Marshmallows for Breakfast (22 page)

In bed her lover's distinctive scent oozed out of her and stroked him in persistent, acrid waves. They were on opposite sides of the bed. He wasn't sure when it'd started to happen but they'd stopped sleeping spooned up, getting comfort from the warmth of each other's bodies. Now they were like strangers, friendly strangers, people who knew each other well enough to share a bed, but not to lie very close to each other. Not to touch.

He lay in the dark, thinking around the problem. Not wondering when she'd started drinking this much again. He allowed himself to think how he had always been concerned about Ashlyn's drinking because she'd always been able to put away a lot more than most women, than most men—him included. But he stopped short at wondering why she'd started again.

Instead of doing that, he decided to focus on the big presentation in the morning. He'd come home at a vaguely decent hour tonight because the presentation, the big unveiling, the one he'd buried himself in for the past six months, was tomorrow. So tonight, he—and everyone else he worked with—was home fairly early so they could all sleep, shave, make themselves presentable for the client.

Kyle closed his eyes. Everything he'd been working towards would come to a head tomorrow. What he'd given his life to, what he'd sacrificed his family time for would all be worth it. And when it was over, when the client had looked over the models, the plans, the blueprints, the graphic presentation, when they'd heard the spiel, he'd be able to relax. Take time off. Talk to Ashlyn.

Talk. To. Ashlyn.

Properly.

Do something about her problem. Their problem. Because he was in it as well. It was their problem. For better or worse, he'd promised her. And while things hadn't exactly been “for worse” they'd definitely been residing in the “not good” area for a long time. But that would change. Now he had time, that would change.
It'll work itself out,
he told himself.
It'll be all right.

That denial, ignoring the full extent of what was going on, was what needled him the most.

It ate away at him like bacteria ate at rotting meat; the guilt twisted deep inside him, curling tighter and tighter around his heart like a python squeezed the life out of its prey. He could have done something. If he'd spoken up earlier, confronted his wife, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have done what she did to Summer.

“Don't cry, Dad, it's all right.” Kyle jumped at Summer's
voice. Her eyes were as large and wise as an owl's in the dark. He hadn't realized she was awake and watching him, nor that he was crying. She patted his arm. “All better now.”

“I'm OK,” he whispered. He unlaced his arms, rubbed quickly at his eyes. “There's just something in my eye.”

“All better, Dad,” she mumbled, her eyes falling shut and blinking open. “We'll look after you.” Then she was out like a light, probably wouldn't remember this conversation in the morning. He rubbed at his eyes again to make sure they were dry, then crossed his arms over his chest. Protecting his heart from the monsters that lived in the different shades of the night. That was what used to scare him when he was younger. That something would carve open his chest and scoop out his heart. Not that it would kill him, but he'd be left with a huge gaping hole right in the middle of his chest.

CHAPTER 18

G
abrielle and I were the last to arrive at the campsite, owing to our impromptu rest stop.

It was all too humiliating to think about. Crying in the car, her hand rubbing my back as I sobbed. A few people had walked past our car, saw my tears and Gabrielle's comfort and probably thought she was breaking up with me. I hadn't even told her all of it, why I'd had to leave, why I had severed all contact with Will before I left—hadn't answered his calls, blocked his e-mail address, stayed in a hotel for a few days to avoid him. And I hadn't told her why I hadn't opened his letter, nor why I was terrified of thinking about him. No, I hadn't even gotten to the truly awful bit and I'd
still
cried like that.

We pulled into the car park of Wildberry Woods, the forest campsite. They had individually marked out pitches in certain parts of the woods, each with a stone fireplace and cleared earth for pitching tents. We had maps for nature trail walks. Our campsite was in the far left of the woods. The leaves were like a canopy over the forest and as we set out, I started to feel a bit of excitement. This was something out of the ordinary for me. I hadn't been out at all since I'd come back and Gabrielle was right: apart from work, adult conversation was something that was lacking in my life.

And since Kyle had told me about Ashlyn, he hadn't exactly been falling over himself to be friendly. I completely understood. When people found things out about me, I
usually unhooked myself from their company rather quickly. He hadn't wanted to tell me about it, but had. He probably hated the idea of me knowing.

We found the others deep in the woods. They had already set up their tents. Like Gabrielle and me, the three others were in jeans or combats, T-shirts and zip-up fleeces. The two women I didn't know were the heads of the branches of Office Wonders in Middlesex and southwest London. Both of them were in their thirties, one with red hair, the other with blond hair. Gabrielle introduced them as Moira and Lindsay. Moira had a dazzling smile, her red hair haphazardly pulled back into a ponytail. Lindsay was petite, very pretty, with smiley eyes and her blond hair styled into a straight bob. The other camper was Janene. Teri was meant to be coming but one of her kids had picked up a stomach bug and she couldn't get overnight babysitting on such short notice so couldn't make it. (Pretty convenient, I thought, since she'd confessed to me at lunch last week that she'd rather change dirty nappies for twenty-four hours straight than go camping.)

Lindsay, an expert camper, helped us set up the tent. In theory it was easy to do. In theory Gabrielle had done it several times before. In reality it took ages. All the while Janene and Moira oohed and ahhhed over the contents of Gabrielle's hamper, because we were roughing it of course.

“OK,” Gabrielle said after we'd laid out our luxury sleeping bags at the bottom of our tent. “I need two volunteers to go to the campsite office on the other side of the wood to register that we're here and collect our allocation of firewood.” She let a second pass before she said, “Kendra and Janene, that's so lovely of you to offer. Here you go, here's my booking confirmation, here's the map, one of you can pretend to be me, off you go.”

