Chapter 12

I swam with Kat the next morning, and we shared a shower together. Then I had a brief meeting with my technical leads. My question for them was very simple: “Which projects can we ditch immediately, and that means today, without doing lasting damage to the company’s reputation, and that looks after our staff and doesn’t cost lives?”

We quickly had a list of candidates, but there was one project they wouldn’t put on the list, because killing it would cost us so much money in penalty clauses. But I could see that it was our biggest problem. I put it at the top of the list for culling. My staff were aghast: “That’ll kill all your profit for this year in one go”. I shrugged. “So we lose money. You are much more important than that, and I think we can ride it out.”

Then I held a quick all-hands meeting, mandatory attendance. Once everyone was on, I announced the list of four projects we were killing, or at least halting, and how we were re-allocating people. I made it clear that it wasn’t because the work wasn’t good, or we didn’t like the customers, it was simply that it had become clear that as a company we couldn’t give any more; our emotional capacity had been exceeded, and I judged that my staff’s welfare and people’s lives were more important than anything else. The sight of Kat hugging me from behind and openly crying while I made the announcement – I’m sure that more than anything else underwrote how seriously I was taking it. And I apologised as completely as I knew how to for not acting earlier, and letting things get out of control, and losing my right sense of priorities. I had a strong sense of relief and gratitude from my visual feedback during the meeting.

The next order of work was to call my customers and explain. Also, some staff needed additional love in person as well. I sighed and settled in for a long hard day of tough calls and meetings – sitting all day while I was still sore from the night before too. It was made easier when Kat came and cuddled with me between each one. Except one time, when it was Zara. Zara had turned into a hug machine, always willing and keen to hug anyone, anytime. And how could I be sad when I had Zara in my lap, holding me tight and telling me she loved me so much, just like the rest of the family?

Oh – and the fallout from that big decision? The big project I cancelled – the executive in charge at the customer told me that my group was the only one they’d trust, and he couldn’t fault my logic or my decision around caring for my staff, or lives saved. So no penalty clause and legal action – they couldn’t afford it either. Instead, I was to call him as soon as we had capacity and we’d start it again. And my staff ... Eleni asked them to write emails to me explaining how they felt, and Kat printed them all up and made them into a poster that she put on our wall. I felt very reassured by what they wrote.

Why hadn’t I talked to Kat earlier?

And when it was time for our usual late afternoon volleyball match, instead I grabbed Michelle and she sat on my lap in my back office, and I explained and apologised. And I told her, in confidence, just what Kat had done to me the night before. Once she heard, she understood why she wouldn’t share it with the others. And we had a lovely heart to heart about being really careful with the sex games. She promised me to show leadership in playing them very carefully.

So you would think, then, that now things were all good? But not so. Kat told me later that night that Sal had gotten up the last two mornings looking rather unwell and drinking a lot of coffee. We smelt a rat, so I quickly went and reviewed footage from the security camera in the garage. Oh, I hadn’t mentioned them before. I got them put in as part of a full security system when the house was built, but had never used it until Sal came, in case of Lem.

So Kat and I watched Sal unpacking the shopping from my 4WD after her first trip out and taking what rather looked like a bottle of whisky and putting it apart from the rest of the shopping. Sal was still awake, so Kat went and asked her to her room. As soon as she saw me in there, her face dropped.

“Where is it?” Kat asked.

I saw Sal go to tell us she didn’t know what we were talking about, but then she changed her mind, and pulled the bottle out of her cupboard. In tears, she gave it to me.

Sadly, I said, “Our room, now, and we’ll talk.”

When we arrived in our room, Sal very pointedly knelt in front our bed. We both sat on our bed and looked at her.

Kat said, “Why?”

Sal sobbed. “I didn’t mean to. I mean, that wasn’t why I wanted to go shopping. But it was there, and ... It called to me. I knew I shouldn’t, and I knew you would know. But I needed to have it.”

I sighed. Sal was worse than I thought.

“Sal, this is really disappointing, especially after what you said earlier this week. This is breaking agreement level serious. You can’t do this.”

Sal looked even more upset now. “Can’t you just punish me, or something? I promise it won’t happen again.”

