They all look well put together, their kids are all so cute and happy and get over any illness quickly. And you can't even pull a brush through your hair because one of your kids has colic and won't stop crying while the other has fallen off the sofa and bumped his head.

“Kyle was never there. When he was there his head was at work. And I get it, I really do, he was doing his best to make sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table.

“So, day after day, I got lonelier and lonelier, I was in this catch-22. If I told people I wasn't coping, I was scared they'd take away my children; I wasn't coping so I needed someone to talk to. I kept thinking it'd get better when they started school. There'd be other mothers there, right? I could try to find some other like- minded people amongst them.”

“What, the committee of bitches?” I snorted.

Ashlyn removed her face from her hands. “You know them?”

“Oh yeah. They don't talk to me because they assume I'm the nanny and therefore not worthy of wasting conversation on, but are always asking Summer or Jaxon to give me leaflets to give to ‘Mummy or Daddy’ to allow them to apply for this committee or that. Even if I'm standing right beside the kids.”

Ashlyn's grin was back. I was an outsider, she was an outsider … I could see the rivulet of jealousy that I was doing
the school run snaking its way through her eyes, but it wasn't there for long. I was speaking her language. She reached for her cigarettes, slipped one between her lips and picked up her lighter. Her long, tapered fingers turned the lighter over and over in her hand. “Even the mothers who hadn't joined the cliques were brainwashed. They wanted to join the cliques so if I befriended them, they didn't seem to have any conversations beyond extracurricular learning. They're flippin’ six.”

“I know.”

“And all this extracurricular learning, is it getting us anywhere? Are we producing the next generation of super-brains? I don't think so. We're putting pressure on kids and parents. Things didn't seem so bad when I could have the odd drink but when I stopped …” She shook her head, defeated, frustrated; started worrying at the lighter even harder.

“Have you ever looked into a child's eyes and seen that they're relying on you for … for the world? No matter what happens to them, they believe you're going to be there for them. You can make it better, you can make it right, you can hold them until the pain goes away, you can make the sun rise.” She slammed the lighter down onto the table with the flat of her hand. “Kids think you're the universe. They trust you with everything, with knowing everything. To them, you're the be-all and end-all. So what do you do when you know you're not worthy? That all that trust they have is misplaced? You have a drink now and again to take the edge off.

“When I stopped, it all became too much. The loneliness, the pressure of being perfect. I had no escape, the therapy didn't seem to be working fast enough, Kyle and I were barely talking.

“I had to get away. For my sanity. So I wouldn't do something stupid. So I left. I missed Summer and Jaxon so much.
So much.
For all the times I'd silently blamed them for what was wrong in my life, every day became so hard without them. I couldn't cope with them, but living without them has become impossible. I thought… I suppose I thought Kyle would have gone crazy by now, would be begging me to take the children back. He's more stubborn than I thought.”

“Not stubborn, just looking after them. He's actually pretty good at it,” I said.

“I'm their mother.”

“Kyle's their father.”

“Only because he's had to be.”

I shrugged in partial agreement. “Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact he's been doing a good job.” After a fashion.

Ashlyn resheathed her cigarette, slid her lighter off the table, dropped it into her bag, followed that with her cigarettes. She was back. The Ashlyn I'd sat down at the table with. Her mask had come down over her face, her brick wall had come up around her. “It's been nice meeting you, Kendie,” she said, each word lightly frosted. “You're all that Summer and Jaxon talk about.” A small smile crossed her lips. “I did want to meet the woman my children were spending so much time with—you're not what I expected.” The smile faded. “Please tell Kyle that I'm going to have the children living with me. He's going to have to face me sometime. And if not one-on-one then in court.”

She zipped up her bag. Got up and walked away, leaving the scent of orchids and lilies perfume in her wake.

NOTHING

CHAPTER 28

A
re you going to take us to school?” Summer asked.

Three minutes ago I'd been luxuriating in the chance of a weekday lie-in. A weekday when I didn't have to get up and go anywhere in a hurry because I was going to a conference in Yorkshire and I didn't have to check in until the afternoon. Two minutes ago I'd heard the jangling of keys being inserted into the lock of my front door and had managed to get to my bedroom door before the twins had appeared at the top of the stairs.

They were already dressed in their uniforms—Jaxon in grey shorts, blue shirt and navy-blue sweater, Summer in navy-blue pleated skirt, checked blue shirt and navy-blue sweater. Both of their socks were pulled up to their knees, their shoes shiny. Jaxon's cast was still whitish and had a few more stickers on it. Every morning they looked so breath-takingly cute and pristine I was always tempted to take a picture, hold this image of them on film because it wouldn't last. I was never sure at what point during the day buttons became undone on their clothes, when a sweater got turned inside out, when shirts became untucked, when a lone sock ended up lounging around ankles.

“I'm going to the conference, I told you,” I replied.

“But you're not going to work,” Jaxon said. “So you can take us to school.”

This was the first weekday lie-in I'd had in months. Certainly since I'd come home. This was a rare jewel in my
life, something I had unearthed and was keen to enjoy. I'd been dreaming of treating myself to turning off the snooze button on my alarm, to having a long bath, to seeing what happened on the small screen after breakfast television. I loved these two, yes, but at this moment in time, I loved my bed a fraction more.