Birthright

by Fiona Lowe

  So far, Anita and Sarah were her only visitors at Mill House and she felt a momentary panic ringed by delight that this visitor might be Luke. She’d worked a half-day today and even though she’d lingered half an hour longer than necessary, he hadn’t managed to drop into the neighbourhood house before she left.

  As her hand reached for the door handle, she knew it couldn’t possibly be Luke. He respected her wishes too much to come to the house when Noah was home. As much as she valued and wanted that respect—needed it—the ache of disappointment that he wouldn’t be on the other side of the door surprised her. She was still thinking about what it all meant when she peeked through the door viewer.

  Astonishment sent her thoughts skittling off in another direction. She swung open the door. ‘Edmund?’

  ‘Oh.’ His smile was tinged with uncertainty, as though he hadn’t expected her. ‘Ellie. Hello. How are you?’

  ‘Good thanks. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Is—’

  ‘Edmund?’ Sarah reached the door and edged past Ellie to stand in the portico.

  In a fluid movement, Edmund slid his arm around Sarah’s waist, closed the distance between them, bent down and kissed her with a familiarity that startled Ellie. Sarah flushed and splayed her hand against Edmund’s chest, but Ellie wasn’t sure if the action was from embarrassment or enjoyment. With her mind fully occupied trying to decode her sister’s body language, it took a moment for the full significance of the blush and Edmund’s proprietary touch to hit her. Oh. My. God! Sarah and Edmund were having sex.

  Sarah, who was so vocal about Alex’s betrayal, and searingly scathing about Kelly, was having sex with her and her husband’s closest friend. The hypocrisy of it rocked her. She spun around and stomped to the kitchen, furiously turning on taps and filling the sink with sudsy water as she battled uninvited emotions. She told herself she didn’t care what Sarah did with her life; that it was none of her business. After all, she’d deliberately distanced her own life from that of the family’s for years so they couldn’t comment on her actions, therefore she shouldn’t comment on theirs.

  Except her gut churned and agitation quivered in her limbs. Right up to this moment, if anyone had ever asked, Ellie would have said she was not a judgemental person. But as she plunged dirty dishes into the sink, the stinging heat of her own criticism burned. Why did she care that Sarah was having sex with Edmund?

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Sarah breezed back into the kitchen. ‘Edmund misunderstood where I was meeting him.’

  ‘Good to know.’ Ellie thumped a soapy plate into the dish drainer. ‘I’ve sacked babysitters for less.’

  Sarah laughed and grabbed a tea towel before picking up the plate.

  The tinkling sound dug in under Ellie’s anger, hitting a soft and tender spot that exploded in pain. ‘Tell me you weren’t planning on having sex here this afternoon with Noah in the house?’

  The plate hit the slate floor; the crash echoing around the room as shards of china scattered widely. ‘What? No! Of course not.’ Sarah’s voice trembled as she bent to pick up the pieces. ‘What possessed you to say something like that? God! You know Edmund and I have been friends forever.’

  Ellie rigorously scrubbed at the saucepan and water splashed up from the sink, dampening her T-shirt. ‘I’m not blind, Sarah. Edmund’s touch was the one of a man who either believes he has the right to intimacy or has been given permission to do it. Going on your expression, he’s got permission.’

  Sarah, now on her knees, was silent for a moment. ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she finally bit out, ‘but yes, Edmund and I are having sex. To be perfectly honest, it’s the only thing in my life right now that’s giving me any happiness. And you know what? He doesn’t judge me. All he does is tell me I’m wonderful.

  ‘And before you dare criticise me—although God knows, as a single mother with a child who has no apparent father, you don’t have the right—this thing with Edmund didn’t start until after Alex left me. I doubt you’ve got any idea what it’s like to be told you’re surplus to requirements. How that reduces everything you’ve ever held dear to nothing much at all and leaves you questioning if your entire marriage has been a meaningless sham.’

  Sarah’s pain filled the room and for the first time in years, Ellie was tempted to let the angry words go, allow the cheap shot about being a single mother to flow over her and instead kneel next to her big sister and hug her. But before she could move, Sarah rocked to her feet.

