My Sister

by Michelle Adams

  I edge along the wall, turning on all the lights before I sit at my unimaginative glass desk and switch on the computer. I prefer new furniture like this. Bland objects with no history or story to tell. Stuff you don’t mind leaving behind. I set my cup at my side and open the browser, bathing my face in cool blue light. I am still for a moment, staring at the screen. Barely even breathing. What am I doing here? Am I really going to go? When I think I hear something behind me that sounds like footsteps, I turn, hopeful that it might be Antonio, but instead I find nobody there. I lean back, look up the stairs, one last check, but see only the dark from where I came. I turn back to the computer and type Edinburgh in the search box to look for flight options, still unsure if I am awake enough for such a decision. Am I really going to go back? Next box. Return or one-way?

  ‘What are you doing?’ Antonio asks.

  ‘Shit!’ I shout, almost jumping out of my seat. ‘Don’t creep up on me like that.’ My heart hammers in my chest.

  ‘Christ, Rini.’ He staggers back, surprised. ‘You’re the one creeping around in the dark. You scared me.’ He is standing in a pair of white trunks that look too small for him, one of my low stilettos in his hand like a weapon. His voice is rich as chocolate, strong as my espresso. ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘Looking at something online,’ I say, still out of breath. He moves in close, sets the shoe on the desk, and I smell my perfume on his skin as he leans over me. He brushes his hands over my shoulders, and when I don’t push him away, he rubs at my neck before letting his fingers slide across the top of my breasts. He has never stopped being tactile. Even when he is angry with me, he still wants me close.

  ‘Just relax, OK? Take a deep breath,’ he says, kneading his fingertips into my skin. I remember what we were doing only an hour ago and wish I could go back to that, as awkward as the post-argument sex was. Nothing between us is easy any more. He continues rubbing at my shoulders as he leans forward to read the screen. Then he stops, looks at me, a flash of disbelief. ‘You going somewhere?’

  I think again of his packed bag and how I could ask him the same thing. Instead I take another sip of coffee, just glad that I am no longer alone. ‘Cassandra died,’ I say.

  It takes him a moment to register the name because he isn’t used to hearing it. ‘When?’ he asks, once the pieces fall into place. He crouches down and my gown slips open, exposing my legs and the bottom of my scar. He rubs a strong hand against my weaker left thigh, running it all the way up to the thick red wound. He completes an assessment of my face to see how I am taking the news. I am empty, reticent as a blank sheet of paper. ‘How?’ he asks as I shuffle away from him, his fingertips irritating the raised flesh of my scarred hip.

  Only now do I realise that I didn’t ask Elle what happened to our mother. I don’t know if she died in her sleep or in a bloody car wreck. I don’t know if she died in pain or peacefully. I’d love to say that I didn’t ask because I don’t care, but I know that I do. I still care, even though I have tried for twenty-nine years not to.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Antonio doesn’t push it, even though I know he doesn’t really understand my detachment. He has too many of his own beliefs about family. They all start with marriage. But he is here, and he has forgiven me for the argument I caused the previous night, something lame that began with his apathetic approach to domestic detail and ended with my unwillingness to become a mother.

  ‘Are you going to go?’ he asks.

  I shrug my shoulders. There are so many reasons not to. I could still get out of this, change my phone number, move before Elle has a chance to discover where I live. Pretend that I don’t owe her a thing. But if I go, there are truths my father could tell me. How can I pass up the chance to know why they gave me away and kept Elle?

  ‘Well, I suppose you have to,’ Antonio says. He reaches for the mouse and begins to scroll through the available flights. He makes a selection for 3.30 in the afternoon and drags the cursor in a circular fashion to catch my attention. ‘This one looks good. You could be there by late afternoon.’

  I nod and smile, understanding his belief that the only right thing is for me to be there. ‘Pass me my wallet,’ I say as I click on the link with a shaky hand. I select the one-way option, not knowing when I might be able to come back, and immediately feel less confident. Antonio doesn’t suggest coming with me. Perhaps he’ll just be glad of the space. Perhaps we both will be.