I didn't even get a chance to say, “Pardon?” before her
strong hands had settled on both our backs and were firmly shoving us in the direction of the campsite office. Janene looked as pleased with the arrangement as I did.

“Bitch,” I mouthed at Gabrielle over my shoulder.

She blew me a kiss.

We traipsed through the woods, following the map in what looked like a straight line. It was beautiful out here. Through the gaps in the trees you could see the cerulean shade of the sky, kissed here and there by the bundles of candy-floss clouds.

“So, are you from Brockingham?” I asked Janene. Gabrielle wanted us to bond, so I was going to do my level best.

“Er, don't think so,” she sneered. “I'm from west London.”

“Oh, really? Me, too,” I said. “I grew up in Ealing and went to college in Leeds. Whereabouts are you from?”

“I mean proper west London,” she said with another sneer. “West Ken.”

OK, strike one,
I thought.

The silence in the wood was calming and unnerving at the same time. The only sounds were from us trampling twigs and fallen leaves under foot, the occasional bird call.

“Are you seeing anyone right now?” I asked.

“I'm going out with my boyfriend from college. He's more serious about it than me. He wants us to get married and I probably will marry him but I'm sure I can do better. He's a nice enough guy and he's totally in love with me, but we'll see.”

OK, strike two.

“Going anywhere nice on your holidays this year?” I asked in desperation.

“Yeah, yeah, just because you lived in Australia, don't
think you can rub my face in it. I wouldn't go over there if you paid me.”

Strike three and you re out.

We got to the campsite office, registered and collected our wood then made our way back without saying another word to each other.

“How was that, my lovelies?” Gabrielle, plastic champagne flute in hand, asked from her place lounging on her tartan blanket beside the empty stone belly where the fire was going to be built.

Janene gave her a wan smile.

“I found it a real team- building experience,” I said to Gabrielle. Janene rolled her eyes and sloped off to her tent, probably to fix her makeup.

“Me and Janene,” I held up the middle fingers of both hands and moved them as far apart as my arms would go, “we're like that.”

CHAPTER 19

W
ith thoughts of tomorrow's big presentation and how afterwards he would have the chance to rebuild his family circling his head, Kyle started to let go of consciousness. Started to leave it all behind him when he heard the hush of the bedroom door being pushed open and tiny footsteps entering the room.

He opened his eyes, saw the outline of Summer in the doorway. She clutched her rag doll she'd named Winter in her arms, clinging to it like a lifebuoy. She stared at her parents, obviously waiting for one of them to wake up.

Kyle pushed himself up on his elbows. Ashlyn, curled up in the fetal position, was turned away from him, facing the window, oblivious to anything and everything. Sum? Kyle whispered. Whats the matter?

“There's a monster in my bed, Daddy,” Summer said with quiet certainty.

There's one in mine, too,
Kyle thought before he could stop himself.

“I bet there isn't,” Kyle replied. He hadn't done this before. It was Ashlyn who got up in the night. It was Ashlyn who talked the three-year-old twins back into bed. Kyle usually slept through it all.

Summer's eyes set in her head—who was this man to tell her what was and wasn't in her bed? Of course there was a monster in her room, she'd heard it. She'd felt it. She would have seen it if she'd dared turn around and look at it; if she hadn't closed her eyes before she leapt off the bed and ran for the safety of her parents’ room, it might have grabbed her.

“Daddy,” Summer said, summoning up all the patience she had for adults, “there is.” She fixed her father with her navy-green eyes and the line of her determined mouth. She nodded and reassured, “There is. Promise.”

Kyle was looking into the face of his wife, he realized. That grim certainty that descended upon her face and her posture in those days when they used to talk and he dared disagree. Her face would become a mask of stone, her navy-green eyes like twin emeralds that merely tolerated but didn't condone his dissent. Summer was doing the same. Kyle would be an idiot to argue, he realized. What did he know?

He sighed, threw back the covers. “OK,” he moved to climb out, “I'll come get rid of it.”

“No, it OK,” Summer said, moving towards her father. “I sleep in your bed, Daddy. Naughty monster go away tomorrow.”

Kyle went to protest, then stopped. Looked at her, the little girl in a pink Care Bears T-shirt that reached her knees. The little girl who he hadn't spent much time with in the past few weeks—months—actually. Working on the project also had the unpleasant side effect in that he was rarely around for the kids. He'd almost forgotten what their voices sounded like, how dimples formed on Summer's face when she smiled, how Jaxon's eyes seemed to change color as he stared intently, waiting for the answer to a question.

Besides, his three-year-old had decided she was going to sleep in his bed so the decision was made. There was no discussing it. Even if he did climb out of bed, go fight the monster, go check that everything was safe in her room, she'd still want to sleep in their bed. That was her way. When she got the idea she wanted to sleep here, here was where she'd sleep. Jaxon, although quieter than Summer, rarely came to their bed. He was independent. Even as a baby that'd been the difference between them. How anyone could tell the bald, wrinkled new-borns apart—Jaxon would sleep anywhere, in anyone's arms, in the crib or car seat; Summer would protest loudly if her mother, and then eventually her father, wasn't cuddling her. She refused to settle until she knew one of her parents was close.

He swung his legs out of bed and stood up a little unsteadily—he'd been more asleep than he thought, his limbs numbed by slumber. He picked up Summer under the arms, marveling that someone who had so easily hustled her way into his bed could be so easy to lift, so light to carry. He placed her in the middle of the bed, beside Ashlyn, who only stirred a couple of times to cough.