Chapter 7
Mila
I’m not sure what the time is when something wakes me. After two nights in Frankie’s bed, sandwiched between him and Sam, it takes me a minute to get my bearings. I remain still for a long moment, listening for Logan’s snores and feeling for the heat from his body, but there’s nothing.
Opening my eyes, I notice a light shining in our walk-in robe and realise it was the sound of hangers sliding along the rails that woke me. Turning my head, I check that Logan’s definitely not beside me, then slide silently from beneath the doona.
Quietly, I move to the opening to my wardrobe and peer around the corner to see what’s going on. For five whole minutes, I stand there transfixed as I watch my husband use the torch on his phone to search the pockets of my clothes before moving on to my shoes. He takes each one individually off the carousel and tips it upside down. Next are my bags, which he opens, then searches through.
I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but I’m grateful the bank card I use for my secret stash, along with my contraceptive pills, are hidden where they always are when I sleep, slid between the mattress and the timber bed frame. The first thing I do every morning when I wake is move them. If Logan’s still home, they go into my UGGs. If he’s already left, they go back into the pack of sanitising wipes, all ready to leave the house when I do.
I watch on in fascinated horror as he moves to my underwear drawer, where he not only searches, but picks up a couple of pairs of my knickers, turns them inside out, inspects the crotch, then sniffs them.
With my mouth hanging open, I back away and climb back into bed. My racing heart has only just started to calm when the light from the wardrobe goes out. I close my eyes, attempt to relax my muscles, and even out my breathing.
He’s close. I daren’t open my eyes, but I can sense his presence, smell his aftershave, and hear him breathing. It takes everything in me not to recoil when the heat of his breath comes closer, and then I almost stop breathing as he sniffs my fucking hair. After running his nose all over my head, he picks up a strand, but I can’t tell what it is he’s doing with it.
When he moves away and I finally hear the shower run, I let out a breath. What the fuck? He’s obviously suspicious. I knew he was the instant I saw him at my mum’s. I wonder if this is the first time he’s searched through my things. Probably not. If he has a tag on my car and a tracker on my phone, it stands to reason he’d be searching through my belongings looking for God knows what.
Evidence that I have a secret bank account set up with the help of my sister, in her daughter’s name, with a few thousand dollars in?
The contraceptive pills I’m still secretly taking, because the last thing I need is to fall pregnant and not know who the father is?
Which leads to the next possibility: something indicating I spent the weekend receiving the best dick of my entire fucking life from two of the hottest men in Australia, or even the world, maybe?
Should I be pissed off by all of this? How can I be when I’m doing all the things he probably suspects me of doing? But I wasn’t until this weekend, except for the pills and bank account that is, but doesn’t every woman have a secret stash? Maybe I’m more like my husband than I care to admit, and that doesn’t sit well with me.
My overriding feeling, though, is one of elation that I had the foresight to shower and wash my hair at our Melbourne apartment, and to wash and dry my clothes, removing any trace of Frankie and Sam, and that I brought my bank card to bed with me.
With a contented smile on my face, I fall asleep before my husband even finishes his shower.
When I wakein the morning, it’s to an empty bed. Checking my phone, I see that it’s only six-thirty. I’m ravenous. If I go downstairs now, everyone will be there, and Logan is unlikely to confront me about being seen in public wearing UGGs and my damp hair. Or I could lay here until he leaves, but that’ll give me time to overthink. Also, what if he waits or comes back up here to have it out with me?
Getting up, I retrieve my stashed items and take them with me to the bathroom. Once I’ve done what I need to do—washed my face and cleaned my teeth—I pause and take in my reflection. I look the same, with no shame or guilt to be found anywhere on my face. I’m about to leave, but I pause when my eyes land on my toiletry drawer that’s been left slightly open. Pulling it all the way out, I can see Logan has obviously searched through here, too.
I go through the other drawers on my side of the vanity, as well as my recessed mirror—everything has been searched. I’m still confused as to what it is he’s been looking for, but when I notice a pot of ibuprofen laying on its side, I have an idea.
I don’t know what makes me do it, but I empty out the pills, pop my contraceptives from their pack, put them into the pot, then put the ibuprofen back in the pot, and put the childproof lid back on. I take the pot to my wardrobe and put it in the side zipper of my favourite Michael Kors bag—the one I use every day. I then grab a pair of socks from the drawer, pop my bank card inside one of them, pull them on, then put on my UGGs.
I’ve never done things this way—this isn’t my usual morning routine—and I can’t explain why I’ve done it today, but after witnessing what he did last night, I just have a feeling in my gut that today isn’t going to be an ordinary day.
“Morning.”I smile and greet my husband as I enter the kitchen. Kissing his head as I pass, I move towards the coffee machine. “Morning, everyone,” I say without making eye contact with the other four people in the room.
