My Brother's Girl

by Sienna Blake

  Ma kissed me on the cheek and told me that the dress shopping had been pushed back to tomorrow because of a last-minute shift Kayleigh picked up at The Jar. I nodded and with nothing more to say on that matter, we stood in silence next to one another in front of Jaime’s gravestone.

  I swallowed heavily as guilt creeped back into my chest like spilled oil into the cracks of my garage floor.

  Alone with Jaime I’d been feeling fine—good, even. But with Ma there I couldn’t see Jaime. I couldn’t hear his voice. I couldn’t imagine him laughing and nudging me as he sipped a pint of Guinness at the bar in Cassidys.

  All I could see was cold, hard earth. All I could see was a slab of grey granite. All I could see was his name, the last thing left of him, etched in stone.

  My heart rate quickened.

  All I could see was the hospital light in the distance. All I could see was that goddamn wrench as it slipped again through my bloody fingers. And my panicked breaths condensing in the cold, dark air.

  My chest tightened.

  All I could see was that hospital hallway with its long phosphorescent bulbs and yellow linoleum floors. All I could see was Ma surrounded by my family as I ran toward them. All I could see was her eyes when she saw me.

  She didn’t have to say a word.

  The horrible truth was all there in her eyes.

  Jamie was gone.

  I couldn’t breathe. There in the cemetery, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I tried to suck in freezing cold air, but nothing seemed to reach my lungs. They tightened painfully and I wheezed, desperate for relief, any blessed relief. Black spots danced in my vision as I stared at the gravestone, the shrivelled flowers, the grass grown over the hole where they lowered him into the ground.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  And I hadn’t been there.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I hadn’t been there.

  I couldn’t brea—

  I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  When I turned and blinked, it wasn’t Ma’s hand. It was Jaime’s. I could see his eyes again, could hear him again.

  “Tell her, Darren. It’s time.”

  I looked over at Ma, who was staring at me with concern in her bright blue eyes, Jaime’s eyes.

  “Darren?” she asked, taking a step closer to me. “Darren, is everything alright?”

  My tears immediately stained the collar of her jacket as I slung my arms around her and buried my face against the nape of her neck like I did when I was a child.

  “Ma, I was with Sophie,” I said, words muffled by her thick scarf against the cold. “I was running away with her and we were in the car and it got a flat when I was rushing back and, and I couldn’t fix it in time. I, I couldn’t—Ma, I tried, I tried, but I couldn’t fix it. I can’t fix it.”

  My shoulders shook as I cried and squeezed my mother tight as she held me, hand caressing the back of my head.

  I didn’t cry that night my brother died.

  I didn’t hug Ma or Noah or Eoin or Michael.

  I didn’t let them hug me.

  I’d dug my nails into my palm so my eyes stayed dry and shooed away any hint of a hug with an emotionless, “I’m grand.”

  I finally pulled away from my ma and wiped at my tear-drenched cheeks. “Ma,” my voice choked with emotion, “could you ever forgive me?”

  Ma reached out and cupped my cheeks, not bothering to wipe away her own tears. It was as if she was comfortable with the pain. Like she knew it would never truly go away. As if she had learned to live with it, learned to love despite it.

  “Darren, I love you,” she whispered, “and there is nothing to be forgiven.”

  I shook my head and tried to protest.

  Ma stopped me by roughly grabbing the hair at the nape of my neck. Her eyes were fierce as they held mine as if in a vice grip. “Darren O’Sullivan, listen to me,” she said, her voice shaking. “I love you and there is nothing—nothing—to be forgiven.”

  Fresh tears streamed down both of our faces. She pulled me back to her chest, arms wrapped tightly, protectively around me, pulling closed the open wound across my heart.

  “Do you hear me?” she whispered against the crown of my head.

  “Yes,” I said, fingers clinging to my ma’s coat. “I hear you.”

  Kayleigh

  It’s difficult enough trying to hide your heartbreak when you’re supposed to be elatedly, joyously, beaming in love. But it’s damn near impossible standing in front of a trifold floor-to-ceiling mirror. Three opportunities to let your performance slip. Three opportunities for everyone to see your mask slip. Three opportunities for your secret to escape without a single word.

