22. Jessica

BEFORE

In the months that followed the horse-riding day, the girls sank into a sad, new reality. Norah had become different since she'd been locked under the stairs. Angrier. More explosive. At school, she got into fights every other day, over the smallest things. Once, she'd even elbowed Jessica in the ribs, seemingly on impulse, when Jessica approached her quietly and took her by surprise. Jessica knew Norah felt awful about it and she insisted she was fine, though Norah had a very sharp elbow.

The unfortunate consequence of Norah's increasingly violent behavior was that she spent more and more time under the stairs. And the more time she spent under the stairs, the more violent she became. It became routine, coming home from school to find Miss Fairchild waiting on the porch to drag Norah to her punishment. Once, after giving a boy a bloody nose at school, Norah had come home and opened the door under the stairs herself. But her dignity vanished the moment the door closed behind her and she flew into a rage, her body started kicking and screaming as if of its own volition.

Jessica and Alicia pleaded with Norah to stop attacking people, and Norah promised to try. Eventually, after five altercations in five days, she had to concede, "I don't know how."

It was Alicia's idea to hide a flashlight under the stairs. Norah still pretended to kick and punch for a while so Miss Fairchild didn't get suspicious. Once, Jessica even hid a book there, so Norah could read. These small wins kept Jessica going. Unfortunately, every time she came up with a way to make their lives a little more manageable, Miss Fairchild came up with a new way to hurt them.

"Jessica?"

Jessica froze halfway down the stairs. She'd thought she was the first one up, as usual, but not today it seemed.

Miss Fairchild was a woman of fixed habits. At this time of day, she was usually finishing her shower. After that she would dress and wipe down the mirror and benchtop before coming downstairs. Jessica knew her foster mother's morning routine as well as she knew her own. Better.

Jessica glanced to the top of the stairs for Norah or Alicia. Where possible, they tried not to approach Miss Fairchild alone. But though Jessica tried to summon them in a hushed whisper, neither girl materialized.

"Jessica, is that you?"Miss Fairchild sounded impatient now.

"Coming!"

Jessica found Miss Fairchild in the living room. She looked up from the armchair when Jessica entered and smiled. A proper smile.

"I had a surprise visitor during the night," Miss Fairchild said.

When Jessica saw what the woman was holding, she gasped.

"Come and see." Miss Fairchild beckoned her closer. "Isn't she beautiful?"

Shewas a newborn baby. As to whether she was beautiful, it was difficult to say with her all swaddled up like that. All you could see were her closed eyes, a little bit of her hairline, and her mouth, slack with sleep.

"Her name is Rhiannon," Miss Fairchild said, looking down at the baby again. "She was removed from her parents last night. Drug addicts, apparently."

She spoke in an exaggerated singsong voice even when she said drug addicts. It was like she'd been sedated or lobotomized or something.

"I told Scott to put my name down for infant respite care," she continued, her eyes fixed on the baby. "Short-term placements for babies who are removed from their parents at short notice. There are so many innocent babies who need homes, and I decided that we should do our part."

Jessica was surprised to hear this. She had assumed Miss Fairchild was prepared to take in only older kids. After all, babies were a lot of work, and Miss Fairchild was so attached to her routines, her clean house, her ability to control everyone and everything. It was hard to imagine how a baby would fit in with the environment she'd created at Wild Meadows.

In other ways, though, it made sense. Above all else, Miss Fairchild demanded utter devotion. She'd made it clear that Jessica had failed to provide it. She wasn't sure Norah and Alicia were ever expected to provide it—their purpose, as far as Jessica could tell, was to help pay the bills. Obviously she'd decided to find someone who would offer the unconditional adoration she craved. Who could be more devoted than a baby!?

Jessica heard muffled voices in the hallway, and a moment later Norah and Alicia peered around the corner.

"Come in, girls," Miss Fairchild said cheerfully.

"It's a baby," Norah said, entering the room then almost immediately taking a step back, as if afraid the baby would leap at her.

"A little girl," Miss Fairchild replied. She cooed softly at the bundle in her arms. "Her name is Rhiannon."

"Are we keeping her?" Alicia asked.

"It's just a respite placement for now, but who knows?"

Norah's lip curled, making it clear what she thought of the idea.

"Anyway, I might put Sleeping Beauty down for a nap, and then I might have a nap myself. Little Miss was quite unsettled last night, and I'm exhausted."

