by Bowes, K T
Izzie gave a big snort and pushed another piece of the sticky brown-covered bread at her daughter, who seized it with an enthusiastic, “Ooh.”
“Yeah, it’s really invasive Marc, like, much more invasive than hearing you knocking your head on the kitchen doorframe to get my attention because you’ve had another hypo in the middle of the night!” Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but Izzie didn’t give him a chance. “Or even, getting a phone call in the early hours from the church warden who saw lights on and discovered you collapsed in the vestry when you were supposed to be away for the night in Christchurch, or...”
Marcus raised his hand to ask her to stop and smiled knowingly at Hana. “My wife thinks it’s a good idea,” he said sadly, “I can’t be trusted to take care of myself.”
“It’s not just you though, is it?” Izzie appeared to be on a roll now, “It’s me and the children. If we can’t rely on you because you forgot to eat or worse still, thought you could sneak a visit to Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to work and overdosed on glucose, where does that leave us?”
“Quite,” he said under his breath, ever the patient man. Then he strived to change the subject. “That’s an interesting vocabulary your husband possesses isn’t it?”
Hana sat up straight and looked accusingly at Izzie, who went for Marcus again. “That’s right, change the focus onto someone else. Thanks a lot for that!”
She reached over towards Hana in an attempt to take her hand, but Hana backed away from the sticky brown stuff on her fingers. “I’m sorry, Mum, I needed to know what was going on. They’ve all been worried sick!”
Hana narrowed her eyes questioningly at Izzie. “Bo and Logan. They were both at your place. Marcus,” she glared at her husband, “said Logan swore a lot when he said you were here. We didn’t know what to do for the best.”
Hana felt livid. But then she hadn’t explained herself to Izzie so it was probably only natural her inquisitive daughter would track things back to her stepfather. Hana felt the familiar twinge that meant she needed to go to the toilet, but it seemed much better now and so was the backache. She got up and walked out of the kitchen, down to the bathroom and then to the bedroom to retrieve the antibiotics. She returned with them in her hand. Izzie looked tearful, but Marcus was giving himself an insulin shot through his stomach wall. It looked painful but he seemed unconcerned.
“It’s fine,” Hana said grudgingly to the back of Izzie’s head.
“Did you know,” began Marcus, “that eight expletives could make a completely intelligible sentence, as long as the expression in the voice betrays what the person is actually saying?”
“Shut up, Marcus!” Izzie warned.
Hana sighed. Logan must have been really mad with her. A little smile escaped her lips as she skulled the water and pill, looking out of the window onto the spacious street outside. She turned back to the room. “Which swear words then, Mr Smarty-pants?” She eyeballed Marcus, completely straight faced and folded her arms across her chest. He did an impression of mock effrontery.
“Gosh Mother-in-law! Not in front of the children! I’m a man-of-the-cloth, I’ll have you know!”
Hana laughed. “Wimp! God-botherer! Goody-two-shoes!”
Marcus packed his case of medication together and flounced out of the room, leaving Hana and Izzie giggling and Elizabeth joining in, although she had no idea what she was laughing at. Hana waved at her from over by the sink and the little girl squealed with delight and held her arms out. Hana groaned and apologised. “I want to hug you, baby, but I can’t. Not while you’re covered in...that stuff!!!”
The little girl grinned, showing her two beautiful white pearls covered in sticky brown yuk. Hana chased the feeling of vomit back down her throat. It was truly hideous. “Would it be ok if I had a shower?” Hana asked Izzie.
Her daughter smiled and nodded. Hana stroked her daughter’s dark hair as she walked out of the room and determined to enjoy finally being in the same town as her for as long as she could. Hana was just clambering out of the bath, pulling the shower curtain back and lurching for her towel, when there came a knock on the bathroom door. “Hana, you’ve missed a call!” came Marcus’s voice, followed by whispering and shuffling around.
“My phone’s off!” she replied, surprised.
“Erm, not anymore,” Izzie sounded apologetic. “I turned it back on and you’ve got like...loads of texts and stuff and then it started ringing. It was Logan. If he rings again, can I answer it?”
