her phone should’ve been Ruth. It should’ve been Ruth coming to rescue her from emotional free-fall.
It wasn’t.
“Why aren’t you answering my texts?”
Laura sighed. “Hi, Hayley.”
“I’m serious. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on with me.” Laura put her phone on speaker, set it on the counter, and picked up a hairbrush. She was certain she’d need to keep her hands occupied during this conversation.
“So why are you ignoring me?”
“Hayley. We spoke this morning. Like, eight hours ago. What more could I possibly have to tell you?”
Her sister gave a derisive snort. “I know you texted Trevor today. You’re always texting him. It’s weird.”
“He’s my father-in-law.”
“Not for long.”
“He’s my baby’s grandpa. And what do you mean not for long?” Her heart leapt. “Has Daniel changed his mind? Is he signing the Acknowledgement?”
She would’ve been divorced months ago, if her husband would accept the fucking petition. But even though he despised her, even though he didn’t want her baby, even though he’d hissed the words at her a thousand times, he refused to sign. Because of him, they had to do things the hard way.
He claimed he didn’t want her taking half of his money. Which was ridiculous, since the money was his father’s anyway.
Hayley’s voice was heavy as a baby’s thrust-out bottom lip and twice as petulant. “How am I supposed to know?”
Laura sighed. “I don’t know. Sorry. It was just the way you said it—”
“Oh, whatever. Look, babe, I think you should come home.”
The hairbrush caught on a particularly tight tangle in Laura’s hair. She winced as it dragged at her scalp. Bump chose that moment to wake up and dance about, which made her feel slightly nauseated, desperate to wee, and kind of comforted, too. “Home?”
“Yeah. Back to Ravenswood.”
Funny, but the word home didn’t command images of the town she’d spent most of her life in. For some reason, when Laura thought of home, she thought of here. The beach house. The kitchen. The table. With Samir sitting—
Okay, that was enough of that.
“I told you,” Laura murmured, easing the brush through her tangled hair. “I’m staying here. It’s relaxing. Anyway, you and Mum will be here in September, right?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Hayley sighed. “I spoke to Mum, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She doesn’t want to come.”
Laura blinked. In the mirror, her reflection’s flat gaze lit up. Her lips spread into a genuine smile. The Laura in the mirror looked happy. Relieved, actually. Laura knew how she felt.
“That’s fine,” she said, trying to sound bravely disappointed as opposed to bloody ecstatic. “I don’t mind. It’ll be just the two of us.” She put down her hairbrush and picked up the phone, taking it off speaker. Presumably, her sister didn’t want to hear the sound of an incredibly long pregnancy-wee. “Actually, I was thinking maybe—and I don’t know if she’d even be okay with this, but maybe—Ruth could come too?”
Silence. Silence that stretched out for so long, Laura started to wonder if the line had gone dead. So long that she’d actually finished on the toilet by the time Hayley spoke in a voice charred and crackling. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Hayley hissed.
Ah. So she wasn’t on board, then.
“You want that bitch to be there when Daniel’s baby is born?”
Laura’s brows shot up. A sick sort of dread began to coalesce low in her gut, like storm clouds forming over the sea. She recognised that dread, the one that sent her skin crawling in fearful anticipation, but she didn’t understand why it was coming now. This was her sister, after all. Just her sister. Hayley might be a brat sometimes, but she wouldn’t hurt Laura. She couldn’t hurt Laura.
“First of all,” she replied, trying to keep her voice calm, “this is not Daniel’s baby. He’s made it very clear that he wants zero involvement. This is my baby.”
Hayley snorted.
Laura talked right over that snort for the sake of her temper. The dismissal made her blood boil. “Secondly,” she said, her voice firmer now, “don’t call Ruth a bitch. Don’t call any woman a bitch.”
“Oh, you’re a feminist now? That’s cute.”
Laura’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”
“You can’t lecture me!” Hayley snapped. The walls of the bathroom, with their old-fashioned, hand-painted tiles; the expensive skincare products Daniel had paid for lined up on the counter—they all seemed to grow larger. And all the while, Laura grew smaller. Her surroundings closed in as she shrank in response to the hate dripping from her sister’s voice.