Spiralling Skywards: Fading (Contradictions, #2)(59)

I had tried my hardest to be a good mum. I tried constantly to always put my kids first, I’d tried and I had failed. I blamed her . . . it was her fault. She passed the shitty parent gene on. And him. He was no better. My mother and my father. I was just like them.

Just.

Like.

Her.

Him.

Them.





2015

It was like a fog but worse than the fog I’d felt like I was in before, worse than the cloud I’d felt like I was living under, worse than anything I’d ever experienced, and I couldn’t find my way out. I didn’t see it, but it was there. It surrounded me. I felt it—smothering, choking, suffocating.

Some days I could breathe and think clearly. Those were the good days. The best days. I told Liam every day was a best day. I had tried in the past to tell him when I was having bad days, but he never heard me.

He just said, “Tell me what you need, pretty girl? Tell me, and it’s yours. Anything you want.” But he never heard me when I told him that I just wanted him. All I wanted was for him to see me like he used to, to hear me. When I told him, “I’m fine,” I wanted him to see, I wanted him to really hear me. I wanted him to just know that I was not fine.

But he didn’t. So, I smiled. I fought my way through the fog, and I smiled, and I said that I was fine. Everything was fine.





2015

It was only August, but it had been a horrible, horrible year so far. The worst. The mining boom in Australia had gone bust and mines were being closed down everywhere. We were laying off staff en mass, meaning there were overseas workers simply walking away from the properties that they had been renting. Our properties.

We had workers looking to relocate elsewhere, anywhere, and those who were looking for a change of direction.

The rest of the company was sound. We had diversified to such a degree that supplying labour to the mining industry was now only a very small part of what we did. Investors in a dozen other fields who had money to spend but no time to search for what was on the market were still coming to us. We still did the legwork for them and charged a hefty fee for it. Over the years, we had also bought up large swathes of land and properties. Some we turned over quickly and made a profit, others, we were still sitting on and waiting until the market was right before we sold.

The problem was that looking after other people’s families had been to the detriment of my own. I had been exhausted and couldn’t wait to get home to Sarah and the boys each night and forget about it all. It was the school summer holidays and the kids had all gone down with a stomach bug, and then Sarah caught it and was as sick as a dog too. So I felt a break was what we all needed. As a surprise, I’d booked us a holiday in the Sinopolis Hills, just outside of St Tropez in the South of France.

We had two weeks of alone time. Two weeks of absolute fucking bliss. Just the kids and us, and they were two of the best weeks of my life. Sarah had colour in her cheeks, freckles on her nose, and a spark in her eyes that I hadn’t seen there in a long time. I felt chilled out, relaxed and like I had gotten to spend some quality time with my wife and my boys.

The kids were tucked up in their beds and passed out cold. From the time they woke up until we dragged them in to shower and to eat, all they did was play in the pool, and it had me thinking. What we’d spent those past two weeks doing was what I spent my entire childhood doing. We could give that to them. We could move back to Australia and give them the pool, the beach, the laid-back lifestyle every day. I just needed to convince Sarah.

We’d celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary the previous week, and even though things had been tough for a while, this holiday put us back on track. The kids behaved, and Sarah and I had done nothing but misbehave. The only downside was Sarah forgot to pack her contraceptive pills and insisted that I used condoms every time we made love. That led to my promising her that as soon as we got back, I would go and get a vasectomy arranged. She was right, it was much easier for me to do it than her.

I watched her walk towards me and then as she climbed into the spa, shaking her arse and hips and singing to “Black Magic” by Little Mix, while carrying another bottle of champagne with her. She straddled my lap and reached around to top up both of our glasses before putting the bottle in the cooler.

“You trying to get me as drunk as you are, Mrs Delaney?”

She shook her head with a big grin on her face. She looked unbelievably cute with all of the freckles that had appeared over her nose. I had never thought freckles were sexy till I met Sarah, and my dick definitely agreed with me on that one.

Sarah was on her third bottle of champagne for the day, and her words were slurring. It was nice to get a glimpse of the woman I met over eight years ago. I loved her more now than I did then, but the pre-babies girl—the one who was light and full of energy and smiles—rarely made an appearance anymore. I knew it was hard for her. We had had four boys that were all a handful. I worked long hours and still had to occasionally travel, plus we had no family nearby to call on for support. I hoped all of that would change if we relocated to Australia, and I also hoped that when I explained the changes it would mean to our lives, she would agree to it.

“Nope. You’re no good to me drunk. This is the last night of our holiday. I want you wide awake and raring to go.”

“Bub, you’re straddling my lap, grinding your hot little pussy on my dick, and brushing your tits against my chest, while wearing four fucking triangles of fabric. I’m most definitely raring to go, just say the word, and I’m all yours.”