  ‘But you know what bothers me the most about your accusation? That you think I’d bring a man into this house and have sex with him when I was responsible for Noah. How dare you!’

  ‘How dare I?’ Sympathy vanished, sucked dry by an old fury far more powerful than good intentions. Suddenly, Ellie was yelling. ‘Oh, I more than dare! It wouldn’t be the first time a supposedly responsible adult betrayed a child.’

  Her words hit the air and hung there, dark, ominous and far too revealing. More than anything, Ellie wanted to snatch them back. She desperately hoped Sarah was too angry at their shrewish volume to have really heard them.

  But Sarah wasn’t yelling back; instead she was silent, her red-rimmed eyes staring straight at Ellie.

  ‘What are you talking about? I’ve never had sex in this house.’ Sarah shuddered. ‘I’m not about to start.’

  ‘Well, good for you,’ she said aggressively, trying to lure Sarah back to a personal attack and keep them both far away from the edge of the hole she’d just dug for herself. Tell me I’m irrational. Tell me I’m a spoiled brat. Call me Princess Ellie. Please! But she could see the cogs of her sister’s mind at work.

  ‘Has someone had sex when they were supposed to be minding Noah? Did he see it? Perhaps he didn’t even know what was—Oh God.’ Sarah’s hand rose to her mouth as her eyes dilated. ‘Oh, Ellie. Is it worse? Poor, darling Noah. How awful for both of you.’

  Sarah’s stricken expression combined with her unsolicited empathy undid Ellie. No matter how much she wanted to protect herself, she couldn’t let her sister think that Noah had been witness to, or forced into, sex. ‘Noah’s fine. Nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Oh, thank God.’ Sarah visibly relaxed and then immediately stiffened. ‘Hang on. I don’t understand. If Noah’s fine and nothing’s happened then why did you say it wasn’t the first time an adult betrayed a child?’

  ‘Slip of the tongue. Forget I said anything.’ Ellie stripped off the rubber gloves. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I think it does.’

  ‘No. It doesn’t.’

  Sarah’s brows drew down. ‘Bad air …’

  Oh God. Ellie tried to feign nonchalance. ‘It’s the fog. We need some wind to clear the valley.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with the fog. A couple of weeks ago, Noah was upset. He said you’d told him some of the rooms in the house had bad air and he wasn’t to go into them. I thought it was an odd thing for you to say, but I didn’t mention that to him. He was convinced he was going to die of a toxic gas so I made up a game. We threw open every window in the house and let the fresh air in. He’s been happier since and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.

  ‘Ellie, I’m sorry about the unfair crack I made before about you being a single mother. You’re a great mum. That’s why I can’t think of a reason why you’d risk upsetting Noah with such nonsense except now I can’t help but think …’ A pensive look crossed her face. ‘Something horrible happened to you here, didn’t it?’

  Despite the cold day and the cool house, sweat doused Ellie. ‘Shit, Sarah.’ She forced a laugh and it came out strangled and tight. ‘And you tell me not to be dramatic.’

  ‘I’m not being dramatic,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘I’m trying to understand what’s going on.’

  ‘Nothing’s going on.’ Ellie pulled the plug from the sink and the noisy gurgle of water blissfully blocked further conversation. ‘I have to check on Noah.’

  ‘Noah’s fine. He’s got a
nother half an hour left of the movie. But I don’t think you’re fine.’ Her voice softened. ‘I want to help, Ellie. Let me help.’

  Many years before, abandoned and utterly alone, Ellie had sobbed her heart out because Sarah was in France and not there to listen or help her when she desperately needed it. She opened her mouth to hurl, ‘You’re too late,’ even though she knew that was unfair. She glimpsed the closed dining room door across the hall.

  Noah was upset.

  For seven years, she’d done everything in her power to shelter and protect her little boy so he only knew love. Yet, since moving into this bloody house, he’d started wetting the bed. She wanted to blame the house, blame Sarah for making her move in. Blame Cameron, blame her mother, hell, blame her entire dysfunctional family, but that was too easy. For years, she’d prided herself on having moved past blame. Noah’s anxiety lay squarely at her feet; it was feeding off her reaction to this house. As much as she craved to hide from the uncomfortable truth, she had enough years of counselling to know where denial led. She was the one with the demons that filled this house, scaring her little boy.

