This month's featured story

The Sting

      It was almost eight thirty and the evening sun had only just begun to cast a filtered buttery glow over the dry, cracked ground in the park. The midsummer celebration was still in full flow; dozens of children running and screaming in bare feet while their parents sat on plaid blankets drinking beer.I sat with my daughters, near the bandstand, the three of us nodding along to the music in a drowsy way. I couldn’t see their eyes behind big, plastic sunglasses.
      “Have you seen your brother recently?” I asked, looking around with my hand over my eyes to avoid the blinding light from the low sun.
      “He was playing football last time I saw him. Over there,” Lucy, middle child, pointed towards a flaking white goal post at the far end of the field.
      I squinted hard and made out a pale little figure sprinting towards the goal that I thought was probably Christopher. He was moving swiftly with the ball at his feet, and then all of a sudden stopped in his tracks, letting the ball roll miles wide of the goal. I frowned, then realised with a jolt in my gut why he had stopped running. Christopher was now running even faster in the opposite direction, splaying his arms madly as he sprung into his father’s arms.
      “Dad!” The two girls had spotted this, too, and hurtled towards the football pitch, dodging the minefield of picnicking families.
      I sat glued in position, chewing the edge of a paper cup. A shadow cast over me and I turned to see a looming figure with my three children clinging on like monkeys.
      “Anna,” said a familiar voice.
      “Ben,” I replied curtly.
      The three children hovered around him, their milky blonde hair, bleached by a good summer, now matched his perfectly. Theychattered excitedly about the hat parade and the bouncy castle and the BBQ food.
      “Mm-hmm…oh, really…that’s great,” Ben listened and laughed at the right moments, putting his arm around Christopher when they showed him thehandmade rosette he had received for second place in the hat parade.
      The theme was ‘Summer’, and we’d found the idea of a giant hat made of bees hilarious, so the four of us stayed up late for a week glue-gunning yellow and black crepe-paper. I opened my mouth to tell Ben about the sticky bees, but couldn’t be sure he would find it as funny as we had. I didn’t know him like that anymore.
      Ben amused the kids for a while with a couple of boisterous, running around games, and I sat by myself on the blanket, snapping a couple of pictures on my camera phone. Lucy got stung on her shoulder by a bee and cried a little, but when Ben suggested that it might have been one of the crepe-paper-hat bees, she joined in the joke and forgot about the sting.
      As they all collapsed back down next to me, I noticed a chill on the breeze for the first time and the skin prickled on my arms. The sun was starting to set now, and I saw a few dark clouds emerging over a line of tall oak trees. The kids ran to get a round of ice creams with a handful of change Ben had given them, and we were left alone for the first time.
      “Anna, I need to ask you about something,” Ben’s tone switched to business, which meant we were about to discuss something serious.
      “Go on,” I said.
      “I spoke to my parents today, and they want to take all three of the kids away for a few days at the beginning of the Christmas break, to see my brother and his family in Germany,” he spoke clearly with no pauses, like he’d rehearsed in the car on the way.
      I bit my lip. The reality that this was no longer my family to visit did not sit well in my stomach. It felt like I’d eaten glass, as I imagined all of them sitting around the dinner table catching up without me.
      “My parents…they booked it before I had a chance to…” he sounded apologetic but did not say the words.
      “It’s already been booked without even asking me? Well, they can’t go. Your parents will just have to try and get their money back.”
      “Get their money back for what?” Chloe had appeared by my shoulder, holding out a dripping ice cream for me.
      Lucy and Christopher stood side-by-side, happily smothered in chocolate-and-vanilla goo.
      “Nothing,” I said, licking drips off the cone. “It doesn’t matter.”
      “We’re just trying to work out if you three can come to Germany near Christmas to see your cousins,” Ben added, withpoison dart precision.
      The kids squealed with excitement.
      “Ben,” I said, disgusted as his low blow.
      I gritted my teeth as three pairs of giant, hopeful eyes stared at me intently.
      “Ben, can we go for a walk and talk about it over there, please?” I stood up and brushed off, noticing the grain of the woollen blanket imprinted on my bare legs.
      I walked to an empty picnic bench on the other side of the bandstand, leaned against the table and crossed my arms. Ben approached me looking at the ground.
      “What did you do that for?” I very deliberately kept my voice quiet and even.
      “I told you it wasn’t me-“
      “Not the trip, telling the kids like that. You got me against the wall. I thought we agreed not to use them as pawns in whatever game you and I are playing?”
      “This isn’t a game, Anna.”
