Rhea indicated she had called triple 0.
I slumped — and bowed to the floor in relief. The para-medics would be here soon.
Abby returned to life, yet her head lolled, barely moving, perhaps drained of energy.
A room full of young children stayed deathly quiet, held by their mothers, everyone in shock.
The ambulance team arrived within several minutes. I heard their arrival in the driveway and opened the front door. Immediately, their trained eyes assessed the situation as they knelt beside Abby. Their faces or appearance beyond their white-sleeved shirts and emblazoned shoulder service logo, I can't recall.
One checked her pulse; the other shone a light across her eyes. Easing Abby and supporting her waist, they gently peeled off her soaked clothes layer by layer. Then, supporting her back, they raised her legs and removed her wet pants.
I realised my failings; I hadn't put her in the recovery position or kept her warm!
The paramedics rechecked her pulse before wrapping Abby carefully in a thermal blanket, neck to toes. A paramedic quietly urged Ella to accompany Abby in the ambulance.
Rhea attempted to calm her friend by touching her arm as she offered to care for the kids.
Ella mumbled to Rhea and the paramedic incoherently. Her frizzy hair suddenly miserably dishevelled as her fingers raked through her tight curls.
She stammered, "My baby, my kids, Murray!"
She stepped toward the paramedic who cradled Abby.
Flour-smudged tear tracks created a ghoulish pattern down her cheeks.
The paramedic's eyes followed her while his feet pointed towards the front door.
Ella then retraced her steps, seeking to embrace Simone and Jack.
I offered to leave and tell Murray.
Rhea asked me to mind the kids in the kitchen as she guided Ella through the front door behind a paramedic carrying Abby wrapped in the thermal blanket.
Two sets of kids and I craned from the kitchen through the lounge room windows as they carried her tiny body to the ambulance in the driveway.
Ted slumped in a chair, head down, near motionless. No one spoke to him through the whole ordeal.
After the ambulance departed with Abby and Ella, sirens blaring in urgency, Rhea came inside quickly and collected Ted and the kids onto the mat.
They commenced building a Lego town, my wife keeping everyone busy.
I yanked my car keys from my pocket; how could I tell Murray without distressing him?
I thought through the previous few minutes as I watched the paramedics support Abby - their precise, low-toned conversation—At no point did they chide or hint where I erred.
Abby was alive, yet – I recalled my mistakes.
I left Abby's wet, young, traumatised body on a cold wooden floor!
I regathered my composure as I touched Rhea's shoulder before leaving the house.
She said, "Stay calm with Murray."
I drove through the rain to tell Murray of the accident.
The sloshing wiper sweep seemed to repeat — cold floor!
I drove in circled frustration the intramural sports fields until I spied the hockey grounds. I bumped uncomfortably over a speed hump as I urgently swept my eyes for a parking spot.
The venue swelled at capacity; I remember Ella mentioned the regional finals.
Desperate, I parked illegally over a gate entrance.
As I banged my car door fast, an official approached, I assumed, to warn me to move or risk a fine.
In the drizzle, I pleaded with the official.
I needed to see Murray regarding a grave family emergency.
They escorted me to where Abby's dad officiated.
There were no crowds to push through; the rain filled the grandstands with the spectators as we kept close to the field's fence.
A siren blared, and a match concluded as soaked players trudged off.
The official entered the time-keeper box as I paced outside in heavier rain.
The gate official patted Murray's shoulder as they emerged and discretely left us.
Murray, a tall and fit fifty-five, hunched and sagged, ready for an unknown body blow.
In recent years, a guy whose spring returned after a divorce and years alone before meeting Ella and embarking on raising a second family.
I started; Ella was okay, but not Abby, and blurted the events out of sequence.
I tumbled words as Murray's glasses clouded.
The rain began to drench my hair, yet I witnessed Murray sweat in the cold.
It felt incredibly draining, the awful detail you don't want to remember.
We sidled to shelter from the rain beneath an awning. Big splashy droplets perversely tracked us in a windy cloud burst. I felt a shiver; the shakes followed as more than cold rain hit my neck.
Murray's body stiffened, and his fingers splayed widely.
He stepped forward, his back to the rain and then pivoted directly into the shower. Near spinning, he rushed disoriented questions straight at me; his skin bunched at the corner of his eyes, and he tugged his fingers to a crack.
Murray asked the what, the when and the why, all in rapid succession.
He made me keep repeating images and actions I recalled because he entered total disbelief.
He paced two steps in one direction, then reversed as I retold the harrowing detail.
No upsetting information broke his endless pacing until I urged him, grabbing his arm and halting him.
I instructed firmly as a friend, "Go straight to the hospital; Abby and Ella need you there."
Murray rocked back and forth.
"Go," I pressed.
I watched his staggered lope around the edge of the hockey field to an exit.
Gripping my keys and chain tight, I wondered, is that how you break bad news?
I thanked the official at the venue gate for helping me and apologised for my rushed parking.
I returned to Ella's place in another heavy downpour.
The windshield wipers slapped the rain and literally my face — cold floor!
Rhea opened the front door and immediately urged me to remove my wet jumper, which she placed to dry on the fire screen.
She joined me on the lounge, holding hands.
