The Patterson Girls (46 page)

Despite this knowledge, Abigail heaved herself off the floor and over to her tiny desk where her laptop sat open and permanently on. Almost without thinking, she clicked on the little blue
Skype
icon at the bottom of the screen. As predicted, Charlie wasn't online but Madeleine's immaculately made-up face smiled from her avatar and a green tick sat alongside her name.

Maybe her oldest sister's advice could drag her out of this black hole. She made the call and was just about to give up when Madeleine's avatar came to life and her face appeared on the screen.

‘Hey.' Madeleine sighed, before lifting a can of Diet Coke to her mouth and taking a sip.

‘Can you talk?' Abigail asked, hoping she hadn't caught her in the middle of something.

‘Yep. What can I do for you?'

Abigail took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was a gut-wrenching sob.

‘Oh shit, what's the matter?' Madeleine put down her can and leaned closer to the screen.

Tears now cascading down her cheeks again, Abigail took a few moments to pull herself together. She grabbed a box of tissues, wiped her eyes, blew her nose and then looked back at the screen, wishing she could reach into it and touch her sister. Even if Madeleine'd think her pathetic and stupid, Abigail needed the connection with someone who would still love her, no matter what.

‘I'm an idiot.' She sniffed and blew her nose again.

‘Right.' Madeleine nodded as if Abigail were on drugs. ‘A very successful idiot who has more talent in her little finger than most people I know have in their whole body.'

‘Yeah,' Abigail scoffed. ‘So talented I got fired from the orchestra.'

‘What?!'

Abigail nodded glumly.

‘What happened?'

‘I made a mistake during a performance. A pretty big one. I lost my place in the music and my mind went blank for a while. It was awful.'

‘You poor thing. No wonder you're a mess.' Then Madeleine frowned. ‘Hang on. They fired you for one mistake?'

Abigail shook her head. ‘Anyone else would probably have got a warning and a good talking too, but … but I had a fling with the assistant manager last year, and only later found out he was married. I think he was looking for a reason to sack me.'

‘That's outrageous! You should sue them for unfair dismissal. You can't let jerks like that get away with stuff like that. What happens to the next innocent young woman he preys on?'

Abigail took another deep breath. ‘It was months ago—before Christmas. It feels like a lifetime ago. I didn't say anything because I didn't want you all to know what a failure I was, and besides, everyone had enough to worry about with the motel and Dad and everything. Honestly, I just wanted to forget about it.'

‘Hang on a minute? You're telling me you lost your job almost six months ago.'

Abigail nodded again.

‘What the fuck have you been doing all this time? Busking?'

‘Well …' She told Madeleine about her disastrous attempt at busking and they both had a much-needed giggle, which helped Abigail get the rest of her sorry story out. How she'd been lying at Christmas about having a boyfriend, how she'd returned to London without a clue how she was going to make a living, how she'd met Nigel in the airport and been instantly attracted to him.

‘We slept together in Hong Kong, no contraception.' Abigail cringed as she admitted this, knowing that Madeleine—as a medical professional—would be appalled she'd take such a risk with a stranger. Credit to her sister, she merely raised an eyebrow. ‘And when I went to get the morning after pill, it struck me that if I was pregnant, I'd have a fab excuse to go home. I wouldn't need to tell anyone that I'd lost my job.'

Madeleine made a
tsk
noise with her teeth. ‘You'd rather we all thought you got
accidentally pregnant—to a stranger—
than made one mistake at work?'

Abigail sighed. When Madeleine put it that way it sounded ridiculous, but it had made perfect sense at the time. ‘Music is my world, it's what defines me. I couldn't bear you all thinking I'd failed. Besides, it struck me that if I got pregnant I'd prove the curse wrong and so everyone would be happy about that and—'

‘That damn curse.' Madeleine spoke over the top of Abigail, shaking her head in anger.

‘Relax. I realised it was stupid when I fell in love. I went on the pill and I've been making a new life for myself teaching, but it was too late.' She pursed her lips together, unsure if she could tell Madeleine about how Nigel had found the ovulation kit and the carnage that had erupted from that discovery. Her heart shook at the thought and she felt the tears welling up again. ‘I've made a mess of everything. Nigel found out what I was up to and now he doesn't want anything more to do with me.'