  ‘Now, come back to bed,’ he says.

  We walk back together, Antonio leading the way, holding my hand as though I’m a teenage girl about to get laid for the first time. We slip back into the sheets and he wraps his arms around me, something I have come to miss in the weeks that he has been distant and unreachable. I rest into him, wishing that I still felt like I used to. But I don’t. His touch is angular, like we are two pieces of a jigsaw that don’t fit together, and his presence beside me no longer blurs the past as it once did.

  I look at the clock, which now reads 2.46 a.m. Time is already slowing, already pulling me down beneath the surface, no matter how hard I fight and kick. Soon enough it will start counting backwards, tick-tock, tick-tock, until I am right back there with the silent woman who was supposed to be my mother. And now, in the dark of our bedroom in Antonio’s arms, I wonder what the hell I’ve done.

  I should have told Elle I wasn’t going. I should have ignored the voice telling me that I owed her. I should have run from her like I did fifteen years ago, dressed in my pyjamas with tears streaming down my face and blood running down my arm, knowing the only chance of a future was if I let her go. What happened that day forced us apart, but it’s also the day that will bind us for ever. The day she saved me and terrified me in equal measure.

  But it’s not just my thirst for the truth that lures me back. I want Elle, too. I am drawn to her, despite the danger. I can’t help it. All these years I thought I could push her out, but I can’t. I thought I didn’t need her, but I do. And what a terrifying thought that is, because when Elle explained that our mother had died, there was a reason that I didn’t ask how. I assumed I already knew; that it was Elle who killed her.

  3

  The last time Elle found me was in the emergency department of the hospital where I used to work. I watched from the safety of a first-floor window as she fought her way across the car park. When she landed a punch on the cheek of the nurse who was trying to restrain her, a colleague of mine joked about how one of the psych patients must have escaped. I laughed along, added in a few snide comments of my own about the way she was dressed. Just for the record, Elle was wearing a season-inappropriate woollen jumper. It was oozing out from underneath the cuffs and collar of what looked like a school shirt, which she had buttoned incorrectly over the top. Hot pants. Doc Marten boots. Dressed as if she was on her way to a rave in the thick of winter. It was June, and the sun was bright. She called out to me, her flailing arms trying to reach me as the nurse buckled at her side. Security ended up tackling her to the ground, pulling her across the car park, ripping her shirt. They couldn’t take any risks because of the kitchen knife she was gripping in her hand.

  She never did get to speak to me that day. But she knew I was there. I could feel it as my skin contracted across my body, as her eyes met the glass behind which I was standing. I had handed in my request for a transfer by the time I left for home, and for the next six years I ran as far away as I could. Little good it did me.

  Because now here I am, in spite of everything I know about Elle, going back to find her. I called into Queen’s College Hospital on the way to the airport, organised three days of emergency leave. I didn’t tell them that the emergency is mine.

  I sit down in seat 28A, pulling my seat belt tight across my lap. The tiny cabin begins to shake as we rattle our way up the runway, and I feel my stomach turn as we leave the ground. I make a last-minute wish that the wing will buckle, or that we will fall from the sky in a devastating, newsworthy incident. But
my wish isn’t granted. Instead we climb up and up, London a city in miniature below, until we stutter into a thick layer of grey cloud.

  In my bag I have two changes of clothes, a pack of cigarettes, an unmarked bottle of Valium, which I snatched from the hospital this morning, and a book I know I won’t read. I snap the top off the bottle and flick one of the tablets to the back of my mouth, washing it down with a brandy. The medley of narcotics would be enough to knock some people out, but I am accustomed to it. Perhaps being an anaesthetist I have more courage when it comes to self-medication. It’s only with my family that I am weak. The Valium gets to work, taking the edge off the fear to the point that I stop grinding my teeth.

  I pull out my phone and scroll through the messages, realising that I have missed one from Antonio. I press the envelope icon and the message pops open.

