A Happy Family Without Me novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Lorna's Door

Fenella's POV

Lorna stood at the edge of the porch light with her hands hanging empty.

"I'm not here to fight," she said. "I'm here because I have nowhere to go."

Torsten stayed at the end of the porch, near the chairs, and said nothing.

I did not ask her in.

"Where are your children?" I said.

"With his mother. She took them out of the cottage this afternoon, before the dinner."

"Then why aren't you with them?"

"Because she said she would keep the children and not me."

Lorna's voice shook.

"She said I could come back when I had stopped lying."

"And your own family?"

"My mother hung up on me tonight. She saw the video on my cousin's phone, and then she saw you."

She laughed, wetly, and wiped her cheek.

"She told me I'd made my bed."

Lorna wiped her cheek again.

"She said I should have known he would do to me what he did to his wife."

I looked at the suitcase.

It was small and blue, with a ribbon tied to the handle.

"What do you want from me, Lorna?"

"I want to leave the cottage. I want to take the children somewhere that doesn't have his shirts in the closet."

She pressed her hand to her stomach.

"I have no money. Everything I had went into that deposit."

"Poppy's money."

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