She broke the silence, "I urged and ushered Ted to go home."
The kids in a semi-circle munched sandwiches on the rug and enjoyed watching TV cartoons.
I knew why Rhea broke the no food away from the table rule.
The seven children lounged and loafed into the early evening, playing— with snakes and ladders and completing small jigsaw puzzles.
Rhea tidied the unfinished baking as best she could.
I opened the newspaper and stared at the same page.
Eventually, Murray came home, and he didn't have positive news.
Unheard by us, he pounded his door and slumped in a lounge chair when I let him in.
A doctor at the hospital insisted he accept medication for shock. It meant a taxi home, and he left his damn keys in the cab!
Taking a breath, he released the gritty; "Abby required an air ambulance - a mercy flight to Melbourne, accompanied by Ella. My sweetie needs a toxicology probe because of the laundry water and a brain scan for the unknown time factor."
We left Murray and two of his kids at his home to cope.
Tall, lean Murray rubbed his chin. I noticed two days of stubble and mulled shaving was likely the last thing on his mind.
We shared hugs of comfort before departing.
My family piled in the MPV for our drive home. Rhea and I locked eyes as we fastened our seatbelts and settled. We inhaled deeply. We both knew it would be challenging for Murray and the kids without Ella and Abby.
The rain pelted as it had all day, coating the windshield. Rhea selected a boisterous CD to lighten the mood.
I concentrated on a wet, dark road as the kids and Rhea sang along to the children's songs in unison.
I was grateful when we arrived home, thankful my girls and Rhea were safe. Rhea kept our four busy; they all decorated pizza tops for dinner.
Later, she played Old Maid, a card game, with them on the carpet.
She lost every round to the girls' mirthful glee.
No one wants to be the old maid, the only unpaired card.
Positioned behind Rhea, I watched her cheat; she saw, like me, the outline of the old maid card through the backs of the thin spread cards held in the girl's hands.
They all hugged their mum when she called bedtime. Then they came and cuddled me behind Rhea in my lounge chair.
Miranda chirped from the hall doorway, "Mummy, you are not an old maid!"
Rhea replied, blowing her a kiss, "I hope not!"
While the girls cleaned their teeth, Rhea's intuition grasped my mental stewing. She patted my arm as she saw my disengagement from the evening football match despite my team winning.
She tucked our girls in bed that night; we usually shared the task.
I assumed she deliberately allowed them to stay up late to help them sleep fast and avoid bad dreams.
Rhea settled the girls and returned to the lounge.
"Oh, darling. Come, come to bed," she coaxed, ruffling my hair.
"Luke, it's okay," Rhea added; "You did your best. Let the doctors do the rest."
"I may have saved Abby!" I cried.
My real question: What will be the quality of her life?
I was concerned about possible brain damage. The rain beating on our roof made me think of pounding knocks on a door.
I eased into flannel pyjamas, a combination of a cold night and getting older. I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed.
Under our doona, the warmth of Rhea's body hit mine. Her nakedness pressed into the soft cotton of my pyjamas.
She kissed me deeply, holding and shaping my face.
I couldn't remember the last occasion Rhea undressed for me or me for her!
Her kiss lingered; it tantalised and invited.
It stated I believe; I am for you with touch.
My wife slipped my pyjama bottoms off, arousing me. Rhea took head with grace, embracing man parts as her lip's natural partner. She gradually built sensation, taking my body and willing my mind away from the world.
She drew away my anguish of the day.
Rhea gave the gift of caressing love, self-assuring another soul through touch. Her mouth shaped her private man sculpture.
She moved and mounted my hard piece, the centre of her universe and crafted our pleasure.
My hands joined her fulsome buttocks, her expanding body of middle age. As I lifted her body, I started to build a faster pace, directing our love-making.
Rhea gave me the lead as she sensed my relaxation. My finger spread her wetness across her perineum to her anus. I rimmed her as I kept grinding into my lover. I had never ventured to her ring before.
Rhea sensed I needed the sexual more tonight.
"If you want it," she invited, "it's okay. I'll be okay for you."
My lover would give me her butt. My sweet woman would provide me with anything I desired.
I had what I desired: her heart.
"I want you, Rhea. I only want you," my spread fingers gripped her buttocks, and my voice trembled passionately.
"Oh, Luke Peter," she moaned, rubbing my hair vigorously.
I came in an intense wave.
Rhea was happy for me and contented for herself, holding me, although, I am sure, without reaching her own full personal orgasm.
She held her man with her in the present—the wonder of relationships.
For a long time, I mused her architectural equal as the Taj Mahal, the standard monument of love.
Years later, when Miranda travelled as a young woman, she sent a postcard from Spain home. It triggered Rhea's accurate comparison: The Alhambra: delicate, tranquil and measured.
Rhea and Ella maintained regular contact by phone over the next few days.
We endured, like Ella, the interminable waiting.
Abby spent three days in a children's specialist hospital on monitored support and detox for chemicals in the recycled washing water—specialists tested for damage to her lively, impish mind.
Photos shared later by Ella showed her daughter in the hospital.
Abby made a complete recovery — and with her cute boy-slaying smile, she embarked on growing up.