Page 64 of Darling Girls

She glanced around the room. There was a full-length mirror in one corner of her room that would do nicely, she decided. The lighting in the room wasn’t great, but she had to work with what was on hand. She stripped off her clothes and arranged herself on the floor with her knees angled just so. It was quite arty, really. She probably could have submitted it to a magazine. It was certainly good enough to get an assault complaint dropped.

She attached the photo to a text and wrote:

I made my clothes go away. Now make the charges do the same.

She pressed send then threw the phone across the room, knocking a lamp off the bedside table and sending it crashing to the floor.Fuck you, Kevin, she thought.

‘Everything okay?’ Alicia called from the next room.

‘Fine,’ she called back.

She didn’t see the point of involving her sisters in this. They had enough to worry about.

29

JESSICA

Even before she got into bed, Jessica knew she wouldn’t fall asleep that night. The bones belonged to a child. Maybe even a baby. Ababy.

This changes everything, Alicia had said. Jessica had always found it difficult to think about her upbringing at Wild Meadows, and there was no question that this new piece of information – that a baby had been buried under the house – made it infinitely more difficult. But Alicia was wrong when she said it changed everything. It wasn’t possible. There had to be another explanation for what happened to this child or baby. One that had nothing to do with them.

Jessica pottered about the bedroom, trying her best to re-create her home routine – showering, brushing her teeth, taking her Lexapro and melatonin, washing her face – hoping to convince her body that it was time to sleep. But of course, her body was too clever. If anything, it was insulted by her pathetic attempts and more determined to stay awake. Norah, judging by the snoring sound that travelled through the wall, wasn’t having the same trouble. As for Alicia, who knew?

Jessica was concerned about her. It had been so shocking to see her cry. For as long as Jessica had known her – or since her grandmother had died, at least – Alicia had kept her emotions so tightly contained that even she couldn’t access them, let alone express them outwardly. It had always troubled Jessica. Norah’s troubles were right out there for everyone to see. Alicia’s troubles were better hidden but just as serious. Jessica needed to keep an eye on her. If she started to spiral, Jessica wanted to be on hand.

On the bedside table, her phone lit up with a voicemail message and Jessica lunged for it, desperate for something to distract her from her worries.

But sadly, the message just brought more worries.

‘Jessica, it’s Cate McDonald. Can you call me ASAP? I’ve just had a conversation with Debbie Montgomery-Squires and–’

Jessica ended the message and swore out loud. Could she sue Debbie for defamation? Although Jessica was pretty sure you had to prove the person was spreading lies about you, and Jessica wasn’t sure she’d be able to do that. She scrolled through her phone in search of her lawyer’s details and fired off an email, cc-ing Sonja. As soon as she heard back, she’d decide how to handle this.

Until then, she was alone with her shame.

Jessica was no stranger to pain, but shame was its own specific brand of agony. Something about its assertion that all of your worst fears about yourself were true, its unrelenting focus on your negative qualities. Thankfully, Jessica had ways of dealing with shame. She tipped two of them out of a bottle and into her hand, and then, after a moment’s consideration, tipped out another two. Everything would be better after a good night’s sleep, she reminded herself. She swallowed the pills and waited for peace to descend.

30

NORAH

Norah stood outside the cottage watching the dogs bound across the grass, pissing on cars and digging up garden beds. She hadn’t heard back from Kevin since sending the photo – he hadn’t even double-tapped on it. She assumed this was a good thing; perhaps he was going to wait until he’d spoken to the cops and got the complaint dropped before replying? Still, she would have preferred it if he’d confirmed receipt.

‘Is Jessica still not ready?’ Alicia called. She was standing by the car, having already been to reception to check them out.

‘Nope,’ Norah replied.

Alicia looked perplexed. ‘Is she ill?’

‘That’s whatIsaid!’

Jessica had slept through her alarm, which never happened. Usually, she and Alicia gave her hell for evensettingan alarm, since her body clock was more reliable than anything Steve Jobs could create, but this morning, after listening to her alarm beeping for several minutes from the next room, Norah sent the dogs in to rouse her. Jessica had complained bitterly about Thong’s morning breath, but then a few seconds later she’d gone back to sleep.

‘Are you ill?’ Norah had demanded when she went in herself a few minutes later.

Jessica didn’t have a fever, or a cough, or a sore throat. She was just tired, she said. A reasonable excuse, and one Norah might have accepted from anyone else, but Jessica didn’t get tired. She was wound up too tight to get tired.

‘Sorry!’ Jessica said breathlessly, stumbling out of the cottage. She unlocked the car. ‘What did I miss?’