The Replacement by Melanie Golding

Author:Melanie Golding [Golding, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

NOW

Joanna

Sunday, 23 December

On the way to the New Park estate, Joanna thought only of Ruby. There was so much she’d never said to her, that she thought perhaps she should have. It had never been the right moment, and now it might be too late. Rain started falling as she crossed the city, the sky blackening with her thoughts.

Jo had been so careful to avoid getting between her mother and Ruby in the early years that for most of Ruby’s childhood she’d absented herself, keeping herself busy at first with school and college, after hours with her sports, and in later years with her police training. She’d learned to live with the nagging, aching feeling that she worked hard to suppress, knowing deep down that this was the urge to be a real mother, that she had not only been denied but actively denied herself. For all those years the family went from day to day, doing their thing, ignoring the reality of the adoption, ignoring their mother’s alcoholism, ignoring Ruby’s feelings of rejection and Joanna’s of replacement. Right up until they couldn’t ignore it any more. And Ruby had left them, taking half of Joanna’s heart.

Immediately after the fight, Jo had been so angry that she’d decided she never wanted to see her mother again, either. But as the days went on, she realised the blame had to be shared. There was a kernel of truth in what had been said, as there always was in the most hurtful things: None of it would have happened if Joanna hadn’t given birth to Ruby in the first place. It took a week for the worst of Joanna’s anger to subside, and be replaced once more with pity. She’d persuaded Marianne to give Ruby the space and time she needed. Joanna was convinced that, if they did that, she would come home, she would forgive Marianne the way Jo had done. But it hadn’t happened, in the twelve months they’d waited patiently. Ruby had just gotten further away.

As the looming apartment blocks appeared in her eyeline she wondered if it was too late to make any of it right. Ruby had always needed her, not just as a sister. Jo should have admitted that sooner, when her baby was still a child, when it mattered most of all. Now she felt like she was being given a chance to do something to show how much she cared. Whatever Ruby had done, whatever crime, Jo could forgive her. More than that, she knew how she could help her stay out of prison. It was her duty as a police officer to apprehend and arrest suspects, but her duty as a mother came first.

Joanna parked and approached the West block, glancing at the entrance to the North block only briefly. She knew that Gregor’s flat had been sealed by the CSI team who would be back the next day to complete the work. They’d taken samples, fingerprints and photographs. Tomorrow, the search

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