“I know that. It’s not fun and it’s never-ending-“
      A screech and bang to our left made us both look up. A small, green scattering of sparks appeared above the bandstand. It wasn’t fully dark but the sky was the colour of bruises, and the fireworks were visible enough. I glanced over to Chloe, Lucy and Christopher, who were kneeling up on the blanket, huddled together, pointing upwards. A quick succession of screaming rockets lit up the sky in pink and blue and illuminated their grinning faces.
      “What do you want?” I asked Ben, perching on the edge of the table and putting my feet on the bench.
      “I want my family back.”
      “For God sake-“
      Our sad bickering quickly turned to raised voices, swearing and insults. Every conversation between us now was like a dying flower, starting off alright and then falling to bits so quickly, with no way to stop it, and all you’re left with is a fistful of petals. We were shouting now, partly in anger and partly to be heard over the fireworks that were now exploding frequently above our heads. I could see reflections of sparkling, dotted lines in Ben’s eyes as he tipped his head back in exasperation, laughing a cruel, cynical laugh.
      A screaming noise at ground level made us both jump. We hadn’t noticed a line of wooden stakes with spinners and fountains that had been placed in front of the bandstand. The area was cordoned off with white-and-orange striped tape, but I still looked nervously for the children, who were, of course, sitting exactly where they had been on the blanket.
      “Just take them to Germany,” I said, suddenly sick of the whole conversation.
“This isn’t just about Germany-“
      A Catherine wheel started screeching and spinning at the far end of the row of stakes, nearest to the children. Bright peach sparks hit the ground like heavy rain. Ben reached out and grabbed my elbow. I stared at his fingers gripping my slightly sunburnt arm, and noticed he was still wearing his wedding ring.
      We both turned at the sound of muffled, more uneven scream, not a firework this time but a child. The peach-coloured Catherine wheel had flown off its stake and was rolling in a jagged line towards the children’s blanket. Chloe and Lucy pulled Christopher by the arms but he tripped, and was screaming, frozen, as the firework hurtled towards him.
      I started to run towards him, and heard pounding footsteps as Ben ran past me. The Catherine wheel jerked over a bump and veered off to the left, shedding its last few sparks as it span in a circle and fell on its side like a huge coin. Ben reached Christopher and immediately gathered him up in his arms. I got to him only a few seconds later, as Ben frantically checked his face and hair and arms for any sign of damage, even though we had both seen the firework fall over ten feet from Christopher’s small, frozen figure.
      Ben let Christopher drop to the floor when he was happy there was no visible damage. He stalked off and started going mad at the nearest person in a high visibility jacket.
      “Ben, please,” I yelled, firmly but not with anger.
      I pulled all the children close to me. I could feel Lucy wringing her hands together, and Chloe was sniffing as if she had been or was about to cry.
      “I just want to take them home.”
      Ben turned to us, casting a glance at each of the three children individually. He picked Christopher up again, took Lucy by the hand and started walking quickly towards the car. Chloe shuffled along behind them.
      “Can…can I get take some details from you, please? To fill out a report?” The woman in the high visibility jacket that Ben had been screaming out approached me cautiously, talking in a mousy voice.
      Ben turned back looking furious, but I waved him on and quickly reeled off a statement and contact details. I buttoned up my cardigan on the way to the car against the chill. My hand was shaking when I reached out to push the gate into the car park.The event had dispersed quickly after the incident, and only a handful of cars remained on the small square of gravel. I approached Ben’s four-by-four, and tapped on the window frowning when I realised the kids’ weren’t in there with him. He wound down the window.
      “They went home with friends,” he said, leaning over the passenger seat.
      “What?”
      “We bumped in to Caitlin and her kids’ on the way to the car park, and Caitlin invited the girls’ to stay over tonight, and I said they could. Chris went with them, too.”
      He shrugged like it was no big deal, and I shook my head in disbelief.
      “Ben,” I slammed my hand on the car door for emphasis. “What part of this is so difficult for you? You cannot make decisions without me.”
      “What is your problem? They stay over at Caitlin’s all the time.”
      “Are you serious-“ I started to raise my voice again.
      “For God sake, Anna, will you just get in the car and we can talk about this without everyone hearing about it?”
      “Why would I get in the car?”
      “Well, how else do you expect to get home?”
      I pinched the bridge of my nose. I hadn’t brought my car this morning, with the arrangement that Ben would drop us all off home afterwards. I got into the passenger seat, making sure to slam the car door hard. The car smelled like carpet cleaner and artificial oranges due to a jelly-bean shaped air freshener that the kids’ had bought for Ben’s birthday.
      “I can’t believe you let them go to a friend’s house after what they just went through,” I said as Ben reversed the car out of the space.
      He jerked the car in gear and then drove slowly across the dusty gravel.
      “Do you know your kids at all?”
      “What?” I shot him a challenging glare.
