Closed The Cycle Repeats

[Alexander Alcott]

Alex felt a little odd being on this side of Corinne's door, after she had been on this side of his so often. He hadn't ever actually been the one to visit her since her arrival in Aotearoa, it was always Corinne at his door, Corinne sniffing around for ways she could take up Alex's time, his energy, his resources. As desperately as he had wanted to be able to mould her into a real mother for Louis, after some soul-searching Alex had finally acknowledged his own naievity. Corinne had resolved somewhere along the line to spend her life as a leech and leave everyone else to clean up her messes, and he had been an idiot to think she could change.

But despite his finally acknowledging that Corinne was never going to be a mother to Louis, she was still very much Anouk's mother, and that worried him enormously. It was none of his business, he knew that, but the father Corinne had turned him into when she abandoned Louis in his arms was a man who could never just leave a baby in that kind of situation. Getting to know Corinne properly had shown him exactly what kind of childhood Louis had dodged by staying with him, and he couldn't doom Anouk to that same fate. Of everyone in this situation, she and Louis were the ultimate victims. So Alex drew a heavy breath as he knocked on Corinne's door, bracing himself for another painful conversation with the grating woman.

 

[Corinne Durand]

Corinne was done. She needed to leave, to go. She had been very careful with the money Richard had paid her, in the back of her mind she had always known it would be money she'd use to get away. To travel and leave again. She couldn't do this. At night, she kept seeing Louis' hurt eyes, often her dreams then morphed them into Anouk, the way she would look at her when she was older. Corinne wasn't made to be a mother, everything in the world had made that clear to her.

While her daughter was napping, Corinne had gone into a frenzy. She had started packing up her apartment, putting things on boxes and bags. She'd throw a lot of it out, then she would take what she'd need and... go, see the world. Her mind wouldn't let her even think about Anouk, what she would have to do to be able to go. Anouk would be better off without her. She'd find some better family if Corinne gave her up. She wasn't made to be a parent, and she knew by now that Richard was quite possibly an even worse option. Corinne would just... give her up, then she would be free again. She felt a manic sort of relief. She jumped when there was a knock on the door, her heart pounding. It wasn't like she was doing anything wrong, but she still felt caught out. Especially when she opened the door and saw Alexander standing there. She didn't want his judgement. "I'm busy." She said, as if she though it would really make him go away.