Saviour (Saviour #1)(77)
“I love you too and I'm not going anywhere, ever”
~
An hour later, I'm waving him good bye as he leaves for work. I have a lazy morning trawling through the Internet, trying to source furniture, accessories, paint, flooring, and lighting for the Palmers house. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with the place; I just need to find the pieces. I try to get Ryder on the phone but my call just goes to message bank, I phone my doctors and manage to get an appointment for Tuesday late morning, I phone Jo, Jemma and Lulu and give them all the details on my week with Ava and how we got along, I tell them about meeting the rest of the family at the weekend, omitting the details I have discovered about Gabe’s past. We arrange to meet up Friday night for dinner and drinks. Jemma tells me that Max has been for a beer with Jay over the weekend and that he knows that I'm with someone else and he is livid. Max told him straight up that it was his own fault and that he didn't deserve me, which didn't go down too well, go Maxi Boy. I text him after my calls and tell him thanks for sticking up for me, he texts me back with 'Your welcome Lauren, I feel really bad that I didn't work out what was going on .... But please be careful, he is beyond angry with you x'
Shit, I should check my old phone for messages but first I need to call my mum, I have been putting it off and putting it off but it needs to be done. I get her number from my phone, which I am surprised is still working; I thought Jason would have had it cut off as he pays my bill. There are a quite a few messages on there, most from Jason, I will listen to them later, let’s get my mother out of the way first.
My relationship with my mum is strained at the best of times; I have never measured up in her eyes, me getting pregnant at a young age was a huge disappointment for her, despite the successful businesses Jason and I had gone on to run, whilst dealing with the pressures of parenthood, she had never really forgiven me and what made things harder was the love and support my dad had given us. I had grown up all of my life knowing I was his favourite, even my brothers and sister had been aware of the fact and it was always a standing joke amongst the family. My dad had died from a massive heart attack when I was thirty and my close, happy family had imploded. Both of my brothers had gone back to the UK to live and my sister had moved interstate to the north central coast of New South Wales. Each and every one of them had failed marriages behind them, all happening after the death of my dad and now I was going to call and tell her that I was also shit at marriage too. Mum had remarried an Aussie a couple of years back and pretty much abandoned us all. I think she felt her time was done raising us and she had a new chance of happiness and she was going to take it. She and Dave lived in Bendigo a city North West of Melbourne, about a four hour drive from me. It was classed as a city but was more like a big country town and quite beautiful. But the distance had meant I didn’t see her very often and our phone calls had become less and less frequent as she had become less and less interested in my life and more involved with Dave and his grown up children and grandchildren.
I use my new phone so my mum doesn’t recognise the number, just in case she already knows what has gone on and doesn’t want to talk to me. She picks up on the third ring.
“Hi mummy, it’s Lauren, your daughter”
“Oh, hello Lauren my daughter, is this a new number? It didn’t come up as you on my phone”
“Yes it is a new number, delete the old one and swap it with this, how are you?”
“Yeah, we are all good here; Jason rang me a couple of weeks ago, asking if I had seen you, what was that all about, what’s going on?”
“Jason rang looking for me, why didn’t you call and tell me?”
“Well I was going to but we had to pick Emma’s kids up from school and it went right out of my head and he didn’t call back so I assumed he had found you and you had gotten over your little sulk”
Emma’s kids. Of course, her new husband’s grandchildren would obviously be top of her priority, much more important than her own, possibly missing youngest child.
“Wow, thanks for being so concerned with my welfare mother, good job I was only running from a case of domestic violence and that it wasn’t anything too serious ehh”
“What, what are you talking about, what domestic violence, what’s going on?”
“I have left Jason mum; he has violently abused me our entire marriage but it’s gotten progressively worse over the past couple of years and I ended up at the hospital a few weeks back with bruised ribs, a fractured cheek, and a dislocated shoulder. On top of that, he has also been shagging around. I don’t know how many other women there have been or for how long it’s been going on but I know for sure that there has been at least one and I’m done with it mum, I’ve left him and not only have I left him but I’ve met somebody else and moved in with him” I pause for a second “and he’s ten years younger than me, his name is Gabriel, and I’m so in love I could burst”
“Gabriel, what sort of name is that for a bloke?”
“What, that’s all you have to say?”
“Well look Lauren, I’m sorry about you and Jason, but I did always think he was a bit of a bully and if he’s been knocking you about, well then you’ve probably done the right thing leaving him. Really, if it’s been going on a long time, perhaps you should have left him years ago”