Page 56 of Unwell
A cry.
High and piercing.
Alive.
Sitting back onto the cold, hard ground, I gathered the squalling babe against my chest, watching as the thick rope that attached us pulsed from deep purple to white.
‘My baby,’ I whispered through sobs, pulling it tight against me, and kissing its damp head. ‘You’re here.’
THIRTY-THREE
NANCY
Icouldn’t go home.
Not to the silence and his scent filling every inch of the house. Not to the dip in his side of the mattress.
I couldn’t face the reality of his death yet.
Marney told me to take a few days off, but to do what? Mourn the man who impregnated his niece? It was all fucked. The moment Ginny was dragged into the asylum, my world imploded.
The address from Marney’s office pulsed in my head like a heartbeat.
Marsh Ranch. Old Farm Road. Marsh Ranch. Old Farm Road.
Without making a conscious decision to go there, I found myself heading out of town toward the rural areawhere old wooden fences caged farms like rotting skeletons.
Three stops for directions later, and I hoped I was headed the right way. The last farm I’d mistakenly trundled onto ended with me being threatened with a shotgun.
The road dwindled the further I went, narrowing to little more than a dirt track. The hedgerows thinned and trees leaned in over the road like creepy old crones. By the time the house came into view, a deep sense of warning filled me.
The farm sagged against the thick grey sky, all bent and broken. The roofline buckled, slates missing like gapped teeth. Sharp jagged glass filled the lower windows, put through by local children perhaps. Weeds clawed over the porch steps, trying to claim the building back to nature. Fences leaned uselessly, crossbeams flapping in the growing wind.
Ginny had only been in Wellard for a few weeks, but the farm looked like it hadn’t been lived on for years. Had they raised Ginny in a place so full of neglect? And Robert had come here and impregnated her rather than helping her escape the abuse? I swallowed down a mouthful of vomit.
Mud sucked at my wheels as I parked, my shoes squelching as I stepped out. The air hung with the impending storm, already misting my face with water.
There was no resistance when I pulled the door open. It was as if they’d fled in a hurry, leaving it unlocked.
Inside, wallpaper peeled in long ribbons, with water stains spreading over the ceiling. But signs of recent occupancy existed. The electricity remained on, so bills must have been paid in the past few months. Every board groaned under my weight, each creak echoing through the silence. The wall calendar was turned to the current month, dates filled with scratched writing. Unwashed dishes bathed in moulding water, stagnant but not yet evaporated. The smell was old iron and mould.
Furniture sagged with damp, dust coating every surface in the sitting room. On an ancient table photographs lay scattered, their edges stuck together with mildew. I pulled one out.
The photograph trembled as I lifted it.
Robert.
Younger and smirking with his arm slung around another man. His brother I imagined. The resemblance was clear. The same smug tilt of the jaw. The same dark eyes.
My stomach turned to stone.
It wasn’t a lie.
She hadn’t made it up.
I set the photo down, fighting the urge to tear each one into a thousand tiny pieces. The same way they shattered my fucking heart.
The stairs loomed. The creak of the lowest stair made me shudder. The hairs on my arms stood on end, yet I pushed upward.
