Little Sister

by Isabel Ashdown

  That was why she’d told the operator no one was hurt; she had really thought Jess was just drunk, that she was OK. And if she’s completely honest with herself, she thinks now as she hooks the plug chain between her toes and allows the bathwater to drain away, the moment she discovered Daisy was missing, she couldn’t have cared less what happened to Jess.

  * * *

  The first time Jess was rushed to the hospital, Emily traveled in the back of the ambulance with her and Mum. Jess was nine, Emily ten, and as there had been no one else at home, they had all had to go. Emily remembers the flutter of excitement she felt as the paramedic tended to Jess, fitting her with a breathing mask and strapping her arm up in a tight blue band. Emily clung to her mother, sitting on her lap as the vehicle sped toward the hospital for the first, it turned out, of many visits they would make over the next few years.

  To begin with, having no concept that Jess would be anything other than fine at the end of it, Emily enjoyed the thrill of the hospital. Together they were rushed into A&E, where Jess was looked at by an endless stream of concerned and smiling doctors and nurses, and Emily and her mother were swept along like special guests with a backstage pass. For a while, there were three or four medics squeezed into the side room where Jess was, so to make space Mum told Emily to step outside the booth to sit on one of the plastic chairs facing the open doorway. Emily could still see everything that was going on; Jess was now fully awake and quietly answering their questions, lying perfectly still on the trolley bed as they listened to her heart, shone lights into her eyes, and talked among themselves. Briefly, Emily thought she would like to be one of those doctors in a white coat, that she would perfectly suit the medical setting with her clear-thinking mind and her ability to organize things. Her last school report home had said, “Emily is an outgoing, responsible, and hardworking member of the class. She’s a pleasure to teach, and a good example to others.” She could remember it word for word, so proud was she. Jess would be no good in a hospital at all; she’d get horribly upset every time someone couldn’t be fixed or, worse still, if they died. Her school report had used the words “sensitive and thoughtful,” so she’d probably be better off working in a library or a nursery school or something quiet like that. But Emily would be perfect as a doctor! She would cure people and save their lives, and they’d forever remember Dr. Emily, perhaps even naming their girl babies after her like they did in the movies. The A&E corridor was busy, with occupied wheelchairs and trolley beds passing by every couple of minutes, parents carrying crying infants, teenagers limping past on crutches. She made a point of smiling at them all, practicing to achieve an effect of sympathetic confidence, but her smile faded quickly when the victim of a road traffic accident was rushed past her on a gurney, the surgical wadding doing nothing to hide the damage inflicted on the poor man’s face.

  “Emi!” her mum called from Jess’s booth. Emily could see that Jess was now sitting up, beckoning her sister to join them. She had a slightly bemused expression on her face, but the color had returned to her skin, and she was smiling.

  “Is she going to be all right?” Emily asked, only now feeling a flood of anxiety that had earlier been completely absent. Her gaze returned to the empty corridor where the crash victim had just been, and she burst into tears.

  Jess reached out and pulled her onto the bed to lie beside her. “Don’t cry, Emi,” she said, patting her shoulder reassuringly. Emily felt good lying there in Jess’s warm embrace, the focus of concern having suddenly shifted to shine brightly on her. She nestled in beneath Jess’s arm, where the hospital smells of bleach and metal mixed contentedly with the scent of Vosene that still lingered in Jess’s freshly washed hair. “I’m going to be fine,” Jess told her. “It was just a funny turn, that’s what the doctors said, didn’t they, Mum?”

  “That’s right,” Mum said, and Emily looked up to see her mother tugging at her bottom lip as she stood and watched her two girls curled up together on the hospital bed. “Just a funny turn.”

  But time would show them all that it wasn’t just a funny turn, and although Emily couldn’t imagine it now, the initial excitement of the hospital ward would soon wear thin. She wasn’t accustomed to Jess soaking up the full light of her parents’ attention, and when her sister’s “funny turns” threatened to become a regular occurrence, Emily sought out their sunlight in the only way she knew how: by casting a few shadows.