“They were bloody fine by the time they got back to the car park. They’d forgotten it happened.”
      I tutted and rolled my eyes. We pulled out on to a narrow, winding country lane bordered by tall hedges.
      “Will you slow down?” I leaned over to the steering wheel to turn his lights up full blast.
      He grinned but said nothing.
      “What are you smirking you now?”
      “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just…rich, coming from you. Girl racer.”
      “Please.”
      I sat with my arms folded, looking at myreflection in the wing mirror. A few spits of rain started hitting the windscreen. Dashed, horizontal lines appeared on the window like unplayed games of hangman.
      “Do they talk about me a lot?” Ben asked suddenly.
      “What?”
      “Do you they talk about me? Ask where I am, what I’m doing, when they’re going to see me next?”
      I considered this for a minute.
      “Chris does. When we’re doing something he always says whether he thinks you would or wouldn’t like it.”
      “Really?”
      “Yeah. The girls’ don’t talk about you as much, but I think that’s because they think it will upset me.”
      Ben nodded as if this was enough for him.
      “Do you think they are coping with this all okay? Are they adjusting?” He said.
      “Better than we are,” I replied, looking back out the window.
      We took a bend and drove up a slightly wider road, but still equally dark. The rain was falling heavily now, creating wide channels of water on both sides of the road. We were nearly home, and I started thinking about spending the night in the house all by myself.
      “Watch out!” I shouted as a huge animal ran out in front of the car.
      It was so close to us that it hit the bonnet before I could even make out what it was. Ben hit the brakes hard and the car skidding on the wet road, and span out. I put my arms out and closed my eyes. When I opened them the car had stopped, angled across both lanes. The engine was off.
      “What was that?”
      I looked sideways at Ben. His eyes were wide and his face was pale.
      “I think it was a deer,” he said, exhaling loudly. “Are you alright?”
      “Yeah, I think so.” I replied. “Is someone out to get us today or something?”
      He laughed, quietly, through his nose, then his expression suddenly went serious. He pointed at my hand. I looked down and saw that the bottom of my palm was red, and swelling up. As soon as I noticed it, it started throbbing with pain. It was bruised and tender where I’d smashed it on dashboard.
      “Let me see,” he said, taking my hand gently like it was a little bird. “Open and close your fingers.”
      I flexed slowly, squeezing an invisible ball.
      “Does it hurt?”
      I shook my head.
      “You’d better move the car, before someone crashes in to us,” I whispered, and retracted my hand.
      He turned the key in the ignition and smiled at me, before pulling over on to the grass at the side of the road. He got out to check the damage to the front of the car, while I continued to flex my sore hand.
      “Just a smashed light,” he said, settling back in the driver’s seat. “And a hefty dent, obviously.”
      “Do you need to call someone out?”
      “I’ll call them in the morning. I want to get you home first.”
      “What do you think happened to the deer?” I said, looking around.
      “I’m pretty sure he just pranced off in to the woods. He was a big one, I think we came off worse,” he said, glancing again at my hand.
      We pulled out on to the road again and drove the last five minutes to the house in silence. I started to feel light-headed and a little sick, probably from hitting my head on the window during the spin. Ben pulled in to my drive and cut the engine. I didn’t move, just listened to the rain beat steadily on the roof.
      “Are you sure you’re okay?”
      “I feel a bit woozy,” I said, touching my head and feeling a bump under my hair.
      “Did you hit your head? You might have a concussion,” he said, reaching over to me.
      Our hands touched as he rubbed the place where the bump was.
      “It’s like an egg,” he said.
      I nodded, even though I knew it was small.
      “I don’t want you to be alone tonight. I think I should come in and make sure you’re okay.”
      He leaned over me and opened the glove box. After rooting around for a moment he pulled out his old house keys, a hand-painted ‘Daddy’ keyring hanging from it. He got out the car and started running towards the house, ducking his head against the rain. He stood in shelter by the front door and waved me over. I hesitated, opened the door with my good hand and splashed in my sandals through the puddles on the path. When I got to the front door he was trying with wet hands to get the key in to the lock. Both sides of the porch were decked with climbing roses that were being battered by the wind and rain. Pink and red petals littered the porch steps like wedding confetti.
      “Ben…” I said quietly.
      He was still attempting to jam the key in.
      “Ben,” I touched him on the wrist. The cuff of his jacket was soaked through.
      “Hang on-“ he muttered.
      “I changed the locks.”
      He pulled the key away from the door sharply like he’d been burned.
      “What?”
      “I had the locks changed. A month ago.”
      I stood still and watched a long time after his car reversed out of the drive. I bent down and picked up his discarded keys from doorstep, and when I opened my fist they were tangled up with a mess of fallen rose petals.