“No!” shouted Hana, dragging the towel firmly round her after trying to dry off her hair. “I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to anyone!”
More whispering.
Hana wrenched the door back in annoyance and stormed out clasping the towel in a knot at her chest. Marcus and Izzie scattered before her but followed her into the bedroom. Elizabeth dangled from her father’s arms. Hana started waving her hands angrily, but then realised it compromised the safety of the towel and stopped, but Izzie had already clouted Marcus around the back of the head and he turned to face the wall. “Mum, we need to talk about this!” Izzie pleaded. “You’ve only been married five minutes and you’ve left him already! If that were me, you would have sent me straight back home and told me to get on with it!”
Marcus turned his head to look at his wife and even from the side Hana could see a faintly hurt expression on his face. “It’s more complicated than me just leaving him,” Hana retorted, ashamed of the whine in her voice. “It’s perspective. He says he loves me and would do anything for me, but the one time I really need him to stay with me and not play the hero, he sneaks off like a...like a...like a...”
“Slapper...gigolo?” Marcus offered helpfully.
Hana let out a groan of exasperation and Izzie slapped him on the back of the head again. He turned back to the wall. “Mum, he loves you. You have to go back home.”
Hana’s mouth dropped open in amazement. “You’re throwing me out?!”
“No!” Izzie stamped her foot, “No, not throwing you out. Just promise that in a few days, you’ll be ready to talk to your husband and you’ll let him take you home?”
Hana screwed her face up in annoyance. She was appalled at her daughter’s stance. So this was loyalty? She stared at the back of her son-in-law’s head and felt sure that she could see his shoulder’s moving. Was he...?
“Are you laughing at me, Marcus?” Hana raged. He snorted and pushed past Izzie to escape into the hallway. Hana held her hands out in front of her in complete disbelief and Izzie smirked too. “Kids!” Hana growled and started pulling her towel off in the hope that Izzie would beat a retreat while she got dressed. She didn’t. Izzie kicked the door closed on the sound of Marcus cooing and squeaking with Beth in their bedroom and threw herself down on Hana’s double bed. It made a sickening twang as she loaded the springs with the weight of herself and her babies and everything else that went with them. Hana rummaged in the suitcase for clean clothes, coming out with a bra and some knickers which she put on as quickly as she could, the knickers proving tricky as it involved dangling them down and trying to hook her feet in. Eventually, she managed it and felt at least half decent.
Izzie lay on her back looking up at the ceiling. “What’s the best thing about Logan, Mum?” she asked innocently.
“He’s really good in bed,” Hana quipped, deliberately out to shock Izzie into shutting up. But she only giggled and made an inappropriate comment for a step-father-daughter relationship. Hana sighed. “Lots of things. Too many to mention. But he’s also incredibly infuriating and has this overwhelming need to solve the world’s problems.” Hana shimmied into her leggings. “And, he walked out the door when I asked him not to. Deliberately!”
She ratched around in the case and pulled out the sweaters she brought with her. One had a stain on it and the other had acquired a big pull in the sleeve. Hana sighed and pulled out the last one. It was Logan’s. It was slightly too big for Hana but she slipped it over her head, sav
ouring her husband’s smell during the moments she was sequestered underneath its voluptuous folds. Then she yanked her head through with determination and pulled it down over her bump.
“Is that the only clothing you brought?” Izzie asked in surprise.
Hana nodded and shrugged. “I never got round to buying any,” she said shyly, “Logan bought me a few...well, I just grabbed these.”
Hana patted the jumper down over her tummy. Izzie shook her head. “I’ve got loads you can borrow. People have been really kind and there’s this great op-shop in town that I go to. I won’t need them in a while.” Izzie tapped her stomach fondly. “Huey and Luey will be out soon I hope.”
Hana plonked down on the bed next to her daughter. “I suppose they will be, won’t they.”
Both women lay back on the bed. It groaned under their combined weight and Hana giggled at the thought of them disappearing through the floorboards. “Like that woman at the school assembly that time, who broke the chair!” Izzie shrieked with laughter.