Logan and his parents are all sitting at the long Tassie oak dining table, which, according to legend, is as old as the house. Is it wrong that, as I pop my coffee pod into the machine, I have visions of Frankie and Sam fucking me in all kinds of ways on that table? The knot of dread currently occupying my stomach is momentarily replaced with all manner of flapping things as that image runs through my head, but only momentarily.
Ella is on a stool at the kitchen island. Next to her is her ‘friend’ Marcie, who must’ve stayed over last night… again! I’m not sure if Logan, Nora, and Scott have chosen to ignore the glaringly obvious fact Ella is gay, or if they’re so consumed with their own lives, they’ve failed to notice.
“Hey, Cie,” I say over my shoulder as hot water pumps through the pod I’ve placed in the machine and fills my cup with dark liquid.
Like Frankie’s place, this kitchen is fitted out with a state-of-the-art coffee machine, but unless Margie, the housekeeper, is here early and making them, I really can’t be bothered.
“Morning, Mils. Hear you tried fighting a roo last night on the Yira road?” Marcie says.
“You know me, Cie. I don’t like fighting anyone, but that bloody thing came out of nowhere and chose violence. If I’d done the same, I would’ve just hit him. Instead, I swerved and let him live but ended up in the drainage channel.”
“You okay, though?” Marcie asks as I turn and face the room, with everyone except Nora, who’s transfixed on her glass of OJ, staring my way.
“I’m okay, just shook me up at the time. Thank you for asking.” I slice my eyes between Logan and Scott, and they both look away.
“Car okay?” Ella asks.
“Best ask your dad. He drove it home?—”
“Car’s fine,” Scott interrupts. “Would’ve been fine if she’d just hit the thing and not swerved off the road and bogged it in the mud. But not her. Princess Mila ain’t made for country life. Worries too much about the vermin.”
“Actually,” Marcie interjects, “roos are indigenous, not vermin.”
“So are…” Scott catches himself before continuing with the racist comment he was undoubtedly about to make.
Marcie’s dark eyes come to mine. Equally aware, she gives a small head shake. Like many of the workers at the olive farm and in the transportation side of the business, Marcie descends from our first nations people. Her tribe having been here for around forty thousand years garners no respect from Scott. She’s been ‘friends’ with Ella for years, and like me, a victim of Scott’s derogatory remarks about our race, heritage, and ethnicity for just as long. Logan and Ella both make the excuse that he’s ‘just old school.’ As much as I love Ella—despite the calculated reasons on my part for becoming her friend, I have grown to love her—I wish she’d get her arse out of the closet and tell her dad that not only is she gay, but that her girlfriend is indigenous, and I really, really, hope I’m around to witness that day.
“So are who, Dad?” Ella surprises me by asking, and I wonder if today might be that day.
“The mozzies. Aren’t they native or whatever the woke word is to use nowadays?” He uses air quotes when saying native. “We have no issue killing them, spraying them, splatting them…” He trails off, apparently running out of words to add to his blatant lie.
“That’s not what you were gonna say, and we all know it.”
All eyes are now on Ella. Even Nora has looked up from her orange juice, which we all know is three quarters diluted with Grey Goose.
“El,” Marcie whispers, reaching out and touching Ella’s arm.
“No, Cie. I’m sick of it. Sick of him and his bullying. Just because Mila’s not been here to pick on all weekend, he’s been on your case instead.”
“What’s she on about?” Nora questions, and I feel like I’ve woken up and wandered into some alternate version of our kitchen. Since when did Ella stand up to her dad like this?
“I heard you heard you on the phone to Logan…”
My eyes slide to my husband’s, and his slide from mine to his sister, then to his dad. Scott stands so abruptly, his chair falls back and hits the tiled floor.
“Enough!” he roars. “You will shut your fucking mouth, and you will show some fucking respect.”
“Respect? You?” Ella says no more before Scott has his hand around her throat and lifts her from her stool. I move, Logan moves, and Marcie throws a punch that hits Scott square on the nose. He staggers back but doesn’t release his grip on Ella. I grab at his hand and attempt to bend his fingers away from her neck, but he backhands me with his free hand and sends me flying across the kitchen. I hit my head against the corner of a cabinet before hitting the floor.
After a flash of white light in front of my eyes, everything goes black for a few seconds, and I feel myself go limp. I fight whatever is trying to pull me under and open my eyes, but my arms and legs are still immobile. Logan appears to be moving in slow motion, and I assume he’s about to help his sister. Instead, when everything comes into focus, he’s rolling around on the floor having an actual fist fight with Marcie.
I’ve seen Marcie fight boys before, but that’s when we were kids. She’s no match in size or strength for Logan now.
