Page 57 of In This Together

Without the sound of rap music blazing in her ears, Hannah could hear TJ’s childish giggle coming from the bathroom.He’s alive, at least,she thought.

‘Splash!’ she heard Jackson say. ‘Splash!’ This time louder.

She opened the bathroom door to find Jackson holding her only bottle of perfume in his hand, about to drop it into the loo.

‘What are you doing?’ she yelled, grabbing the bottle from him. She next saw TJ lying on his back on the bathroom rug, giggling as he held his foot to his mouth.

Scooping up the baby and doing a quick check for any major injuries, she turned back to Jackson. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Playing splash. TJ likes it. He thinks it’s funny.’

His pants were soaked through and he was shirtless.What the…?

Then, she peered into the loo and all became clear as she saw her toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a razor and a bar of soap in the bottom of the pot.

‘I bet your smelly bottle would have made the biggest splash,’ Jackson said.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply. ‘You’re eleven years old, Jackson, not five. Go change your pants,’ she said. Because what was the point in labouring the point to her child who already knew better that he was a little shit for putting all those things down the loo, which she would have to fish out before she could take a pee? Surely his retort would be something like,You abandoned your kids, what did you expect?

She closed the bathroom door, then put down the toilet seat and held TJ to her chest as she slumped down on top of it.

She was failing as a mom. She did nothing but snap at her husband. Her best friend currently wasn’t speaking to her. And she was so exhausted, she couldn’t tell her own ass from her elbow.

Either she needed to quit working in the city, which she didn’t want to do, or they needed to move home, which they couldn’t afford to do.

‘Or I need to sell you kids to the highest bidder,’ she said, stroking TJ’s wiry black hair and kissing his temple, knowing there was no way on earth she would ever sell her boys… Unless… No, she couldn’t give up the babies.

She sighed. ‘But something does need to change, little man. Mommy can’t continue like this.’

15

ANDREA

Reading contracts on the train was knocking her sick. Or had she been feeling sick before getting on the train, when the smell of coffee in the station had made her stomach turn? For sure, the motion of the train speeding along the tracks now was making her feel worse.

Andrea tucked the documents into her bag and opted instead to look out of the window at the sun bouncing off the multitude of buildings as she crossed from New York City into New Jersey.

It had been a good while since she’d ventured to New Jersey, her dad’s hometown. Hannah still lived a few blocks away. Still as close as when Andrea and Hannah had walked Sofia to school. That was how it was when they were kids. Hannah was always with Andrea, even on days when they’d fallen out over something and nothing, and Andrea was always watching out for Sofia.

Some things don’t change,she thought. The sun was beating down on her skin through the train windows, too powerful for the air-conditioning onboard. Though she was wearing thin jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt, she was feeling the heat. She slipped the wide neck of her top off one shoulder and sipped the cool ginger ale she had picked up in the station.

The relative quiet of New Jersey struck her as soon as she waved off the train. Putting her sunglasses in position, she headed for the place she used to call home. For a moment, it occurred to her that she could drop in on Hannah whilst she was here, but given they hadn’t been getting along well of late, adding a sixth day of seeing each other in a week was probably a bad idea.

In fact, Andrea and Hannah hadn’t been getting along particularly well since Hannah came back to Stellar from maternity leave. Some of that, she suspected, was due to Hannah’s tiredness and being strapped for cash. And the problem with having your best friend working for you was that you still needed them to do their job, regardless of whether TJ had colic, Jackson had a sickness bug, Luke was taking teenager hormone-related tantrums and Rod was sporting his usual selfish persona.

But that wasn’t all of it. Though blaming Hannah for their fallouts would be easy – and her big mouth was certainly to blame for the most recent argument – Andrea knew that some of it was down to her own guilt. Her affair with Hunter had started when Hannah was heavily pregnant and preoccupied. Maybe if Hannah had been around and not on maternity leave, it would never have happened or gone on for as long as it had. Once she was caught up in it, Hunter became like a drug to Andrea. A symbol of her defiance for once.

Hannah’s return to the office and finding out about the affair made the shame of what she was doing real. She knew that Hannah hadn’t forced her into having an affair but she couldn’t help feeling like her friend could have stopped it in the first place.

Maybe Hannah was right. Maybe Andrea had slept with Hunter because there was no chance of it ever going anywhere. Or perhaps… Andrea had been lonely without Hannah around, with Sofia more concerned with Jay and Sanfia these days.

But she didn’t need people. People needed her. Andrea wasn’t dependent on anyone. She never would be – she remembered how much it hurt as an eight-year-old girl to lose the one person she’d truly depended on. It hurt too much.

Before she knew it, Andrea had battled with her thoughts all the way to the porch of her father’s home. She knocked but entered without waiting for a response.

‘Dad?’ she called, moving inside the dated terrace. ‘Jimmy?’

By habit, she flicked through the mail she’d picked up from the floor to make sure there was nothing he wasn’t on top of. She ran her finger along the stair rail, checking for dust as she kicked off her sandshoes and headed along the hallway toward the kitchen, dipping her head into the lounge – no sign of Jimmy – and the dining room – no sign of Jimmy.

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