Dee's house looks the exact same as the Murphy's first house. Located a couple streets away from it, it doesn't feel any less awkward to walk in though. Beswick. While Ash's phone sits silently near his hand on the yellowish table, the texts keep on coming. He notices the red light turning on and off again every couple minute. He's not shaking anymore, neither is he sweating. Being around Dee and the kids calms him down. The rattling sound of cutlery being taken out of the drawers calls him out if his current state. As if being there made him sleep awake, a good sleep. Dee keeps on making some appearances every now and then, bringing plates one at a time, ruffling through Ash's hair every time she does. As if touching him made it real, he is here.
"Just, don't mention it, okay? But dad has been staying over a lot more recently." She drops five glasses on the table and pushes her hands down the tablecloth for the fifteenth time since they've come home.
Ash raises his eyebrows, still messing with his end of the tablecloth while Dee looks at the kids. "Staying?"
"Yeah, he sleeps here a lot. Ava and Ez sleep together anyway, so it's okay." Saying it doesn't make it less awkward. She knows.
Diane doesn't smile when she hears the front door opening, neither does she when Ash stands up to greet his dad. Nobody smiles, nobody moves really. James Murphy doesn't seem to notice the tall brown-haired boy in the living room when he takes off his shoes and pushes them under the hallway's cabinet. He catches a glimpse of his daughter's eyes and immediately drops it, throwing his arms up in the air to welcome Ava coming running from the kitchen. James doesn't notice the silence.
"Girl you better stop growing or I won't be able to do that every day." Laughing, he drops the smallest living girl on the floor as he gathers his scarf and jacket to hang.
"Dad?" Diane takes a step near the grey-looking man, trying to get his attention once more.
His eyes go dark when they set on the boy standing in front of him. Nothing new there. He hasn't changed really, it just feels as if the last time they had seen each other. That scares Ash.
***
While Ash is staring from across the table at his dad who still hasn't mentioned the fact that his long-lost-son is back, Dee serves gravy. None of them mentions anything. At least until pudding.
"Ava please take your brother to bed." Diane lights up a cigarette in the kitchen, staring out the slightly-opened window. She shoots a glare towards the living room and decides it is probably time for her to disappear. Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. Shit, it doesn't seem to be working. The other rooms in the kitchen seem to be way more silent than the kitchen, where her mind fills the place with screams and cries. Her thumb rolls along her mother's black pearl ring once more, while she counts down the seconds until one of the two men in her home shouts to the other one to leave. But that shout never comes. She's the only one shouting, though nobody hears it.
Lights turned off in the kitchen, windows closed, and cigarettes hidden in the cereal's boxes, Diane walks back in the living room with a blanket hanging off her arms.
"It's getting late kid, you'll sleep here tonight. Alright?" She says, not so much to her brother as to her father.
Tonight, Ashton sleeps on the sofa with the backdoor's lights on. It's quiet.
YOU ARE READING
Settle Down
Romance"She came and it was two in the morning. She'd been crying. She started screaming in my backyard. She was yelling for me to let her in while I had never met her before. Mate, she was nuts. She wore that fucking purple dress. You know, the dark one...
