28. Norah

Couch, Converse, and Thong were already asleep on her bed, but Norah was wide awake. As if today hadn't been stressful enough, she'd just checked her voicemail—bastard that it was—and found a message from a police officer in Melbourne.

"Miss Anderson, it's Constable Perkins from Victoria Police. We'd like to talk to you at your earliest convenience about a complaint we've had regarding an assault that occurred in Melbourne yesterday. When you get this message can you please give me a call on…"

"Kevin, you son of a bitch," she said out loud.

The unpleasant sensation she'd felt after receiving his earlier message returned with a vengeance. He'd done it. He'd fucking done it. He'd actually gone to the cops. She hadn't thought the weasel had it in him.

Her face became hot, her heart started pounding loudly enough to make her aware of each individual beat. She wanted to hit something… preferably Kevin's face… but she had to make do with punching the mattress insetad as she tried to corral her thoughts.

The ramifications came to Norah in layers. Not only would she likely be charged with assault, there was also her community corrections order to think about, and the fact that this offense might well send her to jail. As if that wasn't bad enough, the cops wanted to talk to her and her sisters about a dead child, found buried under the home they'd grown up in! With her criminal record, an active assault charge, and a community corrections order… this could look very bad for her indeed.

She took a deep breath. Jessica was forever taking deep breaths. It never seemed to help her, but given the lack of other options Norah decided to try it herself. It proved surprisingly effective. As she sucked in air, everything suddenly became clear. She'd just have to deal with it. She'd have liked to deal with it by giving Kevin a swift kick in the balls, of course, but fighting wasn't going to help her this time. She needed to be more resourceful. The priority was making this go away, and fast. And as Norah had learned when she was young, sometimes that meant gritting your teeth and doing what you had to do.

She glanced around the room. There was a full-length mirror in one corner of her room that would do nicely, she decided. The lighting in the room wasn't great, but she had to work with what was on hand. She stripped off her clothes, and arranged herself on the floor with her knees angled just so. It was quite arty, really. She probably could have submitted it to a magazine. It was certainly good enough to get an assault complaint dropped.

She attached the photo to a text and wrote:

I made my clothes go away. Now make the charges do the same.

She pressed send, then threw the phone across the room, knocking a lamp off the bedside table and sending it crashing to the floor. Fuck you, Kevin, she thought.

"Everything okay?" Alicia called from the next room.

"Fine," she called back.

She didn't see the point of involving her sisters in this. They had enough to worry about.