Being Kalli(23)

That night, I got on my knees in front of the toilet and shoved my fingers down my throat. I’m not sure why not much vomit came up because surely I had some food in me, and when I panicked I was hollow inside and scratched until I bled. Red, watery bile spewed from my mouth.

I know I shouldn’t have felt satisfied, but for once after so much obsessing and thinking and hurting, it was over.

Let me tell you, nothing—nothing—will ever feel better than release.

The power.

The satisfaction.

It’s a dangerous addiction.





10




Later that week, Mum says she needs a fun day for us as a family. She starts the day by bringing a cup of steaming tea to the coffee table in front of my seat, and we watch TV together. Cool outside but toasty in here with the heater on, morning rays stream from the decking and through the glass sliding door, spilling over the tiles. It’s like someone has brought the sun too close, especially since we’re in autumn, but then I realise Mum’s gone to the effort of drawing back the curtains and I love it.

She asks if I want to come to the pools with her and the boys and it takes me a few seconds to answer, hindered by my shock. Only Mum can allow herself to want to get better, and I’m all for fun if it includes wild waves at the water centre with the twins, her and I.

When we arrive, Seth writhes in my hands, his shoulders slipping free first, and he waves his arms toward the water he’s so desperate for. Since it’s the baby pool he’s headed for and we’re only several feet away, I let him go, and drop my pants, button-down sweater and tank top into my bag while keeping an eye on him then join in.

Tristan? He’s always been an ass to get in water. Baths are now tolerable.

“Noo,” he shrieks. “Please Mummy!”

“Shh,” she assures him. “Swimming is fun.”

He pushes his weight on his feet, and it’s like trying to drag a dead weight. Mum starts to take him over but when that’s too hard, she goes in for an all-out tickle and he loses his defences. She throws him over her shoulder like he’s a sack and jumps into the adult’s pool.

So, not the best choice.

Seth is dying to join them since he thinks the adult pool is way more fun, so we jump in, too.

After five whole minutes, Tristan unclenches his fists from Mum’s hair and bathers and starts feeling the current of the swishing water through his fingers.

“See, Kalli?” she says to me instead of Tristan, for some reason. “You can always make fun out of everything.”

I suppose that’s how it happens. I’m relaxed and maybe I need to give her a chance. Today is the best day she’s spent with us in a while. So I do it. I turn my back. Seth is having a ball. He actually enjoys wriggling from my grip and dancing under the water as he sinks. The boy is as crazy as our mum sometimes. He knows I always grab him within seconds. Still, he enjoys his freedom.

But when I hear the wail from the direction of the wave pool, I am reminded Tristan hates nothing more than riding in a deep pool with waves three times his height.

“Seth, let’s join Mum and Tris, huh?”

“Oh, yeah! Watch me, watch me.”

In my grip he runs as fast as his feet will take him, and I navigate our way through the bodies of screaming, laughing swimmers. They throw cups of water in the air, and slap noodles to create an echoing belch as the objects thump the water surface. There are people desperate for the roughest wave at the epicentre of the machine creating the movements in the pool.

And right at that epicentre is Mum with Tristan on her hip. Her face is turned up in a massive grin and she lets out a howl of pleasure as she jumps. Tristan? My poor little brother looks like he’ll never agree to a bath again, let alone lose that concreted expression of sheer fear.

With a happy Seth on my hip, I wade to them, flip Mum’s shoulder to me and say, “Give me Tris, right this second.”

I can’t let her run my brother scared just because she’s attempting to act right. If she’d been used to doing the mothering thing, she’d know that Tristan has only just become okay with baths. Why on earth chuck him into a deep pool with monstrous man-made waves?

Mum doesn’t argue as she hands Tris over to my other hip. I slide both boys further up and make to walk back to the shallows, but Mum walks back to our bags.

“Oh,” I call. “Enough fun for today?”

Mum doesn’t look me in the eye as she replies. Instead, her sad gaze trails between the boys. “It’s never enough fun, Kalli.”



• • •



Mum disappears after that swim session but the twins want more playtime. Despite that incident, the afternoon pans out well. Seth waves his hands and shows me how he can hold his face under water and then he eggs on Tristan, betting that he can’t blow bubbles as big as him. That gets Tristan, saying he is way better than his brother, and so all three of us blow our bubbles—much to my surprise, but not complaint—which starts game after game that strip my energy. It is only when I am panting at the side of the pool that I wonder where Mum got to.