Page 61 of In Sheets of Rain

“But it doesn’t have fruit.”

“I don’t like the fruit ones; the little pieces get stuck in my teeth.”

“Get the other ones, Kylee. These ones are bad for you.”

I picked up the bleach and a cloth and started cleaning. By the time Sean came home from his session at the gym, the house was spotless.

And the fruit yoghurts were sitting on the top shelf of the fridge.

* * *

Harrison splashed in the bath and made little baby sounds. I sat on the stool in the corner of April’s bathroom and watched her bathe her kid.

“He’s grown,” I said.

“He better have.” She laughed. “Kid guzzles like there’s no tomorrow.”

I smiled. April waved a rubber duckie in front of Harrison’s face. I could hear Sean and Kurt talking out in the lounge. The clink of ice in glasses.

Harrison gurgled. April waved the duckie. And Sean and Kurt drank single malt whisky out in the lounge.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Sure.” April sat back on her haunches, letting Harrison entertain himself.

I rubbed at a bruise on my arm. Remembering a dark shed, an unconscious teenager, and the Salvation Army man who was helping the homeless.

“Have you ever…” I paused; looked around the bathroom at everything and anything that wasn’t my friend.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” April offered, leaning forward and pushing the duck a little closer to her son in the bathtub.

I smiled. “Sure,” I said. “OK.” I pulled my sleeve down to hide the bruise, remembering IV lines and oxygen masks and the back door of the ambulance slamming against my wrist.

April pretended not to notice my agitation and focused on the baby.

“Has there ever been times when you haven’t wanted to have sex with Kurt?” I blurted.

April slowed down her manic rubber duckie propelling and stared at the tiled wall of the bathroom.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that there comes a time in every relationship where you have to put the other person first. Where you might have to do things you don’t really want to, to keep that person happy.”

I stared down at my hands in my lap, noting absently that I was wringing them like I had done in the psychologist’s office. Like I’d been doing for years.

“Marriage is made up of compromises, Kylee,” April said. “That’s not to say when you’re tired and had a bad day that it’s not harder than usual to compromise. But if you make the effort, the reward is great.”

“So, you’d have sex even if you didn’t want to?”

“I’d put my husband’s needs before my own. Yes.”