  “Oh, Kayleigh, it’s stunning!” Candace said, leaping to her feet and erupting into enthusiastic applause as soon as the dress shop attendant helped me up onto the pedestal. “Absolutely gorgeous, my love! Bela, bela!”

  Well aware that my reflection was being attentively studied by Aubrey and Ma, I tugged up the corners of my lips till the muscles in my cheeks ached.

  “You think so?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound strained.

  I pretended that I enjoyed running my hands down the silk skirt, tracing the pearl beads along the bust line, counting the jewels forming a band around my waist. I pretended that I wasn’t longing for the cold sting of a heavy metal wrench, wishing to feel the roar of an engine under me instead of the pinch of uncomfortable heels, wanting to use this wedding dress as nothing more than a rag to wipe off my grease-covered hands.

  “Let’s see it from the front,” Aubrey said, drumming the fingers of one hand contemplatively across her chin as she held her champagne glass in the other.

  It was clear that Aubrey was unwilling to show too much enthusiasm for the early dresses (unlike Candace, who screamed at each and every one), because then the shopping experience (and the complimentary champagne and strawberries that accompanied it) would be over. Me, on the other hand? I would have taken the first one just to end this torture. Even if it made me look like a meringue.

  To comply with Aubrey’s request, the dress shop attendant lifted the heavy skirt so I could wobble around on the three-foot-wide circle, three inches off the carpeted floor. It might have been a tad bit smaller than other stages I’d been on during my lifetime, but there was no doubt that it was nevertheless a stage.

  Standing there in front of Ma, Candace, and Aubrey, I had to act like I was happy. I had to act that I was just as excited as they were to be there in that elegant wedding dress, twinkling with Swarovski crystals and stuffed with cloud-like puffs of pure white tulle. And when the dress shop attendant asked if I could imagine walking toward my fiancé in this dress, I had to act like I was seeing Eoin, and not Darren, at the end of the white rose-covered aisles when my eyelids fluttered closed.

  “Well?” I asked, holding the skirt out on either side of me for the peanut gallery to evaluate.

  I hoped that I didn’t betray how exhausted I felt. Unfortunately, there wasn’t concealer for the dark bags in your voice. All the wedding preparations had truly drained me. With every plate selection or DJ interview or wedding venue tour, my nights grew more and more fitful.

  Because I couldn’t stop seeing him…

  “You know what,” Aubrey finally said, head tilting to the side as she dutifully assessed the dress. “I think we maybe need to see it with a veil to get the whole picture, you know?”

  The dress shop attendant nodded. “We can do that,” she said. “Would you like to come take a look with me?”

  From the plush velvet couch, Aubrey tapped her empty champagne glass and grinned mischievously. “The veils are over by the bottles of champagne, right?”

  The dress shop attendant laughed and waved her hand. “I think you’ll be quite impressed with our collection,” she joked.

  Aubrey winked at me before following after her.

  Candace leapt up next and rushed over to squeeze my hand. “I’ll make sure that they pick the one with t
he most bling,” she whispered loudly. “Don’t you worry.”

  I couldn’t manage to keep up my good-natured giggling once Candace disappeared around the corner. The fitting room sank into a sombre silence like a rock tossed into the lake. Then I remembered that Ma was still sitting silently on the couch.

  I bit back a tired, heart-aching sigh and smiled over at her, the perfect actress. “So what do you think?” I asked.

  Ma pushed herself slowly from the couch and walked over to me on the pedestal. She lowered her glasses to her nose from where they had been tucked atop her head along with her sleek white bun. As I watched her, she quietly traced the delicate floral pattern of lace across the bodice of the dress.

  “Now that we’re alone for a moment,” Ma started, moving to admire the back of the dress, “I wanted to thank you.”

  With a frown, I twisted my head around to see her, but Ma was smoothing a wrinkle in the voluminous skirt and did not meet my curious gaze.

