The Broken Ones

CHAPTER 5

Hello, everybody. Thank you for your messages of condolence and your prayers. I will hold them close to my heart. I am still grieving, I doubt I shall ever stop. I wrote this chapter, and I forgot for a bit, but when I stopped, the pain returned again.

This chapter may be triggering for some. I channelled my sadness and my pain into it.

Thank you for being here for me.

Yours,

Ashleigh

GWEN

Now

"You," I breathe.

At first, I think: It can't be her.

Kathy.

Kathy, Molly's cousin, who used to babysit Emma on the nights Noah and I went out. Kathy, who babysat Emma the weekend I went to the art exhibition in London. Kathy, who came to babysit for us when Emma was just a baby. Kathy, whom I had trusted. Kathy, who is looking at me with shame on her face and guilt in her eyes.

"Gwen, I --- "

Finally I am able to breathe, gulping, like a swimmer breaking through the surface of the water.

"I trusted you," I whisper. "I trusted my daughter with you. And this is how you repay my trust? You, you ... strumpet ---"

I hear her sharp intake of breath, but I don't stop to look at her. I am already reaching for my bag, turning around, hurrying down the grassy path.

I move with rapid, almost noiseless steps, one hand clutching the straps of my bag, the other pressed against my stomach.

"Gwen," Noah says behind me.

I move faster, though I don't run. I can't manage the proper functioning of my limbs. I wish I could run. I wish I could run forever.

A cluster of garden gnomes painted in blazing greens, reds, and yellows gaze at me, all solemn-like, as I plough past blindly.

"Gwen, you're pregnant" --- pleading ---- "will you stop please."

I stop, and turn toward him. I stand still, my heart thumping in my breast, the prick of tears behind my eyes.

He freezes, standing in the middle of the path. A thick mist has rolled in from the sea, obscuring Noah so that he appears blurry, less defined.

And ---

---- rage grips me by the throat.

It rises, swells, rushes, a boulder flung from a catapult; slams me, wallops my entire being, flays me alive. Molten white swarms my eyes, pools there, thick and deep. My mouth opens like a window. Wind whips into it --- and I shriek, my body rippling with the force of my rage, my hate:

"Bastard!"

"Gwen, for God's sake, you are pregnant," he says hoarsely, moving toward me.

I raise my hand, stopping him in his tracks. "Don't come near me. Don't speak to me. Never, ever, speak to me."

I turn my back on him, this useless man, this man made of mist.

I walk on, and then I find myself running. I have remembered how to run, could instruct my legs to do this once again. I run blindly, beads of water clinging to my clothes and my hair.

The headlights show first and then a white van crawls out of the fog, pulling up a little way past me. The door opens and an elderly woman gets off. She looks at me, shivering in my coat and sandals.