The New Du Rose Matriarch

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The child’s distressed hitching ceased as Hana nursed her, tiny lungs rising and falling beneath her pink woollen cardigan. Hana curled her toes at the momentary discomfort as her baby settled at the breast. “I can’t do this,” she admitted, closing her eyes and feeling the tiny fingers fix around her thumb. “I’ve made a mistake.”

Hana owned none of the dilapidated furniture in the staff unit and collected her few belongings while Phoenix fretted in her car seat by the door. “Not long now, baby,” she promised. “We’re leaving before I become someone I like even less.” Her words to Caroline stung, knowing she’d crossed the invisible line of conduct between women. She berated herself, feeling no amount of exhaustion justified such behaviour. “A baby still died,” she whispered. “Not Logan’s, no. But someone’s.”

Self-reproach followed Hana to Ngaruawahia, trailing her up the main highway towards Culver’s Cottage. With every passing kilometre between her and the staff unit, the tension eased from her shoulders. Phoenix slept next to her in the car seat, milk leaking from one side of her pursed lips. The guilt settled to a dull ache as Hana crossed the Waipa Bridge and turned right onto Hakarimata Road.

A mountain range hugged the road, rising above it like a sentry to the west. The Waikato River snaked alongside, sticking close as Hana took her daughter home. She sighed with relief as the black metal gate slid sideways in obedience to the remote in her hand, pushing the car through the aperture and beginning the climb.

The uphill driveway meandered through a kilometre and a half of stunning native bush and Hana sensed her sanity return. At the crest of the hill, Culver’s Cottage winked down at her and promised rest. Hana killed the engine and listened to the car’s clicks as the mechanisms cooled. Birdsong surrounded her. No school bells, no teenage dramas. No ex fiancé watching her from the shadows.

Phoenix snored in the wide lobby as Hana inspected the rooms of her home, breathing in the scent of cleaning products and soap powder. “Why did I let him talk me into leaving?” she demanded of the empty rooms. “I’m letting him run away from his feelings again.”

The late February day sent sunlight into the rooms, offering healing and warmth. Hana showered in a bathroom that didn’t make her want to break out the bleach and dressed in clean clothes devoid of musty aromas. She carried her baby into the kitchen and pulled the blanket away from her gripping fingers. Phoenix snuffled and replaced her thumb between her lips, settling into the car seat with a sigh.

The empty fridge forced Hana to drink black tea and the freezer in the garage disgorged a loaf of bread. A knife separated two slices and almost her fingers and a layer of jam made the toast edible.

“Oh, b****y hell!” The telephone in the lobby gave a chirp, forerunner to a resounding ring. With a nervous glance at the baby, Hana managed to reach it before it trilled and ripped the cord from the socket in the wall. Phoenix slept on, enfolded in the peace and safety of the old house. Sighing with relief, Hana searched the baby bag for her cell phone, groaning at the memory of it sitting on the seventies style coffee table at the unit.

Futility and exhaustion washed over her and she stifled a yawn which threatened to detach her chin from her jaw. Phoenix grumbled in the car seat and Hana sighed. “At least you slept for an hour,” she said, lifting her baby over her shoulder. The child wriggled, bouncing her lips against Hana’s shirt as her eyes darted left and right with interest. “This is our proper home,” Hana whispered. “This is where I imagined we’d live.”

She changed her daughter’s dirty nappy in the master bedroom, laying her on the four poster bed Logan bought before their wedding. She cleaned the squirmy body and worked to rebuild the connection damaged by tiredness and Caroline’s antics.

The injection site on the child’s olive leg appeared less angry and Hana fed her another dose of infant painkiller through a small plastic syringe. “You like that?” she asked in a baby voice.

Phoenix contorted her features, making Hana laugh with the combined sucking and l*****g she performed at the end of the syringe. Listening to the tinkling sound of her own mirth, Hana realised she hadn’t laughed once since they moved into the staff house. Her mind took her back further, to the week before the fire and she sighed. “What a summer,” she whispered.

Phoenix clenched her fists and beat them against the bedspread, her dark brow furrowing and her eyes squeezing into thin lines framed by lash fringes. “Are you hungry again, Bugle Bum?” Hana asked, lifting her upright and cradling her to her chest. Phoenix rooted against her shirt and made her needs more obvious.

Hana settled in the four poster bed, pillows supporting her back and neck. The luxury of privacy meant she could open her shirt and feed in comfort, her tight muscles aching as she allowed herself to relax.

She woke in a panic three hours later, alarming the baby who snuffled and jerked in her arms. Phoenix kicked her legs and waved her uncoordinated hands, staring at a fixed point on the ceiling. “You’re awake,” Hana said, stroking the smooth olive cheek. “And not crying.”

Phoenix gurgled nonsense and pursed her lips. Her light blue eyes flickered and danced in the afternoon sunshine. Hana checked her nappy and offered the other breast, falling from a doze into a heavy sleep. She twitched as she dreamed of Miriam Du Rose, watching her mother-in-law run into the fire. The orange flames threw their arms wide in delight and Logan’s birth father held his hands out towards her. His fingers beckoned Miriam but his eyes looked at Hana.

Tears ran into her hair as the familiar horror played itself out, robbing her of energy and understanding on a continuous, inescapable loop.