Rival Sisters

by Louise Guy

  Hannah stared at her husband. Since when did he refer to his parents as Edward and Trish? They’d always been Mum and Dad.

  ‘Their heritage is yours too.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not in the way that matters. They’re not part of my bloodline. I’m a random ring-in to the family. Of course, they’ve never intentionally made me feel like that, but I do. I hate that I know nothing about my genetic make-up. Who knows what illnesses are in the family? What things we should be aware of for both me and Amy?’

  ‘You might be better off not knowing.’ Damien had no idea how true that statement was. She cleared her throat. ‘You might find out things about your family that you wish you never knew. Once you know the details, you can’t unknow them.’

  ‘I know. But I’d prefer to learn horrible things than live in ignorance the rest of my life.’

  Hannah nodded. She needed to look supportive while at the same time drive him well away from this line of thinking. ‘I guess we could try and do further explorations.’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s no point. I think that’s why it feels so hopeless. There isn’t anyone left in the family to talk to. The investigator – something Fox – he made it pretty clear that as far as the bloodline went, it was just me. Although I guess there could be distant cousins around.’

  A lump lodged in her throat as she thought of the enormity of what she’d done.

  He reached for her hand and kissed it. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you what I was going through. I’m finding it tough to make sense of what I’m feeling.’

  Hannah’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Oh, babe, I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s the last thing I want to do. It’s exactly why I haven’t said anything. No point in us both feeling miserable.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s not that. I’m just gutted that you have to go through this. I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better.’ This was his father’s fault. Why did he have to turn out to be a rapist? She couldn’t imagine any other scenario where she would have had to hide the truth from her husband. And now she was beginning to regret ever doing that. Damien was a mess, Phyllie was ten thousand dollars out of pocket, and there was the very real threat that she hadn’t heard the last of Zane Fox.

  Damien stood and held out his hand. ‘I can think of something that might make us both feel better. Come on. It’s been way too long.’

  Hannah allowed herself to be led up the stairs to their bedroom. Damien shut the door behind them and pulled her to him. ‘I’m so lucky to have you. You’re always there for me. I really couldn’t ask for anyone more supportive. I love you, Mrs Anderson.’

  Hannah melted into his body and his kiss, wishing her mind would switch off and allow her to enjoy the moment, rather than being flooded with guilt.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Now listen here, housemate, I thought we had a deal.’

  Nat turned, her hand still holding the fridge open, and stared at Phyllie. There was a twinkle in her eye, but she looked serious.

  ‘As much as I love the fact that having you living here gets Hannah off my back about assisted living, we agreed you could stay here while you looked for a new job and were in a position to house-hunt. You’ve been here for two weeks and you’ve hardly left the house. You haven’t even been doing the volunteering I thought you were so passionate about. What on earth’s going on?’

  Nat retrieved the milk from the fridge and returned her focus to the coffee she was making. She glanced up at Phyllie briefly. ‘I’ve been doing some work for a friend online.’ Under no circumstances did she plan to tell her what she had really been doing. She’d had this story in the back of her mind just in case Phyllie or anyone else asked.

  ‘What sort of work? You haven’t been filming yourself and putting it on that blasted internet, have you? There are a lot of weirdos out there.’

  Nat laughed. ‘No, of course not. She has an online store selling kids’ swimwear and needed some help with updating the site. They have hundreds of products and have just finished a photo shoot for the new season’s stock. They needed someone to update all the product descriptions.’

  ‘Oh,’ Phyllie said. ‘That’s good then. You’ll have to show me the site. It sounds fascinating.’

  Nat poured the milk into the instant coffee, wishing for the millionth time Phyllie owned a coffee machine.

  ‘What would I want a coffee machine for?’ Phyllie had asked incredulously when Nat had mentioned it. ‘Can’t stand anything but instant. Those machines make it so strong I have to pour half of it out and add hot water. Can’t think of a bigger waste of money.’