“Get that dyke cunt out of here now!” Scott bellows as I watch from the floor, blood dripping from my nose, when Logan marches past me.
He has a grip on Marcie’s hair, with his hand over her mouth as she struggles against him. I’m too stunned and still seeing too many stars to be able to respond. I just watch on while wiping the blood from my nose and a cut at the corner of my eye as Nora picks up her drink and leaves the room. Scott soon picks up Ella in much the same way Logan picked up Marcie, and he, too, leaves the room.
I sit in stunned silence for at least ten minutes, expecting someone to return at some stage, but they don’t. I attempt to stand, but pain shoots through my wrist when I put weight on it, and I instantly feel like I’m about to vomit.
I close my eyes, but that just makes my head spin more. When I sense movement, I open them to see Logan standing looking down at me.
“What the fuck? What the fuck just happened?” I sob, my entire body starting to shake as shock sets in.
He squats in front of me, and I flinch as he moves my hair from the cut at the side of my eye.
“You should’ve stayed out of it. It’s not your place to be getting involved. Ella’s sick.
We’ve known for a while now, but she’s refused to accept our help. Marcie’s been getting in her head, telling her things, convincing her…” He trails off as his blue eyes dart over my face. “I’m sorry you got hurt, but you shouldn’t have got in the way.”
“Where are they? Where have they gone?”
“I got a couple of the boys to take Marcie home. Dad’s taken Ella to see a doctor to get her some help.”
“I don’t understand. Ella’s sick?” I ask in confusion.
“In the head. Ella’s got some mental health issues.”
My stomach drops. “No, no. Ella’s not sick.”
“Listen to me, Mila. You don’t know what’s been going on. We kept it from you. She’s not right, and Marcie’s been filling her head with all kinds of shit, and because she’s not well, Ella’s believing her nonsense.”
They know. They know she’s gay and this is how they’re dealing with it. I don’t have the capacity to think clearly enough, but I know I have to do something to help. If it’s possible, Scott will have Ella sectioned rather than let anyone find out his daughter’s gay. It’s the same reason Logan won’t come with me to the fertility doctor, because heaven forbid anyone in the town finds out a son of Scott Walsh can’t get his wife knocked up.
I feel weak and useless. I want to fight him, to scream, to demand he tells me where the girls have gone, but I’m bleeding from my nose, have a cut at my eye, a possible concussion, and I definitely have a broken wrist.
“I think my wrist is broken,” I whisper through my tears, feeling like an absolute fucking coward. Right now, I’ve let the girls down, but I need to get myself fixed up before I can regroup and help them out. How the fuck I’m going to do that, I have no idea.
Frankie and Sam instantly spring to mind. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I need to make another trip to the city. I need to see them. I need to escape the craziness that my once boring life has suddenly become.
“I’ll make some calls and see if we can get someone out here to get you fixed up.”
“It’s broken, I need to go to hospital.”
“No. Fuck, no. They’ll ask questions, then what? You gonna tell them what happened?”
“No, of course not,” I cry out as he squeezes my jaw between his thumb and index finger. “I’ll lie. I’ll tell them I fell, slipped over in the kitchen, hit my head on the cupboard, and landed on my wrist. I wouldn’t get your dad into trouble. I wouldn’t do that, I promise.” I do want my visit on record, though, just in case I need my injuries officially recorded for backup one day.
With his eyes darting all over my face, Logan lets out a long sigh. “Let’s get that blood cleaned off your face and I’ll take you to the hospital. But I’m warning you, Mila, one word out of place, and your mother is out of Saint McCarten’s.”
One last tear rolls down my cheek. I swipe it away with my good hand. “I swear to you, Logan, I won’t say a word to anyone,” I lie.
Logan takesme to our nearest private hospital with an emergency department, which is over two hours out of town. After X-rays and a CT scan, it’s confirmed I have two fractures in my wrist, a mild concussion, and I need a couple of stitches in the cut at the corner of my eye. Thankfully, there’s a plastic surgeon on site who’s able to do the stitches, which are so tiny they’re barely visible. After checking over the images of my wrist, the orthopaedic specialist decides I don’t need surgery. So, after having a made-to-measure cast fitted, I’m free to go.
It’s just after two in the afternoon, and we’re closer to our city apartment than we are to home. I have my phone and wallet with me, so I hit on an idea.
Leaning into Logan as we walk back to the car, I let out a loud yawn. “What a day. Shame we didn’t bring an overnight bag. We’re closer to the city than home. We could’ve stayed at the apartment for the night rather than driving all the way back.”
After unlocking the door and helping me into the car, Logan climbs in next to me. “I don’t know how long it’s gonna take Dad to get Ella the help she needs. I have to go back and keep an eye on things, but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to drop you there. Maybe you could stay a while, spend some time with your mum, just until your face heals.”
