My Sister’s Secret (27 page)

Willow

Near Busby-on-Sea, UK

October 2016

I watch the sun begin to sink beneath the calm sea from the window seat in my room. My aunt Hope made the seat for me from old fabric. Funny the things you forget. All I’ve remembered lately is the bitterness between us, the anger and the arguments.

The cottage is quiet and dark. The walls press in around me, all the secrets I’ve discovered the past few weeks seeming to fill the space. In the distance, the homeless woman – Mad Shoe Lady – watches the sea, moonlight glinting off the trolley beside her.

I came straight here after arriving in the UK this morning. I’d hoped to find Aunt Hope tucked into her own window seat downstairs, notepad in hand as she stared wistfully out to sea. I planned to be calm; to be grown-up; to prove, as Niall had suggested, that I could handle the truth. But she wasn’t here when I arrived, nor is she here now. So I went to my old room to wait for her, as I used to as a teenager.

I love this room. Knowing Mum grew up in it makes it special. Over the years, I’d stuck posters of various rock groups over the faded flowery wallpaper, lined Mum’s shelves with diving books and atlases. But I’d kept her single bed, her floral duvet cover, now old and discoloured but hers all the same. Some of her clothes are still in the wardrobe now, stonewashed denim and colourful blouses. There are photos of her and Dad, clumsily stuck to the walls by me over the years. I get up now, find a picture of the two of them outside their cottage the year before I was born, wide smiles on their beautiful faces. Was Mum pregnant then?

I wonder if she missed being in her childhood house with the memories it held of Faith. Or maybe she preferred to avoid those memories. I peer up. There’s an attic room above me that Aunt Hope always keeps locked, using the excuse that my feet would go through the fragile floorboards if I walked inside. Now I think about it, I realise that surely that must have been Aunt Faith’s room?

I walk up the tiny flight of stairs that’s hidden at the end of the hallway behind a door. They always used to fascinate me, these stairs. I’d sit on the bottom step and stare up at the locked door, wishing I could somehow get into that room.

When I walk up the stairs now, I hesitate before I put my hand on the doorknob. It feels sacred, somehow, to be back here, like I’m a child again. I take a deep breath and turn the knob.

The door opens.

My heartbeat quickens. I suppose Aunt Hope has had no need to keep it locked since I left. I find the light, turn it on.

I notice the wallpaper first, pale blue with colourful fish dotted all over it. Then the bed, a large bed with a thick cream duvet. It looks dusty but is perfectly made. Lying on two soft pillows is a doll with straw hair and blue dungarees. There’s a pretty white dressing table where the two eaves of the roof meet. My reflection stares back at me from a large silver-edged mirror.

I walk carefully across the floorboards and over a white fur rug to get to the table. The floorboards creak but don’t collapse under my weight. Clearly Aunt Hope exaggerated to keep me away from this room.

There isn’t much on the table, not like in Mum’s room where I found an array of hairsprays and perfumes and makeup when I moved in when I was seven. Here, there’s just one bottle of perfume, a simple crystal bottle, and a tube of lip-gloss.

How unbearably sad, to think this room has been frozen in time all these years.

Stuck to the mirror is a photo of the three sisters together. Mum’s about fourteen in it, her dark hair a mass of permed curls around her head, red pouty lips and stonewashed denim. Aunt Hope sits quietly, a book tucked under her arm, her red hair swept over one shoulder and trailing down her long purple dress.

Then my aunt Faith, soft blonde hair lifting slightly in the wind, a slim arm wrapped around her tummy, a pretty blue summer dress to her knees.

My heart aches as I look at her. She died so young, Mum too, leaving just Aunt Hope behind.

Poor Aunt Hope.

The three sisters all seem so different on first glance. But on closer inspection you can see they have the same shape to their faces: cherub cheeks, high foreheads, full lips. I catch sight of my face in the mirror. I look like them, too.

I want this photo. I
deserve
this photo. After years of not being told I had another aunt, of never seeing photos of her, I think it’s only right. I pull it from the mirror. As I do so, another photo falls to the floor, hidden behind the photo of the sisters. I lean down and pick it up.

Then I let out a gasp.

