Page 110 of Darling Girls

Miss Fairchild started crying noisily. But they weren’t tears of realisation for what she’d done, Jessica realised; they were tears of self-pity.

Jessica had had enough.

When she stood to leave, Miss Fairchild’s tears dried in an instant, replaced by icy coldness. Jessica was no stranger to Miss Fairchild’s changing moods, but even so, the speed with which the transformation occurred was chilling.

‘Jessica,’ she said slowly, her gaze settling on her stomach. ‘Are you . . .?’

Jessica paused. ‘Yes. I’m pregnant. Five months along.’

One surprising upside of rehab was how it had brought her closer to Phil. As she was only allowed visitors on a Sunday, and she didn’t have the use of her phone, they found an old-fashioned way of connecting: writing letters. In his letters, Phil told her all the things he’d wanted to say to her through their marriage. That he found it hard to connect with her when she wouldn’t ever stop moving. That he knew she wasn’t okay all those times she insisted she was. That he yearned to have the kind of bond with her that she had with her sisters. In response, Jessica told him things she’d never talked about before – describing her childhood, her addiction, how she was haunted by her innermost thoughts. She explained that her sisters had been her safe place, her family, growing up. She apologised for not widening that circle to include him when they married. And she promised that things would be different when she came home.

By the time she had finished with rehab, they’d said everything they needed to say. They were able to start over. A month later, Jessica was pregnant. And while the prospect of having a baby still terrified her in many ways, she found her terror was balanced by the moments of joy she and Phil experienced. Such as when they’d learned the week before that they were having a baby boy.

Miss Fairchild was still taking it in. It annoyed Jessica that she still felt the yearning. Longing for a reaction to her news from the woman who’d been a mother figure to her. Maybe she would always feel it. But unlike in the past, her reaction wasn’t going to control Jessica. Because she knew now that Miss Fairchild hadn’t been a mother figure. She had been an abuser. And Jessica wasn’t going to be manipulated by her anymore.

‘Were you going to tell me?’ Miss Fairchild demanded.

Jessica turned and walked to the door, gesturing to the guard that she was ready to leave. ‘No,’ she said, ‘Why would I?’

‘Why would you?’ Miss Fairchild blustered. ‘Surely after everything I deserve to –’

The door buzzed and Jessica pulled it open. Miss Fairchild was still talking as Jessica walked out. The click of the door shutting securely behind her felt like a new beginning. One she was finally ready for.

58

NORAH

A YEAR LATER . . .

Norah walked into the pub. It smelled warm and yeasty and the air felt shot through with deep-fryer oil. Larry sat at the bar, nursing half a pint. Behind the bar stood Ishir. Apart from the two of them, the place was empty.

‘I’m back!’ Norah announced.

Larry looked over briefly, then immediately went back to his beer. But Ishir beamed. His moustache rose up at each corner, making him look like a circus ringmaster. Norah had grown to adore the delighted way he greeted her arrival.

‘Where are the dogs?’

‘Already out the back,’ she said. ‘They couldn’t wait to see Banjo.’

‘He missed them,’ Ishir said. ‘It would really be much better if they – and you – were here all the time.’

As he’d warned her, Ishir was terrible at playing it cool. As Larry still hadn’t offered to buy the pub, he’d been stuck in Port Agatha, and he’d been begging her to move there too. Norah was considering it. With her job she could work from anywhere, and the dogs adored it here. She’d also found a kickboxing class in the area that she loved, which really helped channel her difficult emotions. There were a lot of reasons in favour of moving – not the least of which was Ishir.

In the past, she wouldn’t have considered living so far away from Alicia and Jessica, but since her stint in jail she’d realised that it wasn’t impossible. She’d spent eleven days in prison as a result of her assault on Kevin. It could have been a lot longer had Anna not represented her and had the women’s prison not been over capacity. It wasn’t so bad, on the whole. Not dissimilar to Wild Meadows, really, except she hadn’t been locked under the stairs and didn’t have to worry about something happening to her sisters. Jessica would have loved the schedule. Prescribed times for personal hygiene, phone calls and ‘leisure’. The food wasn’t great, but it was only eleven days. Norah had emerged with a clean slate. Four months after leaving prison, it was still clean. And the best part of the whole experience? Thanks to Anna and a female judge, Kevin got four months for extortion, and would never work around children again.

After that, leaving Melbourne didn’t seem so unthinkable. It was only a couple of hours’ drive. And, despite everything that had happened in Port Agatha, she had to admit that there was something about the town that felt like . . . home.

But she hadn’t made any decisions yet.

Ishir poured Larry a fresh pint and placed it on the bar in front of him. Then he lifted the hinge on the counter and came around the bar to kiss Norah. She loved the way his moustache tickled her top lip.

‘Is that your phone,’ he said against her lips, ‘or are you just happy to see me?’

Norah fished her phone out of her pocket.

It was Meera.

‘I have news,’ she said. ‘We found Zara’s parents. Her biological parents.’