Kat chimed in, “That doesn’t sound like a serious promise at all. Your first trip, and you did this? How are you ever going to manage life if this happens? And just what punishment did you think would be appropriate?”

Sal looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t you guys do spankings?”

Ahh. Kat and I looked at each other. Honestly, this did kind of look like it was mostly about the spanking.

“OK Sal,” I said, “You have a choice. You can accept your punishment, which won’t be a spanking, and make us a believable promise it won’t happen again, or you can leave. Jael and Michael can stay if they want. And you’ll still have to leave if we don’t believe your promise is sincere. And you won’t like the punishment one little bit.”

“Well, I can’t leave without them, and they’ll stay whatever, so I choose the punishment.”

Well, duh. Of course. Kat leaned over and whispered to me “what are you going to do for punishment?” I whispered it back to her, and she looked at me in disbelief, and shuddered.

“Are you sure, Sal?” she asked. “You really aren’t going to like it.”

“I deserve it, whatever. I’m staying. Punish me.”

“OK,” I said. “Your punishment has two parts. The first is that you will go get Jael and Michael, and you’ll tell them what you did, and why you did it, and apologise to them. And the second is that you’ll ask Jael what punishment is appropriate, and that’s what you’ll get.”

Sal looked at me, horrified. She wailed. “No, you can’t make me do that. I’d rather die.”

“Well, it’s simple. Either you do what I said, or you leave now.”

Sal collapsed on the floor, weeping. Kat and I waited her out.

When she finished crying, she looked up at me. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but I’m even more naked than before.” Then she went to find Jael and Michael.

“Why ask Jael what her punishment should be?” Kat asked me.

“The only thing that will get through to her is her kids. And girls are more subtle and perceptive than boys. And nastier.”

Sal came into the room, followed by the kids. Again, she knelt before us, leaving Jael and Michael standing uncertainly by the bed. I hopped up and got Jael and Michael to sit where we had been, so that Sal was kneeling in front of them, though their confusion was only increased by this.

Kat said, “Michael and Jael, your mother wants to explain something.”

Sal looked at me, one last appeal, but I shook my head. She needs this punishment.

“Jael and Michael, I’m sorry. I did something wrong, and I am forced to explain it to you, and why I did it, and then apologise, and then my punishment is whatever you, Jael, say that it is.”

“You know that I talked to Kat and Dave this week and convinced them that I was ready to start having more responsibility, and that I should do the shopping. When I was at the supermarket, I bought a bottle of whisky,” – she pointed at it, half empty – “and when I got home, I hid it in my room. I drank from it the last two nights and woke up hungover.”

She took a deep breath.

“I don’t know why I did it. I wanted to prove that I was ready, but I saw the bottle, and it called to me, and I wanted...”

Sal stopped, thinking.

“I wanted to believe that it can all be OK again, and whisky can get me there fast. I’m sorry.”

Michael wanted to know why she thought she’d get away with it.

“I didn’t think about it, but I suppose I figured I’d just get punished by Dave,” she replied.

I saw Jael stare at me, and then Kat. I think she figured it out.

I nodded to her. “The punishment isn’t quite what she was expecting. We gave her a choice – take this punishment, or leave, without you if you didn’t want to go.”

I was surprised, Jael was looking at her mum compassionately. But she turned to Michael, and said, “What do you think?”

“What would she do to us in that situation?”

“I don’t know. Our father would have beaten us, but I don’t know what Mum would do.”

Sal sobbed.

The Jael said, “Mum Kat, what punishments are allowed?”

Kat said, “Well, you know what the rules are, and we won’t allow physical violence, or smacking. This is way too serious for that. If you have an idea you aren’t sure about it, you can ask us.”

Jael watched her mum, and spoke slowly, “Well, Mum has behaved like she’s afraid us teenagers would, and she kept telling us about. No thought of consequences, or cost to other people. But it’s hard to think of a punishment, since you’ve already taken everything from her. I could make her go naked, but, hey, she already is. And we can’t ground her, because everyone in the world is already grounded. But she definitely needs a punishment that really hurts, because we need Mum to grow up and be our mum.”

She thought for a minute. “I can’t think of anything better than what Zach did to Zara.”