He has dark hair instead of his normal blond, but I’d know that face anywhere.

It’s Dad.

And his arms are wrapped around Aunt Faith’s waist.

Charity

Near Busby-on-Sea, UK

April 1996

Charity quickly shoved the overflowing bag of Dan’s shredded paperwork down the side of the house with all the other bags, wiping the sweat from her forehead, cursing when she smeared jam over her skin. She licked her finger, wiping the stickiness away as she jogged up the garden, wind sweeping her hair up from her neck, the clip she’d painstakingly placed in the back of it tumbling out.

Oh well, she’d given up on looking perfect for special occasions the day Willow was born seven years ago.

‘Come on, Tommy,’ she cried out to their Labrador, patting her leg and realising too late that it meant she’d get jam on her dress too.

‘I’ll get him,’ Hope said, appearing at the French doors that led out into the garden and grabbing Tommy’s collar. She was wearing a long green dress, her red hair tied into a braid. Charity smiled, grateful. How would she cope without her sister here?

‘I’ve done more sandwiches,’ Hope called over her shoulder as she dragged Tommy up the garden by his collar, ‘and found some more cakes, you must have put them in the pan cupboard by accident.’

‘Oh, fantastic, you’re a godsend.’

As they strode into the kitchen, Tommy took one look at the trays of food sitting on the side and shrugged Hope off before bombing towards the food. The two sisters took chase and as Charity reached for him her elbow caught the tray of cakes Hope had found, sending them flying on to the floor. Tommy’s snout was in them before they could stop him.

The two sisters looked at each other then burst out laughing.

‘Go,’ Hope said, gently shoving Charity away. ‘Finish doing your makeup before everyone arrives, I’ll sort this all out.’

‘I don’t have time!’

Hope looked at her watch. ‘You have twenty minutes. Now go!’ She’d already started scooping the remains of the cakes up, throwing them into the bin. Charity reluctantly left the room. How could a kids’ party be so bloody stressful? She walked down the cottage’s hallway then jogged upstairs, worry with every step. What if there wasn’t enough food? Was she wrong to have got wine for the adults? Had she arranged enough games?

As she passed the bathroom, she paused. Dan was brushing Willow’s dark hair, telling her some story he’d made up about fairies who stole human hair because it was so soft to sleep on. Despite how busy he was with the imminent launch of his cruise ship, he still took time out to be with his daughter. Charity felt a swell of emotion. This was her family, her perfect little family. She and Dan had talked about having more children but things were so perfect as they were, it never quite happened.

‘They can’t have mine,’ Willow said in her best indignant voice. ‘I’d look silly without hair.’

Dan smiled. He looked so handsome in his white polo shirt and tan chinos. Charity was sure all the mums would be in love by the end of the party.

‘I think you’d look beautiful whatever you had on your head, darling. There.’ He put the brush down and stood back to look at Willow. She was wearing a bright green tutu over polka dot black leggings, and a t-shirt Dan had got her with a photo of their dog Tommy on the front. On the floor in a heap was the pretty red and black dress Charity had bought for Willow the week before. Clearly Willow had decided not to wear it and Dan had given in to her. Charity ought to be annoyed, she’d taken ages to find that dress, but instead she smiled, her stress dissipating as she watched them together.

All that mattered was that her beautiful daughter was turning seven today.

Dan caught her eye then looked towards the crumpled dress. ‘The dress slipped from the hanger, didn’t it, Willow?’

Willow nodded vigorously. ‘And now the fairies need it to sleep on because they can’t have my hair.’

‘Quite,’ Dan said, nodding with her. ‘So Willow has
reluctantly
decided to wear her favourite tutu, leggings and t-shirt. Very heroic of her.’

‘Very,’ Willow said. Her serious face was replaced with a smile and she ran towards Charity, wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist and staring up at her through her long dark eyelashes. ‘Mummy,
please
can Tommy have some cake.’

‘He already has, darling,’ Charity said, kissing the top of her head and rolling her eyes at Dan.

‘Oh no, really?’ Dan asked, strolling over and pulling them both into a family hug. This was Charity’s favourite thing, their ritual family hug carried out several times a day.

