The New Du Rose Matriarch

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hana tried the door handle, realising she’d rushed out without her keys. It opened under her fingers. She sighed. “A prospective burglar might feel sorry for me and leave something nice,” she sniffed, wiping the back of her hand across her face and streaking sticky tears over her cheeks. The solid weight shifted in her chest at her stupidity. Leaving the pram by the door, she searched the tiny unit for intruders. Her lungs complained as she held her breath but found nobody. Everything remained as she left it, a bomb site of her own making.

Peering into the pram, Hana’s relief produced a sigh as her daughter settled. The sleeping infant looked stunning, dark eyelashes fluttering over olive cheeks. “Sorry baby,” Hana whispered. “I’m rubbish at this parenting thing but I promise to try harder.” Pulling a blanket over the baby’s legs, Hana surveyed the mess in the tiny open plan living room. The washing up from Logan’s breakfast the day before still sat on the draining board and tufts of blanket fluff lay on the tatty rug near the gas fire. It demanded the last of Hana’s energy and her forty-five-year-old body complained at the prospect of cleaning. “I can’t do this,” she said again, indulging the negative self-doubt with defeatism. She sank into the lumpy sofa instead, remembering Logan’s heated phone conversation with the school principal.

“I’m not moving my family in here!” he’d exclaimed. Whatever Angus said in reply had changed his mind and Hana found herself in the dilapidated unit held together by tin and string. Alone. Logan offered no explanation and she left her neat home in the hills in mute obedience, the summer’s awful events still leaden in her heart.

Ripped wallpaper overlooked the decrepit, filthy old sofa. Hana’s body craved a lie on the bed, but the thought of the smelly mattress in the double room made the caved in, mustard coloured sofa seem appealing. She knew the unit challenged Logan’s neat-freak tendencies, not that he spent much time there.

“What am I doing here?” Defeated, Hana reached for Logan’s sweater curled over the back of the sofa and buried her face in it. She smelled his familiar, safe scent and wished for his strong arms to wrap around her tired body. Tears leaked out and droplets sat on top of the wool. Hana watched them trickle down and felt her dam grow closer to bursting.

A familiar creak made her sit up and she swallowed at her forgetfulness. She didn’t lock the front door behind her. Wiping her eyes on the sleeve of the sweater, she readied herself for the kind of visitor who didn’t knock first. Her gaze strayed to the pram sitting beside the opening front door and she tensed.

“Where’s Logan?” Glossy lips curled backwards in a spiteful sneer as the woman’s face appeared around the corner.

Hana released the held breath in a whoosh. “Get out Caroline!”

Logan’s ex-fiancé stood her ground, edging closer with her sassy blonde hair windswept and artfully sexy. She wore tight fitting jeans which stressed her slender figure and Hana rose to face her. She swallowed, not daring to glance down at her rumpled, sick-stained clothes and draw attention to her unkempt state.

Caroline rested a manicured hand on her hip. “I need to see Logan,” she repeated. “Where is he?”

Hana gritted her teeth. “He doesn’t want to see you, so get out!” Her fists balled against her thighs and she experienced an emotional shunt as power borne of insanity coursed through her veins like burning mercury. Caroline’s presence near the pram infused n***d maternalism into Hana’s brain and she needed her to move away from Phoenix, whatever the cost. “Get away from my baby!”

Caroline inhaled without looking into the pram. “I’m not interested in your brat! I want to see Logan.”

Hana took a step forward, something dangerous lurking beneath her emerald irises at Caroline’s description of Phoenix. “She’s not a brat. And don’t even speak my husband’s name!” Another step. “He wants nothing to do with any of you. Get out!”

Caroline snorted. “That’s not what he said at Reuben’s tangihanga.” Her eyes narrowed, attempting to throw doubt on Hana’s trust in Logan. But the lie left a burning thread in the air and Hana seized it with relish.

“Liar! I saw you following him around like a love sick puppy!” she spat. Her lips crinkled back into a vicious smile. “He spent the whole funeral avoiding you, Caroline. He lost both his parents and even in his weakest moment, he still managed to avoid you.” Hana laughed, disgusted at the sound of victory in the awful cackle. “Just get out.”

The previous six weeks seemed to condense before her eyes. The fire which claimed two lives was followed by her daughter’s traumatic birth on a mountaintop. Both memories still woke her sweating at night. Caroline’s unwanted presence in her scruffy living room compounded her sense of righteous indignation. Hana snapped.

Her exhausted brain failed to filter the words which tumbled from her lips. She advanced towards Caroline’s lithe shape, anger burning in her green irises. “Why are you here? Do you have another pregnancy to pass off as Logan’s?” Hana moved forward, enjoying the satisfaction of watching her nemesis back away. “Or is it about money Caroline?” Her next step brought her alongside the pram and relief flooded through her veins. Still the lioness’ instinct to protect her young roared like a red haze before her eyes.

Caroline backed towards the door, her hands grappling behind her. Hana advanced, cutting her baby off from a possible threat. “He hates you, Caroline!” she hissed. “Logan hates your guts! He’s glad you jilted him at the altar because that one selfish act led him to me.

Temper fuelled her movements, filling her with a reserve of untapped energy. Tiredness left her body as fight replaced it.

Caroline tugged the front door open and slid through the gap, almost tripping down the narrow steps. Her lips parted but for once, no sound emerged. Hana capitalised on her win. “I’m Mrs Du Rose now and I’ve given Logan a child. Everything you ever wanted belongs to me. Go away and stay away.” She lifted her shoulders and glared at Caroline, guilt prickling the back of her neck for mentioning the other woman’s failed pregnancy. She clasped her fingers behind her spine to stop them shaking while he rational mind rebuked her unkindness.

Caroline hovered on the path outside, her movements jerky and something unreadable in her expression. Hana retreated inside the unit and slammed the door, causing the timber house to shudder on its aged piles.

Phoenix’s tiny arms splayed wide in a fear reaction and she parted her rosebud lips to release a pathetic wail. The dam in Hana’s chest broke and she slid down the ripped wallpaper until her bottom touched the floorboards, sobbing as though her heart might break.