Page 55 of In Sheets of Rain

“You get turned on by the strangest things,” I pointed out, laughing.

He pushed against my shoulder, trying to get me to go down to my knees on the footpath.

“Sean!” I growled. “Not here. Wait ’til we get home.”

He stared at me for a second; his pupils dilated, his gaze just a little off.

“Jesus Christ, Kylee. You’re no fucking fun at all. Where the hell has the woman I married gone? The one that gave me blowjobs in the car. The one that used to be up for anything. The one that was fun.”

He turned around and stormed off up the road toward our house.

I followed behind silently, wandering where the caring husband I had married had gone.

* * *

“Is Sean working on Waiheke Island today?” Gregg asked from his feet up and chair leaned back position at the supervisor’s desk in Comms. He was scanning the whiteboard showing what officers were working where, forehead furrowed.

“Yeah,” I said. “Paying back a shift he owed.”

“He sure does love those rural postings, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I said as Cathy put her mic on speaker and held her headset to her butt and farted.

The room erupted into laughter.

“Glad to know you’re acting your age, Browne,” Gregg called out, straightening in his seat at the reminder of professional misconduct.

“This room was getting way too stuffy,” Cathy answered.

“Well, now it’s way too smelly,” I countered.

She burped.

“Whatis going on with you today, Cathy?” I asked.

She rubbed her belly and smirked. “Mark and his super sperm,” she said. Then leaned forward and mock whispered to her still flat stomach, “Stop giving Mummy gas.”

A triple one line lit up. An ambulance on the South Comm channel called Comms. Gregg said he was going to make himself a coffee. Everyone got back to work, and I struggled not to show any emotion.

That empty, gnawing, gaping hole inside just got bigger, until I couldn’t catch my breath, and the walls seemed to be pressing in against me. When Gregg returned, I hastily handed over North Comm to him and escaped to the ladies’ toilet. Locking myself in a cubicle, I stifled the sound of my sobs.

It took too long to stop them. It was as if a tap had been turned on and water just kept coming out — a tsunami made of internal plumbing. I knew I was a mess. I knew I needed help. I tried to think of something else, but all I could think about was Sanatarium Weet-Bix boxes.

An old house. A barren front yard. A narrow hall, dust pressed up against the sides, a small, well-worn path between stacks and stacks of blue and red Weet-Bix boxes. Reaching for the heavens.

“You in there, Ky?” Gregg called out from the door of the ladies’.

“Yeah. Sorry. Be back in a sec.”

By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, fifteen full minutes had passed.

Gregg watched me with concerned eyes as I took my seat at the North Comm desk.

“You know,” he said after a while. “You should catch a ferry across to Waiheke Island after shift. Surprise Sean and stay the night.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I hedged.

“Kylee,” Gregg said. “If there’s one thing I know about working for the Service, it’s this; make time for yourself, for your relationships. Make time for them because the firm sure as hell won’t do it for you.”

“OK,” I said, and brought up the Waiheke Island ferry timetable on my cell phone.