Hana tried desperately to shush her, not wanting to laugh at someone else’s misfortune but it had been incredibly funny. They sniggered and snorted until the moment had passed and both of them realised they needed the loo.
“Is Logan really good in bed?” Izzie asked mischievously and Hana rolled onto her side and shoved her daughter in the arm. But her eyes sparkled and it set Izzie off squealing again. “Oh my gosh, at your age, that’s terrible.”
She giggled and Hana shoved her again to make her stop, pretending to be upset and offended. “How do you think I got pregnant so quickly?” she asked Izzie, egging her on again and they laughed and giggled for a while longer.
“Mum?” Izzie said, suddenly serious, “I’m so happy for you. Logan’s gorgeous and would walk across broken glass for you. And I know you love him.” She wagged her finger at Hana, much the same way her mother had at her when she was small. Hana’s mood sobered instantly. Izzie stroked Hana’s wet hair back from her face. It was such a tender movement that Hana felt like crying. She lay on her side and rested her hand on Izzie’s babies and was rewarded by a firm kick. “That was Luey,” Izzie said confidently, “Huey’s further down.”
“You can tell who’s who?” Hana asked, “That’s so amazing and incredibly wonderful.”
Izzie nodded. “I’m very blessed,” she said quietly. Hana nodded in agreement.
Before Izzie could go back to the subject of Hana’s marriage, Hana sat up and gently warned her, “I don’t want to talk about things at the moment, Izz. I’m sorry.”
Izzie reached for Hana’s hand again, reassuring her she wouldn’t pry. Hana was grateful. “What can I do to help you?” Hana asked generously, determined to make herself useful while she was there. Izzie shook her head.
“Got it all covered, Mum. Just enjoy being with me?”
Hana smiled and leaned over to kiss Izzie’s forehead, determined to do exactly that.
Du Rose Legacy
Chapter 25
A lady from Marcus’ church turned up with dinner, taking Hana by surprise. The octogenarian bustled in and put things in the oven as though she owned the place and Hana felt jealousy bloom in her chest. “Is that usual?” she whispered to Izzie as they changed Elizabeth’s nappy.
“Oh yeah, Mum. Mrs McLaughlin is from one of the old families from the town and her forefathers started our little church. I admit I struggled at first, but when I discovered I was pregnant again, they all just stepped up and I’ve been so grateful.”
Hana struggled with an inward resentment until she reminded herself that she wasn’t around to do it for them. “I should be grateful someone else is taking care of you, I suppose.” Hana bit her lip and Izzie looked at her curiously.
Hana gave herself an attitude check in the bathroom mirror and came out smiling. She was immediately embraced into the circle and swaddled up as though she belonged there. Shepherd’s pie smells wafted temptingly from the oven, peas boiled on the hob and Beth cooed, dribbled and laughed all over the old lady as though she was a favourite aunty.
“Stay and eat with us,” Marcus urged Mrs McLaughlin. “You made it. Doesn’t seem fair you don’t get to eat it. Here, bring up a chair.”
The woman appeared genuinely pleased, or relieved, Hana couldn’t work out which. Loneliness could be a mean companion. “Oh, call me Peg, Hana,” the elderly lady insisted. The food was delicious and Peg got stuck right in feeding Elizabeth. Izzie wasn’t possessive of her baby, learning to accept helping hands of all shapes and sizes over the last months. It meant she had a very willing and generous circle of congregation members, who not only lightened her heavy load, but also become a tight and necessary friendship group.
Hana answered the questions given to her, raising her eyebrows a few times at Izzie when it seemed as though her own life was already an open book. Izzie smiled sweetly at her and Hana wondered if the women had gotten as far as discussing Hana’s underwear yet. She hoped not. It was all looking a bit tatty under her leggings. Her appetite abandoned her as Peg turned to her and asked, “Is your husband coming down to stay as well? Izzie showed me a picture. She’s quite partial to her stepdaddy, so I hear.”
“Oh, not this time, no. He’s...busy.”