  Nat thought of her friend Anita Green. She did run an online swimwear catalogue; that part was true at least. The part that wasn’t was Nat’s employment with her. She hadn’t spoken to Anita in two years. She wondered momentarily how her old school friend was. She hoped Sandy Swimwear was still in business.

  Phyllie cleared her throat, reminding Nat they were still having a conversation. She carried the two mugs across to the kitchen table and sat down opposite her grandmother, placing one in front of her. ‘I’ve got at least two more weeks for Anita to do,’ Nat lied. ‘Then I’ll have to get back out there looking for a permanent job. It’s going okay having me living here, isn’t it?’

  Phyllie sipped her coffee and nodded slowly. ‘It is, but it’s not healthy being locked up in that room all day. You should be getting out with your friends or doing something else.’

  Nat smiled. ‘And I will. I need to get this work done first. Now, more importantly, what do you feel like for dinner?’

  ‘Nothing for me, love. When I said you were to cook on the nights you were home, I assumed that might be two or three times a week. So far you’ve cooked every night you’ve lived here. That’s not fair on you, and also, I’m getting fat. I’m not used to having proper meals every night. Quite often I’ll have an egg or a tin of soup with some toast. All these plates of pasta, stir-fry and curry are delicious of course, but perhaps we’ll change the rules to you cooking every second or third night that you’re home. I’ll look after myself tonight, and we’ve got Amy’s afternoon tea for her birthday tomorrow, so neither of us will want a proper meal again until Sunday.’

  Nat nodded. It suited her. The meals she was cooking added up too. While Phyllie had allocated a budget for their food, she was beginning to think she could utilise the money in better ways.

  ‘Now, have you heard anything from that sister of yours?’

  ‘Hannah? Why on earth would I hear from her?’

  Phyllie shrugged. ‘She has a few things going on. I thought she might have needed a shoulder to lean on.’

  Nat snorted. ‘I’d be the last person Hannah would turn to for anything. Surely you know that by now.’

  Phyllie sighed. ‘You two don’t realise what you’re missing out on. Having a sister is such a blessing. I’d give anything to have Isobel back. It’s hard to believe eight years have passed since she died.’

  ‘You and Great Aunt Isobel weren’t like Hannah and me. You were both on the same page with things and enjoyed each other’s company. Hannah and I are too different.’

  ‘Not different enough to take an interest in each other and care about each other. She’s having a hard time, and I think she could use a friend. The two of you seem to forget just how close you once were. Perhaps when we’re there tomorrow for Amy’s birthday you could make more of an effort.’

  Nat smiled. She could just imagine how Hannah would receive any effort she made. It was utterly pointless but it was a conversation Phyllie had with her every year or so. She wondered if she spoke to Hannah too.

  She picked up her coffee. ‘I’d better get on with it. Anita’s expecting me to finish a section of the site this morning.’

  ‘Okay, love. And don’t forget to show me what you’ve been doing later, will you?’

  Nat wondered again how Anita was as she climbed the stairs to the second floor of
Phyllie’s three-bedroom home. The house was cosy, and despite Phyllie’s initial eye-rolling at the thought of having a babysitter in the house, overall she had been very welcoming. As Nat had hidden away, saying she was working, she hadn’t been in a position to interfere with Phyllie’s daily routine, which she knew was one of her grandmother’s biggest concerns.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her and locked it. She didn’t want Phyllie coming in unannounced and seeing what she was really doing. She hesitated as she went to sit at the small desk she’d set up in front of the window overlooking the back garden and the garden of the neighbour behind. Why did she care if Phyllie saw what she was up to? She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Phyllie would probably enjoy trying out the site herself. Nat had asked for more instruction when it came to playing poker, and they’d spent many evenings with a pack of cards and Phyllie sharing her tips and strategies. Her thoughts flittered to the conversation they’d just had. Her grandmother was right that she hadn’t been volunteering at Shared. But she had rectified the situation with her financial contributions. Just after moving in with Phyllie she’d had the inspired idea to donate half of the prize money from any game she won to Shared. As she’d moved on to more expensive tables, and the stakes for each game increased, so had her donations.