  7

  Jess

  Last night, I sat in the living room and watched the early evening news with James and Chloe, the three of us awkwardly spellbound by the TV screen as a miniaturized James and Emily, bleached out by grief and the white flash of cameras, appealed for the safe return of their child. Across the front of their press desk was a white banner emblazoned with black lettering—#FINDDAISY—and I wondered how many tweets and retweets that little phrase had prompted, and how likely it was that anyone out there would ever read it and think, Yes, I know where Daisy is, I can help you find Daisy. Did these things work? Were they a waste of time, a waste of hope? I was conscious of DC Cherry, standing discreetly behind us in the doorway, and of the light creak of the stairs as Emily took herself to bed, unable to face the horror of her life being played out to the television viewing public. “Can I get you anything?” DC Cherry asked, but we shook our heads, not looking around at him, all of us nervously transfixed by the TV. He’s slept in the spare room the past couple of nights, and he’s said he’s happy to stay as long as we want, but I know Emily can’t bear it, can’t stand the idea of him observing our every move as we wait for something to come to light. Between him and DC Piper, we’re covered around the clock, and while that should be reassuring to a family in our situation, to have someone on hand to help field the media intrusion and liaise with the investigating officers, it’s actually deeply unsettling. The sense of being under scrutiny is intense; Cherry and Piper work for the police, after all. So it stands to reason they’re investigating us, no matter how supportive they might appear to be. I give him twenty-four hours before Emily puts her foot down and he’s out.

  The on-screen Emily described what Daisy had been wearing that night, spoke of the bright red strawberry birthmark still visible on her right shoulder blade and the velvety gray elephant that had disappeared with her. “She can’t sleep without it, so I’m glad she has Ellie with her . . .” she said, trailing off, her expression suddenly bewildered by the reality of her words. Gone was the polished, confident woman of just a few days ago; this sallow, lank-haired version was unrecognizable. Chloe was sitting between me and James on the sofa, and I felt her bring a hand to her mouth, heard the gentle gasp of anguish that escaped her lips as she watched, and I eased my arm around her shoulder to pull her close as she silently wept. James too reached out for her, slipping his hand into hers. “OK, Chlo?” he whispered, and she nodded, though of course we all knew she was not.

  On the screen, James was reading from a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, and he spoke slowly, carefully, looking into the cameras every few seconds, his calm exterior belying the inner turmoil he was surely experiencing. “Please, please, if you know where Daisy is—if you think you know anything about her disappearance—I beg you to contact the police and let them know. All we want is our little girl back home. She’ll be missing her mummy and daddy, and her big sister, Chloe, and all the other people who love her. All we want is Daisy back home where she belongs.” His appeal complete, he lowered his eyes to the sheet in front of him. To me, he looked as though he was trying to hold it together, to keep from breaking down. But to the rest of the world, I thought, with his measured words and his clean-cut, faultless delivery, he could almost look guilty.

