Fragments of Love by Catherine Louisa McKenzie

Author:Catherine Louisa McKenzie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: family, overcoming, abuse, overcoming abuse, family relationships, overcoming adversity, family feud, family confict, family abuse couples teen mother spiritual inspirational struggle survival escape, family betrayal, family crises, family and relationship, abuse child, family and parenting, abuse against women
Publisher: ActiveSprite Press

Chapter Thirteen

The stars were out as Freya walked back along the village street and the cold bit into her cheeks. She lingered for a moment by the phone box, tempted, so tempted to call Blake, but what could she say to him? It was all too much of a mess. If she had ever told him about the baby- But she hadn’t. “You hide things,” that’s what Isabella had said. “When you feel something deeply you stuff it away, out of sight.” Strange how one’s oldest friend could have such a perverse perception of events. It isn’t true, thought Freya, I’m clear and frank and brutally honest. “You ought to know. He’s exactly like you.” Was he, was she? That was a question. Did she hide things, and did he, things that mattered, feelings? She did not want to accept Isabella’s version, that they did care. It made nonsense of her own story. But there was the lych gate, black against the blue-black glow of the sky, and etched sharp on Freya’s mind was an image of her father, bursting out against Mrs Pringle. “Take your claws off her, woman!” He had pushed, positively pushed Mrs Pringle away from her, had stepped between them and wrapped her up under his arm, safe. He had been angry, furiously angry. Why? Something about the baby. It was one of those things, at the time, that floated above her head, made little impression. Nothing mattered very much then. She just did things, got on with life, keeping herself at a safe distance from it so that nothing penetrated.

But her father must have minded what Mrs Pringle said. Freya turned under the lych gate and replayed the scene. Mrs Pringle had her by the arm, had her furry gloves closed over her wrist. It was a young wrist then, relatively feeble, the sinews unpractised. Naked skin with those woolly fingers digging into it. And Mrs Pringle leaning forward conspiratorially, whispering, a stage-whisper so that all the village might hear how she was comforting the poor lost girl.

“Such a sad time for you, Freya, but you’ll see, it’s all for the best, the man upstairs is looking after you. Much the best way.”

And then her father, blasting in, “Take your claws off her, woman!”

Freya thrust her hands deep into her pockets and laughed. ‘I guess that was provocation enough,’ she thought, ‘although at the time Mrs Pringle’s words had little impact. But Dad was worried that they might. He was defending me. He needn’t have worried. There was nothing, absolutely nothing right then that would have dented my composure. Not on the surface. I’d gone to hell and was staying there, because it was all my fault. I’d killed my baby with intent, so nothing else mattered. I could do the rest, could do all the requisite acting. Lots of practice. Hadn’t lived in my own skin since-’ Freya stopped. She wasn’t going to take that route. It was too far too fast. She had enough to contemplate.

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