She had struggled to deal with her own emotions regarding Tom. She’d always thought him too old for Jade, but as her daughter was besotted, she’d kept quiet.
Suddenly all the family days where Tom hadn’t featured had made sense. Christmas. Easter. Even, occasionally, Jade’s birthday. Ginnie had understood Tom to be divorced. A doting father who’d always put his sons first. Not that she’d ever met Scott and Daniel. She’d been just as foolish as Jade believing the reasons for why his boys had never been introduced, primarily due to an uncompromising ex-wife making access difficult. The man had duped them all, and Ginnie was reeling.
‘I can’t… I’m struggling to believe this. Tom seemed so... normal.’
‘Married men are normal. Dad’s married. Isn’t he normal?’
Ginnie had stared at her daughter. It had been an appraising look. One that was filtering through possibilities. As realisation had dawned, her face had contorted, and she’d rounded on Jade in fury.
‘Did you know he was married?’ she demanded.
Jade had hesitated, a lie poised on the tip of her tongue, but then her shoulders had sagged. The last ten years had been full of lies. She didn’t want to add to them.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ her mother shrieked.
Ginnie couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so angry. She wanted to rage. Scream at Tom. Rant at Jade.
‘Is this how Dad and I brought you up? To be a marriage wrecker?’
‘I’m not a marriage wrecker,’ said Jade defiantly. ‘He stayed with his wife, didn’t he? She’s the one who has upped and left. Not him.’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ Ginnie shouted.
‘He said he only endured staying married for as long as he did because Deanna was off her rocker and he was worried about their boys.’
Jade had hoped for some sympathy. A hug. A few kind words. Instead, her own mother was pointing the finger, and she didn’t like it.
‘This isn’t all my fault, you know,’ Jade protested. ‘Tom was trapped. He intimated Deanna might do something crazy.’
‘Like kill herself?’ Ginnie yelled. ‘That’s one of the oldest excuses in the book.’
‘WELL I BLOODY FELL FOR IT!’ Jade screamed, before dissolving into tears.
‘Girls… girls… stop shouting,’ said Arthur Ferguson, coming into the kitchen.
Alerted by raised voices, he’d overheard Jade’s confession about Tom being married. In his late fifties, Arthur was always calm. He was the antithesis to Ginnie’s feistiness. His was the voice of reason when Ginnie was in fret mode.
However, right now he was worried too. He’d seen the scabs over his daughter’s arms. Jade had been blaming Rookie, the family’s docile cat.
‘I heard what you were arguing about,’ said Arthur, looking at Jade with sadness. ‘But rowing with each other won’t resolve anything.’
‘I’m just so appalled,’ said Ginnie, eyes welling. ‘I feel betrayed.’
Jade had rolled her eyes. Her mother felt betrayed? Huh, what about her?
‘And I’m livid with Tom,’ Ginnie continued, the tears now falling. ‘I’m so angry at his deception, not to mention disappointed in you, Jade.’ She gave her daughter an injured look. ‘Bitterly disappointed.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Jade spat, swiping a hand across her own wet cheeks. ‘How many times do you have to say that? Bugger your disappointment. Fuck your anger.’
‘Don’t swear, darling,’ said Arthur, coming towards her. ‘I know you’re upset.’
‘That’s a bloody understatement,’ Jade cried.
Her body went rigid as her father’s arms came around her. She felt incapable of accepting any comfort and pushed him away.
‘I feel like I’m dying inside, Dad. Do you understand? I don’t need Mum going on at me about Tom being married. Okay, he wasn’t a free agent. But that doesn’t make him a criminal.’
‘He is in my book,’ said Ginnie, flaring again. ‘And you should have known better. Maybe, when you were eighteen, I could have excused you for immaturity. But now you’re twenty-eight. A woman of the world–’
‘Well I guess shit happens, Mum, eh?’ Jade snarled.
And with that, she’d lunged towards the uncut sandwiches her mother had abandoned, grabbed the bread knife, and stuck it in her leg.
Arthur had promptly fainted and Ginnie had screamed the house down. Her cries had been loud enough for their next-door neighbour to investigate. The Emergency Services had been called. An ambulance, siren blaring, had roared into their road.
The paramedics had been greeted by a shocked neighbour, a grey-haired man with concussion, a middle-aged woman having hysterics of the unfunny kind, and a young female with a knife sticking out of her leg. The latter had been laughing like a madwoman.