  Her mobile rang as she placed the coffee cup on the desk and switched on the computer. It was Pip. Nat hesitated. Pip had called the previous day too and she’d let it go to voicemail. She didn’t feel like speaking to her right now so she declined the call. She’d text her later and check that all was okay.

  The computer made all sorts of noises as it started up. It was an old machine and always took ages to load. Once it was up and running, it was fine though. It had been a bonus to discover Phyllie had internet. ‘Of course I do, you silly girl,’ she’d said when Nat had asked. ‘Everyone has it. How would I keep in touch on Facebook if I didn’t?’

  There had been quite a few surprises for Nat when she’d moved in with Phyllie. Discovering her glued to her iPad first thing in the morning and late at night had been a real eye-opener. It turned out Phyllie had more Facebook friends than she did. There was a large group she’d been to school with who had their own private group, and she was in there all the time, chatting or commiserating when another member died. ‘Just a reality at this age,’ she’d said. She logged in to the obituaries each morning and was forever sucking in breaths when she recognised a name. At eighty-nine, it was surprising there were still so many people in her school Facebook group.

  ‘It’s all that fresh air and socialising we had as children,’ Phyllie had explained. ‘We’ll all live well into our nineties and beyond. Whereas your generation will all fry your brains with the radiation from your devices. Eventually, it will go full circle, and life expectancy will be thirty, not eighty. It’ll be like smoking, where twenty years after it’s encouraged, the authorities realise it kills you. Technology will be the same and you’ll all die of brain tumours.’ She’d chuckled at the thought. ‘It will fix the ageing population issues in an instant.’

  Nat hoped her grandmother was wrong.

  Her computer finally booted, and she navigated to the web page. Time for her workday to begin. She had some losses that she needed to rectify to get back on track. She clicked on the link to Poker4Me and waited for the site to load.

  Excitement built for Nat with each hand she played. The adrenaline rush when she won was so addictive. She’d found it exciting initially to win on the five- and ten-dollar tables, but the euphoric feeling dulled as she got more experienced and won more often. She quickly found that to retain that buzz she needed to up her stakes. She’d almost had a heart attack the first time she’d played a hundred-dollar table. She overanalysed every move and ended up being knocked out of the tournament in the first few hands. She realised the key was playing consistently. When she applied the same rules she’d used at the poker night and on the cheaper tables she usually placed in the game. She just had to stick with that strategy.

  After only a few days of playing the hundred-dollar tables she found herself losing the buzz again. She’d win a game and open another, the high not the same as it was earlier in the week, so she upped the ante once again. It was unbelievable to think that only a couple of weeks after joining the site she was playing on the two-hundred-dollar tables. It was even more unbelievable that she was actually winning. Not every game, of course, but she was winning. And winning on a two-hundred-dollar table brought with it a much larger return.

  Nat’s heart raced as the final hand of the game was played and the You Placed First banner appeared on the screen. She was having a good day and had had an even better one the previous day. It was an incredible buzz to not only win a game but then log straight on to the Shared website and donate a substantial amount. The buzz of clicking on the donation button was almost as good as the buzz of seeing the You Placed First banner. Sure, gambling wasn’t giving back to the community in the way her support officer role did, but financial contributions were the core of any successful charity, so she could still play her part. Hopefully, if things continued as they currently were, she’d be able to make a real difference.

  Hours after her win a knock on the bedroom door jolted Nat into action. She minimised the screen and muted the volume on the computer.

  ‘You alive in there, Nathalia?’ The door handle rattled as Phyllie turned it. ‘Why is this door locked? Is that necessary?’

  Nat jumped up, unlocked the door and swung it open. ‘Sorry, habit, I guess. I always used to lock it at the share house.’