‘Why don't you just go home?' Madeleine suggested.

‘To Meadow Brook?' Abigail half-laughed, half-sobbed. ‘Because I don't have enough money. I like teaching but it barely covers my living expenses, I haven't saved a penny.'

‘I'll give you the money for the ticket. Charlie, Lucinda and Dad will be stoked to have you back home and if you enjoy teaching music so much, well, you can do that in Australia just as well as you can in London. I'm sure you'll be inundated once word spreads that you're offering lessons. You know how hard it is to find music teachers in the country.'

While Madeleine's words made sense, Abigail couldn't get over the feeling of defeat and the anxiety over what everyone would think about her. ‘But everyone's going to talk about me. Everyone is going to know what a failure I am.'

‘No one needs to know why you came home. And anyway, you made one mistake. We all do.'

‘Oh, yeah … And what mistake have you ever made?'

‘I fell in love with the wrong person. And that is the greatest mistake of all.'

Huh?
Abigail realised while she'd been ugly-crying and lamenting her terrible life to Madeleine, she hadn't once thought to ask how her sister was. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘You're not the only one who's been trying to get pregnant,' Madeleine confessed, her tone more uncertain than Abigail had ever heard it before.

‘What?' Her own shaky emotions took a back seat as she tried to get her head around Madeleine's words.

‘I guess the curse got me thinking too,' she admitted, pausing to take a sip of her Diet Coke. ‘And once I started I couldn't stop. I saw babies on the plane, in the airport, everywhere—and I decided that if I wanted to have a family, I couldn't sit around waiting for Mr Right. I decided to have one on my own.'

‘Oh Lord. Did you find a fuck buddy like me? Or indulge in a string of one night stands?' Maybe they were more alike than Abigail had imagined.

‘No.' Madeleine sneered. ‘Of course not. Think of the risks. I chose to go the donor sperm route and to cut a long story short, I found a friend willing to be my donor.'

‘Oh.' Abigail blinked. Yes, that did sound like a much more sensible, grown-up way to go about things. Why hadn't she thought of something like that? She pushed the thought of her own stupidity aside to focus on her sister's situation. ‘And?'

‘And for the last few months we've been going through the motions, attempting insemination. The problem was, I was stupid enough to choose a donor who I was actually in love with. I'd been fooling myself that I wasn't but we got even closer during the process and the lines started to blur for me. As much as I tried to remember this was a legal arrangement, I started to yearn for more than just Hugo's baby. I wanted Hugo. I wanted a family with him. The whole damn shebang.'

‘Hugo?' Abigail racked her brain for why that name rang a bell. ‘Isn't he the friend that drunk-called you at Christmas? Wasn't he engaged? What did the fiancée think of your arrangement?'

‘It was her idea.'

‘What?' Abigail couldn't conceal her shock. The phrase ‘only in America' popped into her head.

Madeleine took another sip of Diet Coke. ‘Exactly. And now it's a big fat freaking mess.'

Abigail listened as Madeleine told her how Hugo's fiancée had been all gung-ho and positive about the idea to start with and had then had some kind of mental breakdown because apparently she couldn't have children herself.

‘Geez, it sounds like some kind of daytime soap opera,' she said, thinking of all those years she'd raced home from school to watch
The Bold and the Beautiful
. There'd been something perversely addictive about the way everyone seemed to be hooking up with everyone else's exes.

Madeleine laughed without amusement. ‘I suppose in hindsight her excessive enthusiasm was a little bizarre. What woman wants her man to have a baby with another woman? But all the potential donors I'd met with were shocking and Hugo would be the perfect father in absolutely every way. I let that and my feelings for him blind me to Celia's weirdness. I told myself she was simply a really nice person, someone who wanted the best for her friends, but I was stupid. In the end, it was all about her.'

‘Shit.'

‘That's not what I said when I found out.' Madeleine chuckled. ‘I felt like a pawn in her game of chess, but it's woken me up to one thing. I have to get over my feelings for Hugo. He loves Celia, whether she can have children or not, and nothing is ever going to change that. I've got to move on or risk killing myself with unrequited love.'

‘What a mess we are.'