  * * *

  This morning I slept late, waking sluggish after sharing a bottle of wine with James last night. Emily hadn’t come back downstairs for supper, and when Chloe headed off to bed at nine, DC Cherry did the same, and I found myself sitting across the table from James, wondering what it was I need
ed to do to help him. He seemed to have aged in the space of three days, his skin grown slack, with dark circles etched deeply beneath his eyes. For several minutes we sat there, unmoving, he seemingly spellbound by the tightly clenched knot of his own fingers on the table before him, me looking on, unable to unearth the right words. The soft click of Chloe’s bedroom door closing upstairs seemed to snap us both into some kind of activity, and as his eyes looked up and met mine, I said the first thing that popped into my head: “How about a glass of wine?” God, he looked so grateful, I could have cried. So I opened a bottle, and we drank and talked, not just about Daisy, but about all sorts of things—we talked about his work, about the places I’d been on my travels, the places we’d still like to go, the things we’d always wanted to see. He spoke warmly of his great friendship with Marcus, his oldest friend and business partner, gently mocking his lavish but chaotic lifestyle with glamorous Jan and their six unruly children. Six, James repeated, incredulous, and I ached for his loss. He described Chloe in words of such affection, and I saw him in a whole new light, and I was touched by the way his later love for Emily had never diminished his first love for his daughter. One bottle led to two, and it was only my sense of sisterly duty that stopped us from opening a third, as my eyes swept past the clock and saw it was after one o’clock. Emily wouldn’t thank me for a hungover husband in the morning. I fetched James a glass of water, watched him neck back two acetaminophen to ward off the hangover, and sent him up to bed as I blearily cleared away our glasses. Without thinking, I unlocked the back door and pushed the two empty wine bottles to the bottom of the bin, instinctively knowing that Emily wouldn’t like the thought of James sitting up drinking with me. None of us needs any further cause of upset at this dreadful time.

  As I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I trace over the past few months living here with Emily. I’ll never forget that ferry crossing, as I stood on the front deck watching the island come into view, gradually drawing close enough to pass the affluent houses dotted along the coastline, those sprawling residences sheltered by surrounding woodland to create mini island retreats of their own. God, there must be some money here, I thought, as I watched two small children bouncing on a netted trampoline at the top of a lush tended yard that meandered down toward the stony shore below. It was October. Already autumn was turning the leaves to rust, and the bright sunlight on the water had taken on that cool, sparkling quality that feels clean on the eyes. I was a foot passenger, and as I disembarked with my traveling rucksack and single carryall, I felt the overwhelming sense of life starting over. Seabirds screamed noisily overhead, ducking down to pick up crumbs outside the terminal café, and I scanned the ferry loading area for sight of Emily, walking out toward the exit road as she’d instructed me. When I saw her, my breath caught in my chest: there she was, my big sister, waiting for me. She was standing beside a showroom-clean Range Rover, her figure neat and composed, her dark bobbed hair whipping around her head in the seafront breeze. On spotting me, she threw up her hands with a joyous shriek and raced to meet me. I dropped my bags, and we embraced as if we might never let go—as we used to as children—and I thought, she really has forgotten everything that happened before. She really has forgiven me.

  * * *

  When I get downstairs, I find everybody is up already. James does look a little jaded, but I can tell he’s trying to inject some normality as he places a bowl of boiled eggs on the table in front of Emily and Chloe. He indicates for me to sit down and help myself. I take the seat opposite my sister and offer to help her to eggs, but she puts up a declining hand and instead reaches across the table for the coffeepot. Her face looks drawn; I swear she’s lost half a stone in the past few days.

  “You ought to eat something,” I say quietly.

  She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even look up.

  “Ems,” I persist, “I’m worried you’re going to make yourself sick. Please try to eat just a little bit. Even if you don’t feel like it, those pills of yours aren’t meant to be taken on an empty stomach.” I butter a slice of toast and reach across to place it on her plate. “Just a few bites?”

  A flicker, a little nod, and she picks up the toast, taking a small mouthful and washing it down with coffee, continuing until she’s eaten half of it. Chloe is sitting beside me, and I chop the head off her egg and pass her a slice of white toast. I know she’s fifteen, but still she likes to have the top chopped off for her. Emily always says she refuses to spoon-feed a teenager, and I wonder if she’s forgotten how much our mother used to do for us when we were that age. And then I wonder if it was just me that Mum needed to help, because now I think about it, it seems Emily was born capable, able to master anything she puts her mind to without anxiety or fuss.