Sal drew her breath in sharply. I was amazed. That was a good thought process, and Sal was really, really going to hate this.

“Michael, any ideas for what to do?”

He didn’t have any. Jael thought for some more. Then she turned to me. “Dad Dave, what’ll happen to her if you throw her out?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to say. But given what she did and why, it’s probable that your mum would end up selling her body for sex to get money for alcohol. She’s real pretty for now, but that wouldn’t last for long.”

Sal winced.

“Oh.” Then, “Didn’t you tell Zara how much she’d be worth? I heard her say something about that.”

Kat nodded. “We told her that she’d end up being worth twenty dollars a trick.”

Jael said, “That’s it, then, we’re going to write $20 on a number of obvious places on Mum, and she can think about that for two weeks – she’ll end up being worth twenty dollars a fuck if she keeps doing what she did.”

I was right. Subtle, perceptive, and nasty.

Sal looked up at me. Yes, her punishment was more than she could bear. The only thing possibly worse than that would be leaving without Jael and Michael. And I suspected that she’d got the message.

“OK, Sal, here’s your choice. You can make us a promise that we believe in, and take your punishment, or you can leave, now. Choose well.”

With an ashen face, and a voice from the grave, Sal said, “You were right that I’d really hate the punishment. If ever I’m tempted again ... I’d rather die before I let this happen to me again. I promise that I’ll never ever give into my temptations again, let alone for such a bad reason. Jael and Michael, please still love and respect me after this.”

I could hear it in her voice. We’d really gotten through to her this time.

“OK, Sal, they get to put it on in the lounge room, and you get to explain to everyone why they’re doing it first, and anyone else who wants can mark you up too. And if we catch you rubbing it off, we’ll just reapply it fresh.”

Anything to up the humiliation factor, now.

Jael led Sal out of the room, sobbing and gasping. I turned to Kat and said, ‘Go supervise – make sure it’s not too cruel.” She nodded.

Before she left, she said, “Remind me to never give you a reason to really punish me. I see where Zach got it from now.”

Jael chose to use bright red permanent markers, and Michael and she wrote $20 on Sal’s shoulders, her right breast, her left buttock, and on her knees and the back of her wrists. Sal sobbed the whole way through but cooperated nicely. Zara held her hand and cried with her. They wanted to mark her forehead too, but Kat said no.

Then we took Jael and Michael to our bedroom and asked how they were feeling. Michael – a guy – didn’t really know how he felt. That was OK: Jael was doing plenty of thinking and feeling for the both of them. But her first question was important: “Is there any hope for Mum?”

Kat said that she wasn’t sure, but what just happened was a huge crossroads for their mum. If they wanted her to become strong, they had to love her as much as they could and respect her.

They got the message, and thereafter, it was common to see either Jael or Michael hugging her or sitting in her lap – they called it ‘the full Zara treatment.’ Also, Michael changed his schedule around to swim with her. (Not Jael – Miss Swimming Freak was getting close to the Victorian age record for 1500m most days, while swimming 2-3x that distance. Toni had given up on catching her).

After Jael and Michael went to bed, Kat and I went and sat on Sal’s bed with her, and we cuddled her, to give her emotional support. She cried into our shoulders again, and promised us again that she’d learnt her lesson, branded into her soul. But, she told us, she’d given up ever getting any authority over Jael and Michael back after what had happened – that the inevitable had happened and we had completely taken her children from her.

Kat talked to her about the crossroads, the decision point that she was at. It wasn’t just alcohol, though that was a big enough problem on its own – it was much bigger than that: who does she imagine herself to be? And Kat told her that if she did take the right path, make the right choices, she’d get her own self-respect back, and if that happened, she’d treat herself right, and then her kids would come back, because they did love their real mum still – and now they knew just how much she’d give for them. And Kat promised: we will hand them back to her, and they will agree when we do. Sal was amazed, and promised she’d do anything to make that happen.

Then I made my own promise to Sal: if she got herself on track, and sorted her life out, then she could have that spanking. She looked me in the eyes and told me to count on doing it soon.

Bed Time

On Saturday night, Michael, Jael and Toni went out to Michael’s tent for a game. The rest of us were finishing off our own game, sitting around the lounge room, playing cards on the big screen with our phones.