‘Again, you are kinder with your words than I would be,' Madeleine said wryly. ‘Maybe it's a good thing Mum isn't around to see what stuff-ups we've become.'

Abigail grinned. Her heart still felt raw from her bust-up with Nigel but talking to her big sister was kind of like putting a bandage on the wound. ‘Speaking of family,' she said, ‘do you think all this is somehow to do with the curse?'

‘Huh?'

‘Well,' Abigail began, ‘I tried for three months to get pregnant and didn't. You had, was it two attempts, and didn't either? And Lucinda and Joe couldn't even manage it after a whole year.' Her throat tightened and the tears that had eased while listening to Madeleine threatened to return as she thought about the demise of Lucinda and Joe's relationship. She'd always thought they were the perfect couple, just like her parents had been.

If those two couldn't work things out, what hope did anyone else have?

Madeleine looked as if she'd just eaten something way past its use-by date. ‘It's just a coincidence. I don't know what the deal is with Lucinda and Joe—that's weird, I'll admit—but you and I haven't been trying long enough to make any such assumption.'

Abigail wanted to believe this wisdom, but couldn't ignore the uneasiness that sat in her gut like a big ball of dried cement. She thought back to that day they'd had that run-in, or whatever you'd call it, with the old hermit woman. Something about Wanda, or Lorraine or whatever her name was, had chilled her to the bone. ‘Maybe,' she said, knowing if she spoke her thoughts Madeleine would think her silly. ‘So were you serious about lending me the money for a plane ticket home?'

Madeleine didn't say anything for a moment and Abigail hoped she hadn't changed her mind. ‘On one condition.'

‘Anything.' If Nigel told Daniel what a fruitcake she was, he probably wouldn't want her teaching Livia anymore and word would spread pretty fast to the rest of her students. And besides, what was there for her in London if she didn't have him?

‘You'll fly home via the States and pick me up on your way. We'll fly from here together.'

‘What? You're coming home again too? For how long?'

Madeleine shrugged. ‘Maybe indefinitely. I'm going to hand in my notice. If you and Lucinda can be unemployed for a while—besides the motel—why can't I?'

‘Uh … because you are the biggest workaholic I've ever met in my life.'

‘Pot-kettle-black.' Madeleine smiled. ‘You were pretty damn close, Abigail.'

‘Yes, but I got sacked. I didn't quit.' Abigail wondered if there was something alcoholic in Madeleine's can of soft drink. ‘Are you sure you know what you're doing?'

‘Look, I'm not saying I'm going to move back to Meadow Brook and change bed sheets for the rest of my life, but I think a little holiday between jobs—a time to hang out with my sisters again—could be just what the doctor ordered.'

Abigail snorted with laughter. ‘I give you a week.'

‘You're probably right, but there are hospitals in Adelaide. I'll put my feelers out and see if there's anything for me over there. Losing Mum and then this fiasco with Hugo and Celia has made me realise what's important in life. It's you, Charlie, Lucinda and Dad. Family is what matters. And it sounds like Lucinda needs us right now, or at least Charlie needs us to help with Lucinda.'

Abigail allowed herself a tiny smile as she thought about the emails Charlie had sent concerning Lucinda. ‘Wow. You're really going to do this.'

Madeleine nodded. ‘Yes, I really am.'

Chapter Thirty-nine

Lucinda sat on the floor in the middle of the bar, all the motel's glassware surrounding her. She picked up a shot glass and scrutinised it, frowning at the smear marks around the rim and the dust that had collected in the bottom. Mum would turn in her grave if she saw the state of these glasses and Lord knew who would buy the motel in such a state. The only ones that looked clean were the few beer and wine glasses they used regularly. Dad and Mrs Sampson had been keeping things ticking along and Charlie had thrown herself into sprucing the place up a little, but Lucinda couldn't help but think it was a good thing she was here to take proper control.

If Dad was serious about selling the place, they couldn't just rest on their laurels and wait for someone to come along and throw money at them. She sighed and stood, picking up the first crate of glasses and taking it into the kitchen to start washing. She turned Rob's radio to a local station that was playing mostly eighties songs to try and drown out her thoughts, but no matter what she did, her mind kept drifting to Joe.