Miss Fairchild heaved herself to her feet, baby still in her arms. Before leaving the room, bizarrely, she kissed each of them on the forehead.

"I think she's gone mad," Norah said, when Miss Fairchild had disappeared upstairs.

"I think she's in love," Alicia said.

The three of them got on with the morning chores, but Alicia's comment reverberated in Jessica's mind for hours. I think she's in love. It was distressing how much it hurt.

Rhiannon was an astonishingly unsettled baby. In the three days she'd spent at Wild Meadows, the only time she wasn't crying was when she was asleep, which wasn't very often.

"That baby is broken," Norah said for what felt like the fiftieth time. "It has no off switch."

"She,"Jessica corrected. "She has no off switch. She is a human."

"She is a monster," Norah muttered.

Miss Fairchild tried everything she could to soothe her— patting her, singing to her, reading aloud. Nothing seemed to work. For a newborn, she had an impressive set of lungs.

"Norah is right," Miss Fairchild said tersely on the fourth day. "This baby is broken."

Miss Fairchild's buoyant mood had well and truly sunk by then. Jessica wasn't as worried about it as her sisters were. They'd enjoyed her brief period of good cheer, when she'd been far too worried about the baby to bother with persecuting them, but Jessica, to her shame, hadn't enjoyed it all. As far as she was concerned, the less Miss Fairchild liked the child, the better.

On the fifth night, Rhiannon's crying just didn't stop. When Jessica finally peeked into Miss Fairchild's bedroom, she noticed Miss Fairchild hadn't even bothered to pick her up from her crib.

"Want me to have a go?" Jessica said.

"Would you mind?" Miss Fairchild replied with an almost comical level of gratitude.

"Of course not." On the contrary, the idea of feeling needed and appreciated by Miss Fairchild was still like a drug to her. "You go to sleep. I'll take care of everything."

Jessica carried Rhiannon downstairs, where she rocked, soothed, and sang to her. Rhiannon didn't seem to care for Jessica's singing, because she screamed the whole night through. But as the sun rose, she finally drifted off to sleep in Jessica's arms, likely out of sheer exhaustion. And Jessica lowered herself into the armchair and slept too.

When Jessica opened her eyes again, Miss Fairchild was standing in front of her.

"Oh," Jessica said.

Miss Fairchild was showered and dressed in a fresh white top and jeans. Her hair was wet from the shower. She peered down at the baby, who was sleeping peacefully.

"I found the off switch." Jessica smiled. "Took a while, but we got there."

Miss Fairchild didn't return her smile. "Well, well," she said tightly. "Aren't you clever?"

Jessica was still groggy, that was the problem. She hadn't meant to offend Miss Fairchild. And yet, somehow she'd unwittingly suggested that she had a skill that Miss Fairchild lacked, or that she was better with the baby. But it was too late to correct her mistake; the damage was done.

"I think she just got worn out from all the crying," Jessica said desperately. She felt like she might cry herself.

Miss Fairchild glared at her. She was still a young woman, but faint lines had started to appear in her cheeks, slanting downward. They looked especially pronounced today. "Or maybe perfect Jessica just had the magic touch? Why not? Jessica is perfect at everything."

Jessica struggled for something to say, but nothing occurred to her.

"Since you're so perfect," Miss Fairchild said, "why don't you look after Rhiannon from now on?"

"But I have school," Jessica reminded her.

"Not anymore," Miss Fairchild said, and she stalked out of the room.

"How do you make a baby alien go to sleep?" Alicia said.

It had been a week since Rhiannon became Jessica's full-time responsibility. Feeding, burping, bathing, soothing, all of it. Miss Fairchild didn't even reach for her anymore. It was as if the baby had been sullied. As if she didn't exist. Luckily, Norah and Alicia were willing to share the burden.

"You rocket."

Jessica and Norah were too tired even to laugh. They hadn't been to school in a week, instead working in shifts, pacing the floor with Rhiannon as she howled. Norah was unexpectedly good with her. She'd borrowed a book about babies from the local library and they'd tried tilting her crib at a slight angle, to help with reflux. If they got it exactly right, occasionally she stopped crying long enough to sleep.

Every now and then, Miss Fairchild stuck her head in the room to glare at them, as if the baby's presence was their fault instead of hers. After a while, Jessica became too tired even to feel hurt by it.