  Have a safe flight. Let me know when you land. Ti amo, A x

  I was attending a conference about pain management when I met him. He was serving dinner, handing out bread rolls, leaving a trail of crumbs. In those first blissful weeks I had no idea about the sedate girlfriend he was hiding. Then she found out about me and threw him out while I waited in the car outside. That very same day he moved in with me, talked about what a relief it was to be free. He made it sound like his dreams were coming true, but in hindsight he had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t believe how easily I took it, or how understanding I was. But lying in bed with his naked legs draped over mine allowed me to forget about my past, pretend that life started only then. I felt consumed by him. With Antonio I felt like I stopped existing. But that was a good thing; I didn’t have to be me any more, poor old lonely Irini. Irini turned into us. I belonged to us. So, he had played me along a bit. Big deal. It wasn’t like he had done anything comparable to what my family had done to me. And besides, he wanted me.

  It was lucky we met in an Elle-free period, because it gave us the freedom to live our lives, as simple as they were with our shared love of nature documentaries and his home-cooked food. For the best part of two years I didn’t even tell him that I had a sister, and living in that lie was bliss. Once I had him, I stopped needing her.

  It was after a trip to Italy to meet his family that he started talking about marriage and kids. I refused. What kind of mother would I make when I had never had one of my own from whom to learn? We’ve been falling apart ever since. In fact, those final days of our lazy Italian summer, curled up on the same lounger, watching the sun dip beneath the horizon, were the last I can remember where we resembled something based on happiness.

  At first I thought he was going to leave. But he stayed, cried, said he couldn’t be without me. It was a relief, because I wasn’t sure that I could be without him either; what would I do on my own? Disappearing into my books and work was an option, but I had done that before and knew the emptiness it held. I had tasted connection with Antonio, and I knew that even a flimsy attachment to him was sweeter than isolation. I didn’t want to be Irini again, the girl with no family and no friends.

  But now everything is changing, like we’re rotting, getting moth-eaten. I am slowly becoming Irini again, and the union that I have been hiding behind is disappearing. He doesn’t understand my decision to exclude marriage and kids from our future, and I can’t admit to him that actually I want a family too. Because even to want it feels dangerous. I can’t tell him the truth, so I throw the phone back into my bag and order another brandy.

  The plane touches down to unnecessary applause and I stand, hobble forward, my hip sore from the awkward position. I can feel the nerves growing as I get ever closer to reunion, the nausea in my stomach, the slight difficulty in breathing. I remind myself that the trip will be short, that I will stay in a hotel, and that I only have to turn up at the funeral. I tell myself that I chose to come here. That I won’t even have to see Elle alone if I don’t want to. Last-minute bargaining with my nerves and memories. Sense bubbling to the surface. But as I walk through customs, I see her waiting at the gate, even though I haven’t told her what flight I am on.

  I realise that her appearance has changed during these latest years of absence, and despite my dry throat and sweaty palms I allow myself to hope that it’s an indication things can be different. Before, there was always an outrageousness about her presence, an inability to conform to the ideals of society, physically or mentally. Everybody could see it. The rave gear outside the hospital was just one example. But now she appears refined, her hair neat and blonde, cut in a sharp bob. Tight sporty clothes hug her lithe frame, and she is clutching a bottle of Evian water. There are pearls the size of marbles in her ears, so big and dull they could be carved-up chunks of bone. An active Stepford wife, perhaps with two perfectly turned-out kids, a casserole in the oven, and the courtesy to wipe her mouth like a lady when she has finished sucking you off. Could she be different? Is that a smile I can see? She has the appearance of somebody who is connected, who actually sees what the rest of the world sees when she looks in the mirror. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the triangular pink scar on her forehead. Neither of us scars very well. Bad healers.

