The Stepmother(110)

 

‘Jeanie’s really strong,’ I tell him. ‘She’s a fighter.’

 

Which is true, has been true – up to now. She was always so strong, for me. Look what she did – how she cared.

 

‘But if that’s true, then why did she do it? And how…’ I hear the little boy that he is. His heart is breaking; I can hear it actually happening. ‘How could she leave me?’

 

Oh Christ.

 

I can’t answer that for her, but I have an idea that, if she did do it on purpose, well, she just couldn’t take any more pain, because she loves him so much, she’d never have chosen to go…

 

And yet, did she do it? Did she try and kill herself?

 

Or was she pushed?

 

‘She didn’t want to leave you, darlin’,’ I say, ‘but she wasn’t doing so well. And…’ I breathe really, really hard so I don’t start sobbing. ‘I’m here, Frank. I know it’s not the same, but I am here for you.’

 

‘Thanks,’ he mumbles, and my own heart clutches painfully.

 

‘You don’t need to thank me, you silly sod.’ God, he doesn’t need to ever thank me. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I promise you that.’

 

And I mean it. It’s time to stop running.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I sleep fitfully all night, when I sleep at all.

 

I dream of children running around a big field, screaming, running from someone, a figure in the corner – and I can’t tell if the screaming is in pain or pleasure.

 

When I wake up around 6 a.m., drenched in sweat, I can’t think where the hell I am, and then I remember.

 

I switch on the little kettle on the tea tray and lie back on the pillows, thinking.

 

I can’t go to the house yet – but that’s my only plan. There’s nothing left to say or do apart from confront this messed-up family and put the blame squarely at their door. All of their doors. I’ve failed to get hold of Scarlett, and I have no more answers.

 

If they admit it, will that make me feel better?

 

No policeman’s going to arrest anyone for trying to creep someone else out, are they? No, they’re not. Causing someone to try to end their own life, it’s not a crime. Not a punishable one anyway, though I make a mental note to check on the CPS website. I’m pretty sure inciting suicide isn’t a crime – yet.

 

Oh sure, I know the kids are probably blameless in this really. I learnt that in my own therapy: we’re only playing out our parents’ patterns. That’s what we learn; that’s what we grow up with; that’s what we are scarred with and what we repeat.

 

Or in mine and Jeanie’s case, that’s what we try to avoid – so desperately that we make ourselves more unhappy in the meantime, denying ourselves relationships and love.

 

Levi crosses my mind again, and I’m tempted to text him – but I don’t. After all, he told me what he thought when I finished it between us. He was furious, said I was a coward.

 

‘If you never let yourself open up, Marlena, you’ll end up old and alone.’ Normally a pretty cool customer, he was angry and hurt, and I tried to laugh his words off, because it’s always easier to do that, isn’t it? But I felt like he was right.

 

I felt like it was a prophecy likely to come true. Alone forever, if I never let anyone in.

 

I get up to make myself another coffee.

 

When I switch my phone on ten minutes later, it’s flashing with new messages.

 

I read the first text:

 

She said it was for the children’s sake if they got too close to Jeanie.

 

 

 

 

 

Yassine. And he’s talking, I guess, about Kaye. She asked him to lie because of getting too close to Jeanie?

 

There’s a text from Frank saying he’s booked on to a flight at 2 p.m., direct to Birmingham. He’ll go straight to the Royal Derby Hospital he says. There’s a train from the airport; he’s checked.

 

I’ll see him there this evening I say. Spend what you need to.

 

I text three kisses at the end.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I’m downstairs, about to go to Malum House, psyching myself up for the confrontation, for the horror of saying what I need to say before I go back up to Derby and wait it out with my family, my only family, the only family that matters – when my phone rings again.

 

‘Is that Marlena Randall?’ the voice says, a girl – and I realise, with a thumping heart, who it is.

 

‘Yeah,’ I say, adrenaline coursing through my veins. ‘It is. Is that Scarlett? Are you okay?’