“It’s okay sweetheart, you were having a nightmare again,” she said softly, her hand moving from his shoulder across the centre of his back and down his naked spine, caressing him slowly. “You were talking. I think it was the one you told me about.”
Adam rolled over, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, her hand now on his chest, moving slowly from nipple to nipple. The room was filled was morning sunlight the smell of toast that was being done a little too well. Soft music from somewhere below, easy listening, punctuated by affable tones, two disparate voices. The radio in the kitchen.
“What was I saying?”
“Something about a staircase, I caught that much. I came back in and you were tossing and turning. It was a lot of mumbling mainly.”
“I can’t remember any of it,” Adam sighed. That much was true. He felt good and well rested. If he had experienced any bad dreams, they didn’t retain any lasting hold over him. “I don’t think it was as bad as it’s been before.”
“Well, if you want I can take your mind off it anyway,” she said smiling and pulling nearer to him, her hand moving further down his chest towards his navel.
“Oh?” Adam grinned, turning to face her. If he could freeze that moment, he thought, capture that image and burn it into his brain, he would be satiated for the rest of his life. The way her hair was lying across her face, her blue eyes reflecting the glow of the morning sun and something else, he imagined he could see himself in them. The spray of freckles across her nose. She hadn’t changed in all the time he had known her. He had aged (handsomely she said, and he took her word for it, not believing it himself), yet she hadn’t, and he didn’t think she ever would. The duvet was down off her shoulder, the strap of her nightgown down along with it. He traced the hem of the material with his finger, pausing briefly. It wouldn’t take much, just one finger, pulling it gently down and out of the way. His blood was up, and that wasn’t all, and he began to move slowly towards her when he froze.
“She’s downstairs, making you your father’s day breakfast,” Amber said, intuition telling her what had caused him to stop. “We’ve got a bit of time.”
As if in direct response, there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Small feet rising quickly. She always ran around the house, no matter how many times he asked her to stop. No matter how many times he told her she would one day fall and hurt herself, or worse, break something valuable. That had caused her small smooth and beautiful face to crease up, the lips she inherited from her mother forming a pout, as she asked why he would not be more upset at her hurting herself. He had laughed and ran his finger down her cheek. He told her that it was his idea of a joke, and of course she was more valuable to him than anything in the whole house.
“Even your drawing things?” She asked, eyes wide. Incredulous.
“Even them,” he had said. “I can buy more of them, there’s only one of you.”
She had nodded sincerely, and then ran off upstairs to her bedroom to play with her toys. Adam wondered what age it was when your child actually listened to you and took heed of what you said. He wondered if it was any age, and thought that it probably wasn’t.
Those little feet now running down the hall landing towards their bedroom door. It was pulled to but not shut, and the diminutive figure burst through into the room in a tornado of pink and glitter. Adam had time to turn, his blood cooling quickly, used as he was to these types of intrusions. She was beside his bed in a flash, and from one look at her he surmised that in addition to making his breakfast, she had risen early to make him a card. A card in which she utilised most of her glitter. It was unknown at this point how much she had left for the card itself, seeing as how she had most of it stuck to her face and clothes, in addition to the trail across their carpet that he could see from where he lay on the bed.
She was breathing heavily from the exertion, her cheeks flushed red. She still had some chubbiness but was already growing towards how she would appear in her teenage years, which were only a few years away. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her then, and he wondered where the time had gone. Back when Violet was born, Adam’s mother - still very much alive at that point, before the cancer had returned and aggressively taken her - had remarked that he should enjoy the time as much as he could. That work wasn’t as important. That nothing was. Because they really do grow up so fast. It was an old cliche, and she had even laughed as she said it.
An old cliche, but one with an element of truth. She really had grown up so fast. Now here she was, her cheeks red and thrusting his card out towards him. It was sans envelope, and was haemorrhaging glitter across his sheets. He resisted the urge to reprimand her, managing to catch hold of the words before they left his lips and swallow them down. Instead he said: “For me?” Reaching out a hand but not taking it from her, not yet. She would give it to him.
She nodded, and pushed it into his hand.
Adam sat up as Amber pushed the pillows plump behind him. Despite being as careful as he possibly could and keeping the card level, he had a pile of glitter on his lap before he could even get the card open. She was not the most articulate child with her fingers, and there was a part of him that resented that, if he was being honest with himself. Despite his and Amber’s best encouragement and tutelage, and the school as well (which wasn’t cheap), she had never really grasped art. She was enthusiastic, and perhaps if she kept that enthusiasm, then the finesse and skill would come, after all she was only young. Even so, she displayed skills that would shame a six year old and she was a good bit older than that. He chided himself for thinking such things as he opened the card to see a crudely drawn rendition of what he presumed to be him and Amber, with a smaller figure covered in the remaining glitter between them. Their Violet. His Violet. He beamed at her, and hoped she didn’t notice his eyes flick between her and the mess of glitter everywhere.