They all developed a ringing in their ears from the crying. They started walking with a bounce in their step, whether they were holding the baby or not. The house went to hell. Chores didn't get done and the laundry piled up. Miss Fairchild let it go, perhaps aware that they had nothing left to give.

The following week, when Scott arrived to take Rhiannon home, no one was upset.

"Bye," they called from the door, while Miss Fairchild walked Scott and Rhiannon to the car.

They'd just fallen onto the couch, fantasizing about the full night of sleep that awaited them, when Miss Fairchild returned.

"This place is a pigsty," she said. "No one sleeps until it's spick-and-span."

Two weeks later, when they came downstairs for breakfast, there was another baby in Miss Fairchild's arms.

"Shh," Miss Fairchild said. "She's sleeping."

"Am I having a déjà vu?" Norah muttered. "Or is this a nightmare?"

This baby was older than Rhiannon, maybe a year old, with masses of dark brown hair. One of her eyes was covered with a white surgical patch.

"Her name is Bianca."

"What happened to her eye?" Jessica asked.

"Her stepfather happened." A muscle tightened in Miss Fairchild's jaw. For a moment they were all silent, watching the poor baby sleep.

"I need one of you girls to get the bus to the pharmacist for fresh gauze and bandages for her eye. Then head to the thrift shop and buy whatever you can find in her size. I have a voucher for formula and nappies over there on the dining table."

"I'll do it," Jessica said. She was still wary of Miss Fairchild after what happened with Rhiannon, but there was also something about being needed that she was helpless to resist.

"It's unimaginable, isn't it?" Miss Fairchild said, looking from Jessica to Norah to Alicia. "To think that someone would hurt a child." She shook her head, lowering her gaze back to the baby.

None of them replied.

At first, just like with the first baby, Miss Fairchild spent every waking moment with Bianca. Unlike Rhiannon, Bianca was a placid baby. She ate and slept and was content to sit and play. At night, if she woke, she could be settled with a pat on the back. The problem with Bianca was that she didn't like to be touched. If you tried to show her affection, she flinched or cried.

In response, Miss Fairchild showered her in kisses and hugs that were clearly unwanted. After a week of being rebuffed, Miss Fairchild started to get annoyed.

"What's wrong with her?" Miss Fairchild asked. "Why doesn't she like cuddles?"

There were just so many ways a person could fail her, Jessica realized. Rhiannon cried too much. Bianca didn't want cuddles. How could a foster child, who already carried his or her own trauma, ever have room in their little hearts to love Miss Fairchild the way she needed to be loved?

Five days into her stay, Miss Fairchild relinquished responsibility for Bianca like she'd done with Rhiannon. This time, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia hit their stride quickly, establishing a routine for Bianca and divvying up the duties.

Bianca was collected a few days later. They all stood on the porch and waved her off as she left. This time they didn't need to be told that there'd be no rest until they'd restored the house to order.

More babies came. They were always girls and they all arrived in the dead of the night. Some stayed for a day or two, some for a week or more, but the pattern was the same. Miss Fairchild started out caring for the child enthusiastically before becoming disenchanted. One had crossed eyes. One was overweight. One had fetal alcohol syndrome. Each time a baby came and went, Miss Fairchild became more irritated, and the girls became more tired.

"I have been trying to figure out why I haven't been sleeping at night," Alicia said as she paced the floor with a baby in arms. "And then it dawned on me."

"That's funny," Norah said, stony-faced.

If it was just the fatigue they had to deal with, they might have been able to cope. Unfortunately, to add to their fun, Miss Fairchild was becoming impossible to live with. During the day she was mean, always finding ways to criticize or obstruct them. At night, she drank. Often when they were up feeding a baby they could hear her rattling around downstairs, muttering as she threw an empty bottle into the rubbish bin.

When a baby stayed longer than a week, a social worker came to visit, usually Scott. The girls always knew when he was due, because Miss Fairchild would instruct them to clean the house from top to bottom and then stage some sort of ridiculous activity—a puzzle or a board game that they'd be playing "spontaneously" when Scott arrived. Jessica didn't know why she bothered; Scott didn't pay any attention to them anyway. He seemed far more interested in Miss Fairchild's well-being, making sure she was "coping." Which would have been fine and well, except he didn't seem to notice that she wasn't.