  Chloe gives me a little smile and dunks a thin strip of toast into the top of her egg. The yolk is hardening; she’ll be sad about that. We’ve had many a conversation about the perfect consistency for the perfect boiled egg—about how much Marmite is too much, about which chocolate is best, Dairy Milk or Galaxy, which smells nicer, baking biscuits or rising bread. From the moment I moved in, we hit it off, finding we could chatter away for hours on seemingly inconsequential subjects, discovering our shared pleasures in life and bonding over a mutual love of the ridiculous. While Emily was busy with Daisy or having an early night, Chloe and I would often sit up late for a boxed-set marathon, both of us glad to watch the recommendations of the other, happy for James to come in and join us, to catch the tail end of our laughter and tears. I guess our relationship felt more sisterly than niece-aunt, and that was fine all around. Perhaps I was enjoying playing the older sister for once. I don’t know; you could analyze these things until the end of time and still be none the wiser. All I know is that Chloe and I had a close bond, that she trusted me and loved me, and that was why I kept her secret. Now, though, sitting at the breakfast table, Chloe’s phone bleeps, and she leaps up to retrieve it from the kitchen sideboard. And as she stands in the cool morning light that streams in through the back door, a sudden thought hits me, and I feel sick to my stomach, because this thought-this recollection-means I’m going to have to betray her trust. I’m going to have to tell Emily and James about Max.

  8

  Emily

  Emily can barely find breath for the rage that is roaring inside her. Her fingers worry away at the sore, gnawed edges of her thumbnail, the weekly routine of her French manicure now abandoned in anguish.

  This morning, as soon as Chloe had left the table and headed upstairs, Jess said she had something to tell her and James, insisting that Emily stay seated at the table when all she wanted to do was crawl back upstairs and into bed. As Emily registered the anxious strain on Jess’s face, she felt a lurch of nausea as the unbidden thought She knows something sprang to the front of her mind.

  “About Daisy?” The words barely made a sound in the suddenly quiet dining room.

  Jess’s eyes darted from Emily to James, and she bit down on her bottom lip the way she would when she was little, when she was embarrassed or ashamed—or guilty. She leaned back in her chair to check on DC Cherry, pacing up and down the yard having his morning smoke before DC Piper arrived to take over. What was the point of him, Emily wondered, her mind lurching away from whatever it was Jess was about to hit them with. DC Cherry, with his gently probing questions and continual log-keeping. He writes down everything—who visits, who calls, what time they go out, when they return—and he’s constantly asking subtle questions, casually dropped in as he offers to make coffee or volunteers to drive them about. All his presence does is add to her overwhelming anxiety, to her daily sense of having her life ripped from her. To her sense of having done something wrong.

  Emily’s thoughts were broken as James leaned in to the table, his expression grave. “Jess?”

  “It’s about Chloe.” Jess looked over her shoulder toward the stairs and turned back to them, her voice carefully lowered. She paused, and though Emily could clearly see the turmoil she
was in, her patience and escalating fury was threatening to boil over.

  “Jess,” she hissed. “For God’s sake, spit it out!”

  Jess held up her hands and shook her head, as though trying to clear her thoughts. “Sorry—I’m sorry. It’s just I promised to keep her confidence, and I feel like a complete bastard for betraying her. But it’s just something I remembered a few minutes ago, when I was sitting here at breakfast—and, well, it might be relevant.”

  “Relevant to what?” asked James.

  Jess blinked, the words hesitating at the edge of her lips. “To the night Daisy disappeared.”

  To Emily’s astonishment, Jess went on to tell them about Max. It seemed that a few weeks into Jess’s stay with them, she had discovered that Chloe had been keeping a secret, in the form of boyfriend Max and, for some reason, had agreed to keep quiet about it, until Chloe was ready to introduce him. James and Emily had absolutely no idea about him and, in fact, had often talked about the fact that Chloe seemed singularly indifferent to the opposite sex; she’d told them she wasn’t interested in going out partying like so many of her peers, preferring DVD nights in with best friend Beth, cozied up in their pajamas with a bowl of popcorn instead. It all made for a reassuringly wholesome picture of their daughter’s independent life, perhaps a picture neither of them had wanted to question too closely. Was it all a lie?