  Perhaps she should ask Sarah if she could live at the old cheese factory and Sarah could move in here instead? The solid advice of her counsellor came back to her: The future can only happen when you let go of self-blame and shame, and leave the past where it belongs.

  Bone-jarring fatigue hit with the force of a ten-tonne truck. The thought of moving her pinkie, let alone lugging boxes, was more than she could handle. It was time to deal with the ghosts and banish them from this house so that while she and Noah lived here, her son felt safe and happy. It was time to stop running from Mingunyah. No matter how hard it was going to be for her, no matter how difficult the unpredictability of Sarah’s response might be to bear, it was time to air this secret to her sister.

  ‘You’re right, Sarah. Something did happen.’

  CHAPTER

  17

  With a sickening feeling crawling along her veins, Sarah followed Ellie from the kitchen into the dining room and straight to the bar.

  ‘Don’t judge me,’ Ellie said. ‘I can only do this with a drink.’

  ‘Pour me one too.’

  ‘God, Mum has so much vodka she could be Russian.’ Ellie sorted through the bottles until she found the rum. ‘Are you absolutely certain Noah has half an hour left of the movie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He can’t hear this.’

  I’m not sure I want to hear it. ‘I’ll close the door.’

  ‘No!’ Ellie sloshed rum and Coke into glasses. ‘Leave it open. If we sit here we’ll see him if he comes downstairs. If he does, we stop talking. Sarah, are you clear on that?’

  ‘Yes, very clear.’ And anxious, very anxious. Sarah accepted the drink before sitting next to her sister on the wide window sill. More than anything, she wanted to say, ‘Just tell me,’ but instead she stared down at her drink and waited, fearing if she forced Ellie to speak, her sister would change her mind.

  Ellie sipped her drink and then rested it on her knee, her knuckles white around the glass. ‘Remember how excited I was, being one of your bridesmaids?’

  ‘I remember how gorgeous you looked in your dress. Not that you were ever an ugly duckling but it seemed like, overnight, you went from being my baby sister to a beautiful young woman.’ A memory she’d forgotten flew to the surface. ‘Mum was so proud of you that day. She told me it was lucky I’d already snagged Alex, because you were much prettier than I was and all eyes would be on you.’

  ‘Jesus. What a thing to say to a bride on her wedding day.’ Ellie took another slug of her drink. ‘Why did you put up with the crap?’

  Sarah shrugged, not exactly sure. ‘I guess by then I’d accepted that you and Cam got the looks so it wasn’t like it was news to me. Besides, I was about to marry a man I adored and nothing could possibly dent my joy.’ She was suddenly blinking back tears. God, she’d been so happy that day and now look at her and Alex. How had it gone so wrong? Giving herself a shake, she reminded herself that this conversation wasn’t about her but about Ellie. ‘You were talking about being my bridesmaid?’

  ‘Yeah. I got so many compliments that night, I floated on air. I suddenly saw myself completely differently and I was determined I was never going back to being that little kid. I took advantage of Mum’s passion for dressing me like a doll and we both got new wardrobes. Looking back, she dressed me a bit too old and herself a bit too young. My psych got a heap of mileage out of that.’

  ‘Your psychologist?’

  Elle shot her a self-deprecating look. ‘Sometimes people need professional help. You and Alex might benefit from it.’

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ellie sighed. ‘Okay. The thing about being the popular girl is the addictive sense of power. I loved it. I had boys fighting over me at school and I flirted outrageously.’

  ‘That all sounds pretty normal teenage stuff.’

  ‘It was normal. Right up until the moment it wasn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Ellie drained her drink. ‘I mean that flirting with boys my own age was one thing but flirting with an adult was stupid.’

  ‘We all did that when we were kids, Ellie. It’s like we’re wired to practise. Any normal adult knows it’s just part of growing up and ignores it.’

