Chapter 47
TARA
I was nervous for Jed all Thursday evening, wondering how the conversation with Ingrid was going.
When he rang me from his car to tell me the good news, I screamed with excitement, startling Hercules.
It sounded like Ingrid had done a lot of soul searching recently and was finally making decisions in the best interests of her children. Long may it continue.
With Aaron being away on a school trip and Zoe now settled in the flat above the gallery, Jed was staying over tonight. I’d been so looking forward to the alone time and now we had an extra reason to celebrate.
‘I’ll crack open a bottle of wine and you can tell me all the details when you get here. I’m so happy for you and for Aaron. This is brilliant news.’
Jed and I had only just sat down with our wine when Mum rang.
‘We’re outside,’ she said. ‘Can we come up? It’s important.’
‘Okay. I’ll be down in a second.’
‘We’re sorry for not ringing you first,’ Dad said as soon as I opened the door. ‘We’ve got news that you’re going to want to hear.’
I warned them that Jed was with me and they said he should hear it too. A few minutes later, the four of us were settled round the dining table.
‘You were right about Leanne,’ Dad said. ‘She wasn’t pregnant.’
I winced. ‘I didn’t want to be right. I’m so sorry. Was it about the money?’
‘It’s always about the money,’ he said. ‘And we were foolish enough to fall for her lies again.’
‘I was foolish enough,’ Mum corrected him.
‘It was me too,’ he said. ‘You can’t take all the blame.’
Leanne hadn’t said anything to give them any doubts – seemed to be a changed woman, really helpful, no mention of wanting money. But there’d been a red flag when they showed her around Whispering Winds.
‘She’d liked a particular bedroom and made a joke about it being the perfect room for her,’ Mum said.
‘Your dad asked her where the baby would sleep and she said, without missing a beat, at the other end of the corridor so I can’t hear it screaming.
She must have clocked our shocked expressions because she immediately said it was a joke and she was sorry because she realised it wasn’t a funny one and, of course it – the baby – would be in the room next door, not that it mattered because it was our house and she wouldn’t be living there. ’
Neither of them had thought much more about it until they received my shocking email which got them questioning whether Leanne was capable of being honest with them.
Suddenly little things she’d said or done appeared out of place, in particular the comment in Whispering Winds and how it seemed like the sort of thing the Leanne of old would have said – the one who hated kids.
It also struck them that she’d twice referred to the baby as it when she’d told them she was expecting a boy.
‘We remembered her flicking through a baby magazine one day,’ Dad said.
‘She was shocked by how much stuff babies needed and kept whistling at the cost of some of the items advertised. She never asked for financial help but, looking back, we think she was either laying the foundations for it or perhaps hoping we’d volunteer some funds. ’
‘She often disappeared to take phone calls,’ Mum said.
‘She told us they were from Krystal checking up on her. We’d met Krystal and she’d said she’d regularly check in so we thought nothing of it but your dad distinctly heard Leanne calling someone “babe” and she’s not the sort who calls her female friends that. ’
When Leanne returned from her friend’s house yesterday, they’d decided to give her the opportunity to come clean about me so they broached the subject by saying how sad it was that I wouldn’t get to be an auntie to Leanne’s baby.
Leanne had merely shrugged and said she thought it was harsh that I wouldn’t forgive her for setting her up with Garth.
She’d seen the chemistry between us and she’d believed the marriage would work if I’d given it half a chance.
‘We asked her if there was anything else she’d done to make you so adamant that you never wanted to see her again,’ Dad said.
‘Her response was that you’d always been jealous of her because she was the real daughter and you were the fake.
It felt like we were seeing the real Leanne emerging in a lapse of concentration because she quickly corrected herself, saying they were your words, not hers. ’
‘She said she could feel a migraine starting and she needed an early night,’ Mum said.
‘You have to bear in mind that, at this point, we knew she was lying about you and we knew she was up to something but we still believed she was pregnant. We’d even heard her being sick so we needed to tread carefully, thinking there was a baby involved but, as we talked that night, the doubts set in about that too. ’
Dad nodded. ‘This morning, we mooted the idea of a 4D scan but Leanne dismissed it and got really agitated when your mum pushed it. She said she didn’t want another scan and could we just let it go?
Claiming another bout of morning sickness, she went up to her room.
We weren’t sure what to do next. Maybe we needed to just come out with it and tell her we’d found out what she’d done to you and demand to know what she was doing to us all now. ’
‘I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water,’ Mum said, ‘and the strangest thing happened. A bird flew straight into the window, scaring the life out of me. I rushed out to see if it was all right. Poor thing had knocked itself out so I scooped it up and I heard someone talking. I glanced up at Leanne’s bedroom window and there she was, pacing up and down talking to someone on her phone and her stomach was flat.
She was definitely not pregnant. I dashed back inside before she could see me, still holding this bird in my hands, and told your dad. ’
Dad picked up the story. ‘We couldn’t barge into her room in case she was undressing so we were back to confronting her and were still debating what to say when she came downstairs looking pregnant again.
Your mum managed to think on her feet, shoved the bird at me, poured a glass of orange juice and went over to Leanne with it.
She faked a trip and poured the juice over her and grabbed for her top saying she’d need to treat the stain immediately.
And that’s when we saw what she was wearing – one of those weighted body suits that make women look pregnant. ’
‘Oh no! Oh, my God! That’s awful.’
‘She didn’t even try to deny it,’ Mum said. ‘Not that she could. It’s not what it looks like wouldn’t have cut it. She simply glared at us and said, what did you expect when you cut me off? I need money. You owe me.’
So now she was gone, leaving them heartbroken and full of apologies that they hadn’t heeded my warnings and had hurt me by stirring up painful memories.
I was glad that it had happened because they now knew the full truth about what Leanne did and what she was really capable of, but I was so sorry that they’d been hurt yet again by her.
They were such kind people and they didn’t deserve to have anyone – especially their own daughter – treat them with such cruelty.
Perhaps if I’d been braver and told them sooner, this could have been avoided.
But I refused to go down the route of blaming myself about any of this. It was all Leanne’s doing.
A weighted body suit? I should have known.
That leopard’s spots hadn’t changed – they’d multiplied instead.
Now wasn’t the time to discuss the idea of reporting Leanne to the police – not after what they’d just been through – but I would have that conversation with them when the dust had settled and we’d decide what to do together.
Did I want to see Leanne punished or did I just want her out of all our lives for good?
My gut told me it was the latter and, as she’d just burned her final bridge with Mum and Dad, perhaps it was finally over.