Chapter 29

The letters went out Monday morning, and Tuesday lunchtime Gabbie checked her phone and saw a flurry of voicemails, she checked the call log and listened to the messages from Diane and Phil Poole first.

Diane congratulated Gabbie for the strength and clarity of the letter, Phil told her that Diane had asked him to investigate ways to permanently revoke Katherine’s parental rights, there were others but she didn’t get chance to check them because just as she saved Phil’s massage her phone rang, DCI Morris.

“Hi DCI Kyle, how are you today?”

“Ahh Gabbie, I’m glad I caught you, I didn’t want to leave this as a message,” he sounded very serious, and stressed.

“What’s the matter?”

“I was just reading your letter to Katherine, I can quite understand the sentiment by the way, when I got a call from the remand centre. Is Lucy with you Gabbie?”

“Yes, she’s right here,” Gabbie replied, taking hold of Lucy’s hand, she could tell bad news was on the way.

“That’s good, you’ll be needing her. When your mother’s lunch was being delivered to her cell she was found hanging.”

Gabbie found a seat in the common room, her legs suddenly weak, “Oh shit! that’s definitely not what I wanted to happen.”

“Gabbie, you can’t blame yourself for her reaction to you finding out her role in your abuse.”

“No, I can’t, can I, this is more consequences of her actions. Thank you for telling me Kyle, do I need to do anything.”

“Not right now, considering the contents of your letter we’ll be dealing with Katherine’s sister Alice on this matter, I can’t see any point in distressing you further. This is an unofficial courtesy call from me, rather than an official call from the police.”

“Thank you Kyle, I really appreciate it.”

DCI Kyle cut the call, Gabbie turned to Lucy, “hug me please, I need a hug,” she cried.

“What’s happened?”

“She’s killed herself, she’s read the letter and her answer is to kill herself rather than face up to what she’s done.”

“Oh god no, that’s horrible.”

“I don’t care, her reaction to my letter is not my responsibility, it’s not what I wanted to happen, I wanted her to spend the rest of her life knowing exactly what she’d done to me and others, but she chose the cowards way out. I’m not going to spend a single minute of my life mourning her passing.”

Gabbie looked deep into Lucy’s eyes, “I still feel bad though, I shouldn’t but I do, oh I’m so messed up right now, hug me please.”

They were sat on a sofa in the common room, there were other people around, but right then they didn’t care, Gabbie’s world had once again found a way to fuck with her head.

“I’m going to phone mum,” Lucy said, “she needs to know, then we phone Sylvie, and then we see Millie. Ok, we need to do these things. Then we sit in our room for the rest of the afternoon and talk about your feelings. You’re conflicted, but nothing you think is incorrect, you just have to come to terms with the feelings, ok.”

“Yes Lucy, I guess you’re right.”

Diane insisted on coming to see Gabbie, Lucy agreed it was probably best. Sylvie’s phone went to the machine, so Lucy left a brief message, said it wasn’t necessary for Sylvie to call back as they’d be in tomorrow.

Millie excused them from the afternoon lessons, which were only revision sessions for a test next week, so she had the revision notes delivered to them.

Lucy sat on the floor opposite Gabbie, she’d closed all the curtains and lit a small lamp and put some quiet instrumental music on the speakers.

“Ok Gabbie, let’s talk about your mum, anything and everything you want, tell me stuff I don’t know, good or bad, we need to clear everything out.”

For the next hour Gabbie spoke non-stop, Lucy took as much in as she could, not wanting to interrupt or ask Gabbie to repeat anything.

Gabbie talked about her mum singing in clubs, about walks in the woods, about the few family holidays they took, like one in the south of France where they stayed on a yacht, she also spoke about bad times, now she’d remembered that one night from the hypnosis all kinds of other memories had been unlocked, Gabbie named some other girls, some more men, some boys as well, because some of the men did seem to prefer young boys, Gabbie never mentioned Jordan. She spoke about a time she was playing hide and seek in the woods with Chelcey and tripped over a mound of earth, now she’s wondering what was under the mound.

“What do I do Lucy?” she asked once her stream of consciousness tailed off.

“I don’t know sweetie, I’m trying to process everything you’ve just said, I’m a little bit overwhelmed just now.”

Gabbie sat in silence as Lucy thought everything through, at one point Lucy stood and started pacing like Gabbie did when she was thinking, not something she normally needed to do, it worked for Gabbie though.

“Ok, Katherine is dead, so with the greatest of respect, she’s out of the picture, so we don’t need to waste any time and effort thinking about her do we.”

“Well no, but I’m still not straight in my head about my feelings, all that talking, it’s just confused me further. I have happy memories with her, but she was evil just like dad. And I’m also worried that inside, hidden somewhere, I have that capacity to be evil.”

“Oh my god Gabbie, that’s not possible, you only have love inside you, you’re the opposite of your parents.”

“But I raped Jerry, doesn’t that make me just like them.”

Lucy rushed to Gabbie and swept her up in her arms, she pulled her tight, filling Gabbie with her love.

“What were your intentions with Jerry?” she asked.

“I wanted to show him how much fun anal can be.” Gabbie whispered into Lucy’s chest.

“And how did you do it?”

“I shoved a dildo up his bum,” Gabbie answered, a little confused.

“More specifically that that.”

“Well, I lubed him and the dildo, and I did him carefully, so he could learn to enjoy it.”

“Ok, and how did err, he do it?”

“You mean my dad?”

“Yes, just not sure how we’re referring to them right now.”

“Well, he just rammed it right in, it hurt so much.”

“Exactly, you did it out of love, he did it to exert his power over you, to dominate and hurt and control you.”

“So I am different to them?”

“You couldn’t be more different honey.”

Lucy sat on the sofa, Gabbie curled up with her head in Lucy’s lap as the tears started to pour, Lucy found a t-shirt tucked into the sofa, she pulled it out and used it to wipe away Gabbie’s tears, and this is how Diane found them when Millie let her in half an hour later.

Gabbie had fallen asleep, Lucy was stroking her hair, singing softly, Diane watched them from the doorway, not wanting to disturb the beautiful scene.

Eventually Lucy heard something and looked up.

“Oh hey mum, how long have you been there?”

“Only a minute or so, you looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you. How is she?”

“Confused, conflicted. She hates her mum, but she knows she had good times with her, both when she was younger, before the horror, and even afterwards, I think she was blacking out a lot of the events even while they were happening.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, the mind is an amazing thing, it has the ability to throw up any number of protective barriers when the need arises, the problems start when the cracks appear, and that’s what’s happening to poor Gabbie now. Her father’s death started it, then meeting Chelcey opened her mind to other events, and the therapy has brought them all flooding out.”

“Is the therapy doing her harm then?” Lucy asked.

“Oh no, it’s causing short term pain, but long term, she needs to bring everything out otherwise they’ll just all pile up, conflicting thoughts, memories and emotions, it would probably break her.”

“What can we do mum?”

“This really isn’t my area sweetie, you’ve caused me so little trouble I’ve never had to think about anything like this before. I think our most immediate action is to be here for her, listen to her, sooth her. Tomorrow we’ll be seeing Sylvie again, I’ve accepted Dr Melrose’s invitation and I’m staying in their guest room tonight, so I can take you tomorrow. We’ll discuss a way forward then.”