  I find myself wondering who Elle really is beneath the surface. Superficially she is everything I am not. She walks with her head held high, whereas I have the remnants of a limp that gets worse when it’s cold, thanks to a dysplastic hip. She is slim; in comparison I am verging on chubby. The only exception is my left thigh, which refuses to develop even with all the attention it gets. Antonio always makes an effort with it when we have sex, kissing and stroking it, gliding his hands over the wrinkly skin like it’s one of my erogenous zones. It is not. Perhaps it’s to remind me that I am a cripple, that I should be grateful for his love and therefore make more of an effort when he asks me to marry him. No man would dare do such a thing with Elle.

  But as I get close, I see her jaw tightly clenched, her teeth set. It wasn’t a smile I saw, and I watch as her unblinking eyes search the crowd. I pick up my pace and slip around the barriers, swallowing down the lump in my throat. Elle spots me, her eyes locked on her target as she pushes past a woman with a crying toddler, knocking into the pushchair. She tuts, the way adults without children do in order to shame parents when their child has unintentionally annoyed. It is a reminder of her unapologetic certainty that, unlike me, she has never once doubted who she is. That confidence is captivating, and I realise that nothing has changed. She might look different, but she is still Elle. And this reminds me that there is only one thing of which I can be sure when it comes to my sister: she is the one person who never tired of trying to find me.

  At first I made it easy for her. A simple change to my phone number, a new address in the same town. Being alone was hard, and despite what happened to make me run from her at the age of eighteen, to know she was searching for me felt good. So I started to test her by raising the stakes with false trails and dead ends, forcing her to prove her resolve more and more each time. The knowledge that she was searching for me was narcotic, and I was addicted. Oh, to be wanted. What a joy it is. Yet the only thing worse than her absence was her presence.

  ‘I wondered how long you were going to make me wait,’ she announces. ‘I’ve been here since I got your message.’ She looks me up and down, sizing me up, her jaw still tight, her lips drawn into a sickly grin. I smile, try to look friendly, and like I haven’t been avoiding her for most of my life.

  ‘I haven’t been here long. I just spotted you,’ I say, fiddling with the handle of my brown tote, not yet able to make full eye contact. Then she reaches forward, unexpectedly taking me in her arms. I wobble towards her on my dodgy left hip and catch a middle-aged man with a swollen gut smiling at us, enjoying our reunion. Elle spots him too and makes a bigger effort, pulling me tighter, throwing off little breathy sounds of contentment like a purring cat. My cheek brushes against her cold neck, and a shiver runs down my spine. Her fake smile is instant when she realises there is an audience to please. Then she pulls back, slips an arm around me and be
gins drawing me in her direction. I try to tell myself that her grip isn’t any tighter than it needs to be, but I can already feel my self-confidence flapping, like the storm-torn sail of a boat, ragged and good for nothing.

  You chose to come, I remind myself. You want the truth. But what next? Five minutes here and I am already falling under her spell, following her blindly as she leads me away. By tomorrow, who am I going to be?

  ‘Look at you,’ she says, her words thick with false sentiment as we move towards the exit. ‘You got so fat!’ She says it with such enthusiasm, and even nibbles at my cheeks with her perfectly manicured fingertips. She pulls my bag from my hand and I offer no resistance. She pushes through the crowd, coercing me along behind her.

  We step outside into a strong wind and my eyes begin to water. I dab at the corners with the back of my hand. I stop, forcing her to stop too. ‘Elle, before we go any further, I have to ask you something.’

  But it’s like she doesn’t hear me. ‘It’s been too long,’ she says, turning to look at me. She swallows hard and for a moment I think she is about to cry. I feel a pang of sympathy, guilt even. But I know this is one of her tricks, the ability she has to make me think that she needs me.

  I try again. ‘Elle,’ I say quietly, knowing that if I don’t ask now, the strength to do so will disappear. ‘How did she die?’

  Elle stares back at me with a glint in her cold, ice-blue eyes. She takes hold of my hand and slides her fingers through mine, like she might have done when I was a child if we had ever been given the chance to be sisters. I feel the pressure as she secures her grip. She says nothing at all as she leads me across the car park, a left-sided sneer inching on and off her face. I am sure her silence is proof of her guilt, and I can feel what’s left of my confidence slipping away.