  “Thank me?” I asked.

  Ma nodded.

  “For what?”

  Ma moved to the front of me again and held her arm as she supported her chin with her palm. She shook her head silently.

  “I think the straps are a little wide for your small frame,” she said, obviously not answering my question in the slightest.

  She picked up a small burgundy cushion of pins the dress shop attendant left on a wooden stool next to the mirrors and raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind?”

  I shook my head.

  With two pins held between her lips, Ma’s sharp blue eyes focused on her work as she manoeuvred the straps of the wedding dress on me. Farther on in the shop, I could just make out Candace and Aubrey’s excited giggles as they were surely trying on the veils themselves.

  I was actually thankful for the small bout of silence, what felt like the first in a chaotic last few weeks. I was studying Ma’s quiet, diligent work when she spoke again, her voice soft. “I spoke with Darren yesterday.”

  I waited for Ma’s eyes to move to mine, but she remained focused on pinning the dress here and there. Ma stepped back to study her work before moving in close to me again.

  “I spoke with Darren yesterday and he told me the truth of what happened that night,” she whispered, her voice calm and even. “The truth of where he was when Jaime passed in that hospital room.”

  I stared down at Ma in surprise. That was a secret Darren had held onto for almost a decade. He was terrified, absolutely terrified of his mother finding out that painful truth.

  Ma’s eyes finally glanced up at me and her hands slid down the dress to find mine, her fingers intertwining with mine.

  “I suspect you had something to do with that,” she said. “So thank you. I’ve been waiting years for him to finally tell me.”

  “You knew? You knew this whole time?”

  Ma patted my cheek gently and said before putting two more pins between her lips, “I’m his mother. Of course I’ve known this whole time.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “He was a teenager in love,” Ma chuckled. “Teenagers in love aren’t exactly known for being subtle. I’m pretty sure I knew he was planning on leaving home before even he did.”

  I couldn’t form words as Ma slipped another pin into the dress.

  “Besides, my bed is right above that garage and mothers have very sensitive ears.” She laughed a little to herself. “I saw him leave that night.” Sadness entered Ma’s voice as she sighed and briefly squeezed her eyes closed.

  “Why’d you let him believe all this time that you didn’t know?” I asked.

  Ma nodded, as if she’d been expecting this very question from my lips. “I’ve asked myself this very question many times over the years,” she started. “Every time I saw Darren in pain, every time I saw him withdraw into that garage, every time I caught him digging his nails into his palm to the point of drawing blood whenever someone mentioned Jamie’s name, I doubted my decision to let Darren keep his secret.”

  Ma’s hands paused where they were on the strap of the wedding dress. She sucked in a steadying breath as she clearly fought back tears.

  “No mother ever wants to see their child in pain,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t take away Darren’s pain if he wasn’t ready to let it go, if he wasn’t ready to believe that he no longer deserved it, that he never deserved it in the first place.”

  Ma’s lower lip quivered. I reached out a hand and ran it gently along her arm. I felt the threat of tears myself and bit my lip to try to hold them back.

  One thing could not have been more obvious to me in that quiet moment in the dressing room: we both loved, and loved dearly, the same man.

  “You’re the reason, Kayleigh Scott,” Ma said. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still thick with emotion. “You’re the reason he finally let go.”

  Ma reached up to run the back of her hand sweetly against my cheek. “And for that I can never repay you, my dear,” she whispered. “Avoiding the truth, running away from it, trying to bury it deep, deep down where no one can see it…it only leads to pain.” Ma then moved on to the other strap of the dress, inserting pin after pin as she added, eyes glancing up at me, “Pain for everyone.”

  Our eyes held one another’s for a quiet moment, and more was communicated silently than could ever be said aloud. As I looked into her intelligent, kind blue eyes, I got the strange sense that she wasn’t only talking about Darren and Jamie at this point. Did she know about Darren and me? Could that be another “truth” she was subtly referring to? Could she see what was truly in my heart as I stood there in a wedding dress, set to marry one of her sons and in love with another?

