A Beautiful Forever

chapter 29

Paige

Applying the handbrake as I pull up outside the house, I take a slow steady breath before opening the car door, striding purposefully

up the driveway dragging my suitcase behind me, and rapping loudly on the door.

When the door swings open I’m confronted with my mother’s surprised face as she drags her eyes over me, pausing when she

reaches my luggage. Her eyes fly back up to mine in question. I’m sure I’m the last person she expected to be opening her door to.

“I need a place to stay. I think it’s the least you can do for me considering…” I tell her boldly, refusing to be polite as I step past her

and into her home.

“Of…of course,” she stutters, scrambling down the hallway and opening a door for me. “You…you can stay i-in here,” she says,

flicking on the light and standing aside so I can enter her guest room. “The bathroom’s just around the corner, and the kitchen is at

the end of the hall. Can I get you anything?” she asks sounding calmer.

“No,” I answer simply, stepping into the room with my suitcase in hand. I turn around to look at her expectant face, an unfriendly glare

on mine as I reach out and start to close the door. Before it’s almost clicked shut, I open it slightly, meeting her eyes once again.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I affirm. I don’t want her getting any ideas that we’ll be playing happy families any time soon.

“Of course,” she whispers, her eyes swimming with tears as I click the door closed and spin the lock on the other side.

Pulling the covers back on the bed, I remove my shoes and climb in, curling myself into the foetal position as I close my eyes,

thinking about everything that has happened this past week.

After collapsing at the airport, Naomi took me back to the flat where I spent every day since then lying on the couch and refusing to

move. I was offered my bed back, but I couldn’t bring myself to live there again, not when being there reminds me so much of him. I’

ve felt constantly sick and can’t seem to eat. I feel wrong without him and hate myself so much that eventually I had to get out of there.

I didn’t tell anyone that I was leaving or where I was going, I just waited until they were all out of the flat and wrote a thank-you note

before leaving and driving here. I know - I’m chicken shit, I left a note again.

Why I chose here I do not know, perhaps I’m still trying to punish myself, or perhaps I feel like this is the only place he won’t come to

look for me. But for some reason, it’s the only place I could think of.

Despite the fact that he calls me every day, I still haven’t spoken to him since that night he called me drunk - I don’t even know if he

remembers our conversation. Instead, when he calls, I watch the words ‘International Call’ blink on my screen and wait for it to go to

voicemail then listen to it later.

He says he's coming back to me, but his emotions are still raw right now, and I feel that if I ignore him, he’ll give up and get on with

his life. That’s what’s best for both of us. He deserves so much more than what I can give him.

I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, beginning the same cycle that I’ve been following this past week. I don’t know how many days,

and nights pass, but I have vague memories of food being offered and conversations being attempted as my parents hover about,

not sure what make of the wreck of a daughter who's returned to them.

“Do you think we can talk?” my mother says during one of my more lucid moments. “You’ve been in here for almost a week Paige.”

Rolling away from her, I pull the covers over my head and shut my eyes, attempting to shut her out as well.

“I’ll leave soon, mother. I just haven’t felt up to finding somewhere to stay.”

“No… that’s not what I want. I just want to talk – you can stay as long as you like.”

“Fine – talk.” I say, sitting up dramatically to eye her as she fidgets with a loose thread on her sleeve.

“First I wanted to give you this,” she says placing a pharmacy bag on the bed in front of me. I look at it but don’t bother touching it. “I’

m just trying to help – you’ve been so sick since you got here…”

I pick up the bag and put it on the bedside table. “Thank you,” I say flatly.

The loose thread is now tightly wrapped around her finger as she continues to pull at it. “I want to tell you I’m sorry Paige – for

everything. I never should have done what I did.”

“What? Thrust me into a life on the street?”

She sucks in her breath, her eyes wide. “You didn’t actually live on the street did you?”

I frown and look at her. I can’t believe how naïve she’s being. “Sometimes yes - I was on the street. Do you even understand what

you did to me? I couldn’t just go and stay with a friend, or get a place on my own – I was 15 and $200 was nothing. It barely fed me

for a couple of weeks. I was a virgin when I left and within a month, I was letting men use me until they were sick of taking care of me

- just so I could sleep inside.”

She’s standing in front of me, her eyes wide in horror, as tears fall down her face while I tell her every gory detail about the life she

sent me to. When I tell her about Phoenix, she breaks down, crying so loudly that Daniel comes barrelling in from another room,

demanding to know what's happening.

“All I did was tell her the truth,” I say, my voice cool and calm as I level with him.

“Do you know how upset your mother has been this past couple of months?” he starts in on me, defending his wife.

“No Daniel!” my mother calls out, silencing him. “She has every right – I’ve been a horrible mother.”

He stands there looking between us, two women, who look nothing alike bar our height and bone structure, but both of us his family.

“Perhaps we should all go and try to sort this out together,” he says quietly.

I find myself following behind them, taking a seat at the dining room table and waiting while they talk quietly to each other in the

kitchen, making a tray with tea and biscuits. I’m not hungry or thirsty, but I accept it anyway.

My mother sits across from me with Daniel by her side and begins, “Paige, I want you to know that I have always loved you.”

I have to force myself not to roll my eyes as I wait for her to continue.

“I had been travelling backwards and forwards between Australia and the UK for about a year for work, and Daniel was a colleague.

Every time I visited, he was so kind to me. I tried to resist my attraction because I was already married and had a son but eventually

we both fell prey to temptation.” She looks at Daniel, her eyes so filled with adoration that it hurts my heart to watch them. “I was so in

love with him, and he was with me too. However, I couldn’t stay with him. I had to go back and look after my family.

“When I found out I was pregnant. I knew you were Daniel's, but I hid all of my dates from your father and pretended that I fell

pregnant before I’d left.

“You were premature, so they kept you in an incubator, and your father couldn’t understand what went wrong because by what I told

him, you should have been full term. That coupled with your dark shock of hair made him realise that you weren’t actually his.

“We had a lot to lose by separating, so we decided to stay together and tell the world that you were his. Then another baby, your

sister got added to the mix a couple of years later and things went from bad to worse.

“Your father hated that I seemed to play favourites with you and would torment me over my affair. Slowly I started to resent you, I

thought that if you weren’t around – then my life would be better, so I sent you out, I drove you away.

“When your father learned what I had done he was livid with me - despite his anger over what I had done, he didn’t hate you – he just

didn’t know how to love a child that wasn’t his.

“Slowly our relationship crumbled and we separated, I gave him custody of Adam and Sophie and came back here and well…” She

looks at Daniel again and smiles with quivering lips. He places his arm around her, resting his hand on hers and squeezing it gently.

Tears are falling down my face as I listen. My life has just been one horrible mistake after another – the first one being hers. “Did you

know about me?” I ask Daniel. “I mean, before I contacted you. Did you know about me?”

“I did,” he says. “I had to sign that I was your father for your birth certificate.”

“And you just left me there?” I stare at him, watching him as he thinks through his answer.

“I thought it was what was best. I didn’t know you were being treated poorly.”

“But you married her anyway?”

“I did. She made mistakes Paige. Lord knows I've made mistakes too in my life, but those mistakes don’t change the fact that she’s

the woman I love.”

I laugh humourlessly, “You’re very passionate for an Englishman,” I say flatly.

“Well my mother, your grandmother, is Italian. She was very passionate.”

I look at my mother, “What about Adam and Sophie? You just left them too?”

She looks down at her hands and nods, “I left everyone,” she whispers.