He says all of this despite the hospital telling him I’m not to be left alone tonight because of the concussion, but I don’t remind him.
“Have you got stuff at the apartment? You’ve got toiletries, right? And spare clothes?” he questions. He wants me out the way and my injuries hidden so no one asks questions, and I’m more than happy to be gone. It means that, for now, I’m going to be no help to Ella, but there’s not much I’ll be able to do under the scrutiny of Logan and Scott if I go back to the house, either.
“Yeah, I have everything I need there, and I can do an online shop soon for groceries and anything else I need.”
“Maybe I could…”
“I also can’t drive with this wrist. If I go home, I’m going to have to get someone to drive me everywhere…” I interrupt whatever he was about to say, just to add another reason to keep me hidden. He’ll hate someone else driving me around, me being alone, going out places with someone in a car—a car he can’t track.
“If you’re sure you’re going to be okay, I’ll drop you at the apartment and head home.”
“I’m fine with it. Go home and help your dad with whatever crisis is going on there. I’m sure he needs you more than I do.”
He doesn’t even bother comingin; he just drops me across the road from the apartment building and drives off before I’ve even safely crossed to the other side.
My jaw’s clenched so tightly as I ride up in the lift, I’m giving myself a headache on top of the headache I already have. Once I let myself in, I make my way to the sofa and sit on the edge as I consider the day’s events. My father–in–law is a vile human, and my husband one hundred percent condones his behaviour. Until today, I was prepared to put up with their controlling, narcissistic, misogynistic behaviour. As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve learned to ignore Scott’s constant, racist comments about me, and I shouldn’t have. Maybe if I’d have called him out more often, he wouldn’t have gotten so comfortable doing it. And where was my husband during all of this? Just standing around doing nothing.
Even today, watching his dad put his hands on his sister the way he did, and putting his hands on me, his wife, he still backed his father and blamed us.
Until this moment, I thought I was prepared to put up with anything to maintain the lifestyle I’ve schemed and plotted to achieve. Living out my fantasies with Frankie and Sam was supposed to be my last hurrah before becoming the wife my husband wanted me to be. I was going to give him the children he’s so desperate for. Now? Fuck that! I could never, would never bring children into their toxic world. I need to get out.
After today, I don’t care if I walk away with nothing. I’m well aware my calculating life choices have led me here. I’ve plotted and schemed to get where I am now, but the only person I really hurt along the way was poor Alice. Although, right now, I think I might’ve saved her from a life of utter misery.
I know many would be repulsed by what I did with Frankie and Sam last week, but honestly, I have zero regrets, and if my life is about to take the downward slope I’m expecting it to if I attempt to leave Logan, then I’m fucking ecstatic I did what I did.
There were so many times as a kid that I’d lie in my bed, cold, hungry, and scared, but even then, I don’t think I felt as alone as I do right now.
I don’t care about me. I’ll get a job waitressing, cleaning, anything, but that won’t give me the income I’ll need to keep my mum at Saint McCarten’s, or at any facility. And how do I hold down a job and look after my mum at the same time? I’ve always considered myself a strong woman. My childhood set me up to be that or die. I feel emotion, but I’ve been conditioned over the years to hide it, so I’m not a crier, but as the weights of helplessness and hopelessness press down on me, I sit alone in a two-million-dollar apartment that will never be mine, and I cry.
I allow myself five minutes to wallow in my self-pity before I start looking at jobs on my phone, then I start looking at rental properties and, once again, I become overwhelmed with not only the lack of availability, but the costs involved.
Eventually, I set my phone down, and take a shower. The custom-made cast has Velcro straps around it, making it easy to remove while I wash, I just have to remember to keep my wrist completely immobile. Once I’m done and changed into my pyjamas, I feel a lot better.
Picking up my phone, I scroll to Sam Franks in my contacts. This is where I have both Frankie and Sam’s numbers stored. My now justified paranoia had me leaving my backup phone at Frankie’s place, so I stored the numbers under a fake name. These numbers are also for backup phones. The only people who have them are the three of us. I try both of them, but neither pick up, and the hollowness in my heart and the pit of my stomach intensifies.
To occupy my overthinking brain, I use a delivery app and order some groceries to get me through the next few days. While waiting for them to arrive, I try Ella and Marcie’s numbers. They both go to voicemail, so I try Frankie and Sam again, and they both ring out.
My delivery arrives, and I make myself a herbal tea and some buttered sourdough toast. Switching on the television, I put on a mindless reality show, but my sleepy time berry tea does its job, and within an hour, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. So, I take myself off to bed, no one returns my calls, and my husband doesn’t bother to check in and make sure I’m okay. Despite this, and the general state of my life, I somehow fall asleep almost instantly.