  ‘That’s the thing. He wasn’t normal. He showered me with compliments and gave me gifts. He singled me out from other girls, paid me a lot of attention and I felt so special and superior. He had the easy knack of treating me like an adult and yet he still managed to be fatherly and give me advice. He’d ask me about the boys I liked and I’d share my silly, girly, thirteen-year-old secrets with him.

  ‘He’d pat me fondly and tell me conspiratorially that, unlike Mum, he totally understood me. He encouraged me to tell him everything and anything and reassured me that all my secrets would be safe with him. I missed Dad so much and I missed you, and Mum was well, you know, self-obsessed, so I fell for his shtick hook, line and sinker. Once I was confident, safe and secure in his affections, thinking of him as my substitute father, he started to slowly and surely change the rules.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Sarah’s mouth dried and she grabbed her sister’s hand. ‘He groomed you? Who? Who did this to you?’

  ‘Who isn’t important right now. I need you to hear what happened first.’

  As far as Sarah was concerned, who was vitally important. If she knew the scumbag, she was going to murder him. ‘Sorry. I’m listening.’

  ‘He’d always kissed me on the top of the head and stoked my hair but Dad did that, so … The sexual touching started innocuously. The first time it happened, he reached across me for something and brushed my breasts. He instantly apologised. Called himself clumsy. The next time, I was at his house visiting his daughter. He came out and rubbed sunscreen on her back and offered to do the same for me. With his daughter lying next to me with her eyes closed, he let his fingers slide under my bikini bottom and then my top and fondled my nipples.’ Ellie sucked in a breath. ‘When something like that happens, your brain goes into meltdown as you struggle to understand if you’d imagined it—was it an accident or did he mean to do it? Within a few short weeks, he’d twisted everything I trusted and believed until I didn’t know what was real, what was right or what was wrong.

  ‘Things changed fast and suddenly everything that had been good was evil and he blamed me. He told me it was all my fault. I taunted him. I flirted with him. He said my beauty was both a sin and a gift from God. One night, when Mum was hosting a summer cocktail party and there were seventy people out on the terrace, including his wife and family, he cornered me over there.’ She pointed across the room. ‘As he digitally raped me, and his hot, beery breath panted in my ear, he told me in lurid detail what he wanted to do to me and how lucky I was he was giving me what I’d begged him to do for weeks. Later that night, holding me tightly against his aroused body, he hugged
me goodbye in front of his family and whispered that he’d kill me if I ever told anyone what happened.’

  Sarah gulped air, finding it hard to breathe as the horrific images battered her. ‘Oh God. Did he—did he ever …’ She couldn’t form the words.

  ‘Rape me with his cock?’ Ellie’s voice was harsh and raw and Sarah flinched. ‘No. Not that it would have been any less traumatic, Sarah. Being violated is just that, no matter the method. I’m sure the only reason he didn’t do it was because he lacked the opportunity. I’d been raising hell at home for weeks. At first it made matters worse, putting me straight in his path. He’d ingratiated himself so well into our lives that Mum trusted him implicitly. She invited him over to “talk some sense into me”. He’d come into my room and berate me for causing Mum problems. He’d call me a dirty slut and spank me, telling me he was only doing it because he loved me and wanted me to be happy. Then he’d pull me into his lap, fondle and hug me, all the time whispering that everything would be fine. All I had to do was trust him.’

  Silent tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks. All her unasked questions about Ellie’s behaviour over the years suddenly had an answer; a horrendous and devastating answer. ‘I didn’t know. God, Ellie, why didn’t you tell me? I would have flown home.’

  ‘Would you?’ Ellie didn’t sound angry, just resigned. ‘From the outside looking in, I was an over-indulged fourteen-year-old who was running wild. It was my word against the word of a man everyone in this town held up as a pillar of the community. He’d convinced me no one would believe me and I was petrified by what he might do to me if I spoke out.’

  ‘But you’re my baby sister. I’d have moved heaven and earth to protect you if I’d known you were in danger.’ Sarah frantically looked for options. ‘What about Mum? You were so close back then. You could have told her?’