Elizabeth grinned and squished mashed potato sludge out through her tiny teeth. Hana laughed at her, grateful for the distraction and the baby smiled and waved her spoon back towards the sound, letting fly with a globule of mince. It landed in Marcus’s plate and he carried on talking and hoovered it up into his mouth. It made Hana think of Logan with sadness in the pit of her stomach. He would hate the mess of food flying around. She often wondered how he would cope with baby-sick and poo and general child mess. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to and it was a reality she needed to face. He would be forever scrubbing things in his quiet compulsive way with that pained expression on his face. Hana didn’t mind, but wondered if over time it would actually drive her mad.
“Mum?” Izzie’s voice brought Hana back to the table. She had stopped eating, sat rigidly staring over her poised cutlery and her mind drifting elsewhere.
“Sorry, excuse me,” Hana said, scraping back her chair and standing up. “I need to get an antibiotic. I just remembered.”
Hana felt in disgrace at the table full of nice, Christian people and scurried down to her bedroom clutching at the pain in her chest. She was forty-something, pregnant and had run out on her husband of less than six months. “I’ve got harlot scrawled on my forehead in vivid black marker,” she sniffed, sitting on the bed with her head in her hands. She felt ‘judged’ but suspected the only person doing any judging was her. Hana wanted more sleep but it was too early to go to bed and she knew she was just avoiding life. She looked down at her jumper sleeve as she reached onto the dresser for the bottle of pills and thought about Logan’s arm inside it. He lent it to her the first time she visited the Gordonton house. She’d worn it numerous times since. He claimed it back and she stole it again, like a woolly tug of war. Hana put the woolly surface up to her nose and sniffed, trying to catch a sense of her husband, acknowledging the gnawing ache in her gut for him. “What have I done?” she whispered. “Foolish woman. Why do you keep pressing the self-destruct button? Don’t you want to be loved?”
Hana cast her mind back to that day at his rental house like a line seeking fish and found the memory. Her feelings for him had blossomed in her stomach, making her awkward and breathless as Logan handed the jumper to her with his usual careful movements. Even their legs touching on the sofa through their jeans had set her on fire. She knew then she loved him. Hana pressed the sleeve to her forehead and sighed.
“Saw that,” said a gentle male voice and Hana jumped in guilt, looking up to find Marcus standing in the doorway. She put her arm down and made a show of shaking a tablet from the bottle. “I married you both,” Marcus said calmly, leaning on the doorframe as though he had all the time in the world. “I reckoned it was for keeps. I’m not usually wrong.”
There was an unspoken question there and Hana drew in a big breath. “It’s complicated.”
Marcus snorted and looked wiser than his years. “It always is Hana and always will be. It’s not Facebook. You can’t just change your relationship status and walk away.”
“He left!” Hana spat, the anger in her voice surprising even her. “He promised! I wasn’t to drive him away and he wouldn’t leave. And he LEFT! I begged him not to and he did anyway.” Her teeth were gritted and her hands had become fists.
“Is that it?” Marcus asked.
Hana’s head whipped around to face him. He stood so casually, his lanky frame pivoted against the wood, dismissing her catastrophe in three words. Pent up anger threatened to explode from Hana. “Fine!” she announced, a nasty edge in her voice. “So I’ll just pack my things and go then, shall I?”
“Why would you do that?” Marcus asked, his face quizzical.
“Because you just trivialised my whole marriage!”
“No, Hana. You trivialised it.”
“I did not!” She stamped on the floorboards like a child.
“Yeah you did. You said you asked Logan not to go somewhere and he went. I didn’t realise that was the stuff of divorces nowadays. Where’d he go? See a prostitute? Rob a bank? Izzie asks me not to go to fast food joints all the time because of my diabetes, but I do. She yells at me but she doesn’t leave me.”
“I don’t know where he went!” Hana took short, angry breaths and resembled a bull about to charge.
Marcus shrugged, surprisingly unfazed by Hana’s acid stare. She looked down at her hands in misery but he wasn’t finished. “So when something comes up in life which you identify as a ‘deal breaker,’ when he appears to do something which fits a category in your head; this is what you’re going to do, is it? It doesn’t matter what good reason is driving Logan’s logic as the head of your household, because this is the pattern of your life and your marriage?”