“Oh darling this is lovely, and so well done. You’re such a talented girl.”
Pride filled her face.
“Happy Daddy’s Day,” she said, leaning in to give him a big kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you baby girl,” he replied, giving her a kiss back, then wrapping his arms around her and pulling her across the bed towards him. She giggled and then admonished him for putting the card in jeopardy. He released her and she pulled it out from under her, smoothing it over until she was satisfied, and passed it back to him. He smiled again as he looked at it before putting it pride of place on the bed table.
“I’ve made you breakfast!” She shouted enthusiastically. “You need to come now!” With that, she ran off out of the room, nothing to signify she had been there at all save for the sparkling trail that floated slowly down on to the carpet, each tiny piece catching the morning sunlight from the window in turn and reflection it back at him.
“You better go, number one dad, your breakfast is waiting.” Amber gave him a playful shove and he rose from the bed, pulling his jogging trousers on that he had left over a chair the previous evening. It was all he wore whilst he was working. Comfort over style. Every time.
“Do you have any work to do today?” She asked him from the bed, sitting up and strapping her nightdress firmly over her shoulder once more, denying him the view that he craved.
“Nothing pressing,” he replied. “I’ve got the next series of mock-ups to present to Jane for her to pass on to her client for approval but it’s all pretty much there. She won’t even be asking for them until Tuesday anyway so you and her are lucky enough to have the pleasure of my company all day.”
“That’s good,” Amber said, now pulling on her dressing gown and joining him at the threshold of the bedroom, her hand slipping into his as she fell in behind him, following him down the stairs. “She’ll love that. She’s missed you.”
“I know. It’s been pretty intense this one. Sorry. I just keep seeming to miss the mark. Can’t quite get my head around it.”
“What is it this time?” She asked, holding him back slightly in the hall, stopping him from moving into the kitchen where the sound of the radio filled the morning air, accompanying the gurgle of the kettle as it reached boiling point.
“It’s a kids book, but it’s…weird. I can’t seem to even follow the story with it, so I don’t’ know how kids are going to.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s this boy and he finds this staircase that -”
“Daddy!” Violet burst from the kitchen. “You were ages! It’s ready!” She disappeared back into the kitchen, Adam grabbing hold of the door before it could shut completely.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said back towards Amber.
The table in the kitchen was laid out beautifully. It seemed as though the glitter hadn’t just been brought out for the purposes of a card, for she had also made him a table place setting, complete with homemade mat. On it, there was another crude drawing that he took to be a rendition of him. His hair was glitter and his cheeks red blotches under his large sightless eyes. Violet was gesturing to Amber to help her pour the boiling contents of the kettle into a mug (one that he hadn’t seen before, it said WORLD’S BEST DAD and contained a cute picture of a bear holding balloons - Amber must have picked it up for Violet to give to him), and there was a plate in the centre of the table containing about fifty rounds of toast that ran the colour gamut from lightly burned to house fire aftermath. Nonetheless, the sight awakened his hunger, and he pulled out his chair to sit down.
He somehow managed to stub his toe as he did so, instantly regretting not putting his slippers on.
“I heard you scream Daddy,” Violet said from where she stood, one small hand around the handle of the kettle. Amber stood beside her, also looking across at Adam, her expression blank.
“I just stubbed my toe,” Adam replied. He didn’t think he had even cried out. Had he cursed? It wasn’t beyond him.
“I heard you scream,” Amber said.
“No, I didn’t, I’m fine I -” Adam looked at his wife and daughter. The sounds from the radio were becoming discordant. The sun had moved behind a cloud somewhere and the room had cooled considerably. “What’s going on?”
“I heard you scream.” Violet said, turning to the work surface and smashing her face against it. Blood arced from the bridge of her nose, the sound of it breaking almost deafening. A red spray flew up and spattered across the ceiling as she pulled her head back.
“I heard you scream,” Amber said, taking the kettle out of her daughter’s hand, steam billowing from the spout. She raised it above her head and tipped it. Adam shouted and lunged forward but he was too late. She smiled serenely at him as she poured the scalding water over her head, the sound of her sizzling flesh accompanying another loud crack as his daughter brought her face violently once more into the corner of the work surface. The wooden counter top was covered in blood, the water from the kettle mingling with it. Curdling it. His wife’s face still a serene mask as the boiling water caused it all to blister, sealing her eyes shut. One more loud crack from his daughter and he saw her head jolt back at an impossible angle, her lifeless body falling to the ground, her neck broken.
“I heard you scream,” his wife bubbled as the water melted her lips.
Adam reached for her.
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