  I tried to find the answers in her steady gaze, but before I could, Ma ducked her eyes and stepped back to assess again the dress and her adjustments to it.

  I worried that my voice might betray my own emotion as I asked, “W-what do you think?”

  Ma fidgeted with the pin cushion as she frowned at the dress from head to toe.

  “Better?” I asked meekly.

  Ma shook her head. “Something is still off.”

  I glanced down at the dress myself. The way Ma had tucked the straps made the top look more elegant, more natural. It was, beyond a doubt, a stunning dress. When I looked up, I found Ma’s eyes on me.

  “Something is definitely wrong here,” she said.

  “What? With the straps?” I asked.

  Ma kept her eyes fixed pointedly on me as she shook her head. “No, Kayleigh,” she said slowly so I didn’t miss a single word. “Not with the straps.”

  Kayleigh

  When I rang the doorbell outside of Eoin’s apartment, it sounded like the microwave ringing out in the dark kitchen of my childhood. My mother was busy taking my father his food in his room, so the microwave beeped and beeped and—

  “Kayleigh Bear!” Eoin’s grinning face popped out of the cracked door. “Or should I say Fiancée Bear. What a wonderful surprise. I was just Googling whether they make rugby ball-shaped cufflinks for the wedding.”

  I forced a smile as I shifted from foot to foot on his front step. I was already considering turning right around and running back to my car. I swallowed and tried to still my nerves. “Um, Eoin, can I maybe come in for a minute?”

  Eoin smacked himself on the forehead and moved aside to let me in. “Of course, of course,” he laughed. “We’re spending the rest of our lives together, fiancée. You can move in right now if you want.”

  I winced at the second use of the word fiancée as I followed Eoin into the living room of his spacious luxury townhouse. I noticed the plastic remains of a microwavable meal still on the kitchen table and felt myself chickening out as I imagined Eoin eating many more of those meals alone.

  No. I clung to Ma’s words: avoiding the truth ends up being painful for everyone.

  “Aubrey sent over those bottles of wine, by the way,” Eoin said as he pointed to several bottles on the coffee table. “She says we can
pick any of those for the wedding. I think she may be even more excited for about than you, Kayleigh Bear.” Eoin laughed as he twisted a bottle around to frown at the French on the label. “So, um, do you want to make out on the couch or something?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Or we could make out in the hot tub.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the porch outside.

  “Um, Eoin, I think we should sit down for this,” I tentatively said.

  “Yeah, babe. I suggested the hot tub or the couch,” he said. “Both of those are sitting down.”

  This was not going well.

  “No, no,” I said, guiding Eoin to the couch next to me with a hand on his elbow. “Eoin, we need to talk.”

  Eoin’s eyes narrowed with growing suspicion when I removed the hand that he placed casually on my knee. I avoided his eyes as I scooted an inch or two away from him so our hips weren’t touching.

  “Kayleigh Bear?” Eoin asked, worry entering his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  As I stared down at my hands, which were clammy and fidgety in my lap, I could feel my mother’s bony, hard fingers wrapped around them as she dragged me to my room.

  “You brat! You little brat! You’ll make him leave.”

  Eoin’s living room was dead silent as he waited for me to speak, but I could hear her; I could hear her as clearly as the day that she said it. “If he leaves, I’m leaving, too. You’ll be all alone. All alone forever!”

  I flinched, even though no door slammed. No door rattled on its hinges. No storming footsteps echoed away down the hallway.

  I don’t want to be alone, my mind screamed at me. I wanted a family. I wanted big noisy Christmas dinners and picnics by the sea in the summer. I didn’t want to be alone!

  Panic filled my chest at the prospect of being alone forever if I told Eoin the truth, if I caused a fight, if I didn’t keep my mouth shut: silent, like I should be.

  If I just buried the truth, the truth that I loved Darren and wanted to be with him, if I just pushed it down deep, deep, deep down, if I just hid it away in my heart, I would have Eoin. I wouldn’t be alone. I would have his family. I loved his family. I would have packed tables, not a chair empty.