  Phyllie’s eyes travelled around the room, settling on the computer. ‘It’s nearly three, and you haven’t been out of here since breakfast. Surely you don’t have so much work you can’t stop for a break?’

  Nat glanced at her watch. Phyllie was right, it was nearly three. It was surprising she wasn’t starving. Although, the way her morning had progressed since she’d won the first game and made the donation to Shared had pretty much killed any appetite she might have had. Since then she’d lost the next ten games. It wasn’t her best day on the tour.

  ‘Come on down and I’ll make you a sandwich. Can’t have you locked in here all day without food. What would the neighbours think?’

  ‘I’ll be down in ten minutes,’ Nat said. ‘I’ve one thing to finish off first.’

  Phyllie tutted. ‘You’re becoming a workaholic. That’s not something I ever thought I’d have to say to you. Hannah yes, you no.’

  Nat needed her grandmother to leave. She was mid-game, and she’d be lucky if she still had enough time to play the hand she’d been dealt. She was nearing the final three and needed a win to turn things around. ‘I need to get back to it, Phyllie.’

  Phyllie shook her head and shuffled out of the room and back down the stairs. Why had she even come up? It was one of her promises to Hannah that she wouldn’t risk the stairs.

  She quickly reopened the screen, frustrated to see her hand had automatically folded. There were only three other players left in the game. She needed to play her next few hands carefully to ensure she reached the top three. Coming third at least guaranteed she’d get part of her buy-in back.

  The next hand was dealt. Adrenaline spiked as her cards were shown. The community cards were revealed, confirming she had a solid hand, more than a solid hand. So much for playing conservatively, she thought as she went all in. But that was the reality. Sometimes you had to have the confidence to play the bigger hands.

  She stared at the screen as the other hands were revealed, her heart sinking. Fuzzy13 revealed a full house of aces and kings. The Game Over, You Placed Fourth message flashed on her screen. She banged her hands down on the desk. Shit. Two hundred dollars gone, just like that. She was about to open another game and restart when Phyllie’s cry made her jump.

  She rushed out of the room and down the stairs as words she never thought she’d hear from her grandmother’s mouth reverberated around the backyard.

&nbs
p; Nat followed the explosion of swear words to find her grandmother once again trapped by the goat. It was busily eating the flourishing clematis climbing a trellis by the small potting shed and had Phyllie pinned between it and the shed. She was pushing at the goat’s side and swearing, but it didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

  ‘Thank God,’ she cried as Nat grabbed the hose and ran around the shed so she could fire it straight into the goat’s face.

  Nat’s heart was racing. What if this time the goat knocked Phyllie over or gouged her with its horns as it turned to flee? Anger boiled inside her. She’d be having a word with the goat’s owner after this. ‘Stay as close to the shed as possible. I’m about to spray it.’

  ‘Like I have a choice,’ Phyllie muttered. ‘It’s not exactly allowing me to get out.’

  Nat turned the hose on the goat, who immediately whipped round and took off up the garden and around the side of the house, trampling the prolific star jasmine as it went.

  Nat dropped the hose and hurried over to Phyllie. ‘Are you okay?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m fine. It didn’t hurt me, just ruined my clematis and the star jasmine by the looks of it.’

  Nat studied her grandmother, whose hands were trembling as well as her voice. This bloody goat was probably stealing years from her life.

  ‘This isn’t on,’ Nat said. ‘I’m going to go and have a word with your neighbour. He needs to do something, or I will report him to the council. Let’s get you back inside first and get you a drink. You’re still shaking.’

  ‘I’m a little dizzy. Stupid goat’s got under my skin.’

  Nat took Phyllie’s arm and guided her up the small path that led to the back door. Once inside, she left her in her favourite armchair and went to turn the kettle on.

  ‘I think whisky would be more appropriate, thanks, Nat. It’ll calm my nerves and get rid of these silly head spins.’

  Nat took the bottle from the small drinks cupboard and poured Phyllie a measure. She took it through to her.