31 #4
There was a tick in his jaw at the interruption, “Father found out and demanded I stop seeing her and I did. Truly. But we found out she was pregnant–”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence because at the same time Harley said, “You knew about me this whole time?” Eleanor throws her somewhat empty glass at her husband and it smashes on the floor next to him, only missing him by an inch. Everyone stood up abruptly.
Margaret huffed, “Eleanor, please act like a woman with some class.”
Annabel ran to her mother’s side at once to stop her from jumping over the table. Eleanor looked feral, an untapped amount of anger was vibrating off her.
“It seems throwing things weren't completely off the table,” Anastaia inserted with a nervous chuckle, looking terrified at seeing her mother so out of character.
“No, I wasn’t aware of you because she was supposed to get rid of it,” he sharply said, and everyone gasped at once, taken aback. He shocked himself at how harshly that had come across and pinched his eyes in immediate regret.
“I apologise on her behalf for not doing what you wanted. If it makes you feel any better I raised myself anyways, and I am only here in this city because you ordered it. Don’t worry, I will happily be the orphan you all want me to be.
” Then she left them all in there, letting her tears fall once she was locked inside her own room.
Twenty years of never crying and two months in this city, she had done it far too many times.
She let the knocks on the other side of the door go unanswered, she didn’t let up from her bed which was where she eventually fell asleep.
???
The next morning Harley woke early again, she struggled to get out of bed but she needed to, she was thirsty and hungry, she wondered if she could sneak a toast out of the kitchen.
When she opened her front door, she saw Annabel resting outside her door.
Her head on the wall, still in her clothes from the night before without even a blanket over her.
“Stand up, you’re going to catch a cold.” Harley nudged at her gently, her eyes peeled open slowly but just about.
“Harls, I’m so sorry,” Annabel said groggily, her face downcast. Barely awake, Harley was certain the girl probably thought she was dreaming.
“It’s not your fault. Let’s get you to bed.” Harley replied, then she guided her gently towards her bed and pulled the covers over her. “I love you, no matter what he says. I love you.” Instantly, she fell asleep.
Harley smiled sadly looking at her, then proceeded to do what she had intended to.
However, she was no longer hungry. Especially as she entered the kitchen to see Eleanor; hair down and in robes, clearly still recovering from the night before.
She turned to look at Harley, nary an expression on her face, her cup of tea in hand.
Harley said, “I’m sorry, I’ll come back.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” she gently responded.
Harley opened the fridge and brought out two pieces of bread, her skin prickling with the feeling of eyes on her. Harley was uncomfortable and almost wondered if she should take her bread upstairs without toasting it.
Unexpectedly, Eleanor started talking, “For some time, I struggled to have kids. William and I fought a lot and it affected our marriage. We had only been married two or so years but there were many miscarriages in that time. Too many. I was bedridden afterwards, not wanting to be remotely touched.”
“We stopped sleeping in the same room. He’d come back from work and we just wouldn't speak. I was bedridden for months and months. Then one day, he came home begging for us to be together again and we tried. We learned to remember the love that we had for another. And the result was her, my child. My rainbow baby. It was why I wanted to name her St. Anne, after the patron saint of motherhood. I grew up catholic you see, I loved the church. I could read you the Bible with my eyes closed but after I met William and got married, time at church ceased. Too busy. However, her father was so insistent on the name Annabel, after his grandmother. So we mixed the two. She had my eyes but everything else was her fathers; he was her whole world.”
“Anastasia came without me expecting it. There was a teen mother who had come to the foundation in dire need of help to get out of a domestic violence situation. She died but somehow her baby landed at the front of our building. One look at my Anastasia and I knew she was mine.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I love my kids more than life, but I loved my husband even more. I spent a lot of the time in between Annabel blaming myself, meanwhile he was…” she laughed to herself, almost in a trance. “I have cancer.”
Harley froze at this piece of information. There was no way Annabel knew her mother was dying, “Don’t tell my children, they’ve had enough thrown at them.”
Then she walked out and Harley was left with the ding of the toaster and the rumblings of the water boiling in the kettle coming to an end.