‘Really,’ Charity said, quickly kissing his neck. She wrapped her hand around his, felt his wedding ring. It still didn’t feel real, that he was her husband and she his wife. They’d married in a quiet ceremony overlooking the sea five years ago with just Hope and a two-year-old Willow as guests.

‘Tommy can have more cake though, can’t he?’ Willow asked. ‘He’ll be jealous watching everyone eat cake while he can’t.’

‘Of course, sweetheart,’ Dan said.

‘He’s had enough,’ Charity replied, giving Dan a look. How was Willow supposed to learn she couldn’t get everything her way? ‘He’ll get a bad tummy,’ she added. ‘Do you want Tommy to have a bad tummy?’

Willow shook her head.

‘Then keep the cake away from him, my gorgeous birthday girl.’ Charity scooped Willow up, planting a kiss on her chubby cheek. ‘Right, I really must finish getting ready, all I need is five minutes.’

‘You look gorgeous,’ Dan murmured, kissing her neck.

‘Yuck,’ Willow said.

Dan looked down at her. ‘Race you downstairs?’

‘No racing on the stairs!’ Charity shouted after them as they darted down the hallway, completely ignoring her.

She laughed as she walked to the bedroom and sat at her dressing table, looking at the photo she kept on there of a tiny Willow curled in Dan’s arms just after she’d been born. Charity thought back to the night when Willow arrived, a patch of black hair and punching fists, blue-eyed and purple-faced. She’d stared into her daughter’s eyes and wondered if she’d got them from Niall. A few hours after the picture was taken, when Dan had gently handed Willow over to her aunt Hope, and aunt and niece had regarded each other for what seemed like an eternity, Hope had looked up at Charity. ‘She has Faith’s eyes,’ she’d said.

‘Faith’s eyes,’ Charity had repeated, almost laughing with relief. Yes, she had Faith’s eyes.

‘Ready?’ Hope asked now, appearing at the bedroom door.

‘Yes.’ Charity stood up, taking her sister’s hand and walking downstairs to celebrate Willow’s birthday. No, she didn’t have a moment of regret. Willow was the happiest child she knew and Dan was every bit as wonderful as she’d hoped he’d be.

Charity stepped out into the sunshine a few hours after the party ended with two bags of rubbish, a satisfied smile on her face. The party hadn’t been perfect. Willow had had a tantrum when a little boy dared to try and pet Tommy, and Dan had burnt the sausage rolls. But it had been fun, a hectic stressful kind of fun.

Charity peered back inside to see Hope and Willow eating leftover birthday cake together. They had an interesting relationship, aunt and niece. It wasn’t the kind where Willow would run to her aunt in delight each time she visited. Instead, Willow regarded Hope with the same look she’d given her aunt when she was born: serious and quizzical. But they had this strange bond, could sit for hours together in peaceful quiet. Charity found them out in the garden once, standing over a snail and watching as it painstakingly slid across the path with the same look on their faces. They stayed like that for half an hour. Willow seemed to be more like Hope than Charity sometimes. Charity didn’t mind. Maybe she preferred that.

Charity walked around the side of the house, hauling both bags with her. As she did so, one of the bags snagged on the wall, a huge hole appearing in its side. Paper flew out, lifting in the breeze, evidence of the big clear-out Dan was doing in his home office in preparation for launching the new ship.

‘Wonderful.’ Charity sighed, grabbing the runaway paper, going to shove it back into the bag. But as she did so, a series of photos caught her eye.

They were all headshots of women who looked very similar to one another: blonde hair, blue eyes. With them was a fax, a modelling agency’s contact details at the top. Someone had scrawled beneath it:

Dan,

Choose which one you want and I’ll have Georgia call you to make arrangements.

Thanks, Sasha

Charity flicked through the photos then let out a gasp. One of the girls looked just like Faith. In fact, wasn’t it the same woman Charity had seen in the restaurant in India that had looked so much like her sister? She looked again, feeling sure of it. She tucked the photos into her pocket, walking back inside.

That night, with Willow in bed and Hope giving a talk to a local literary club about her third book of poetry, Charity brought the photo up with Dan as they snuggled on the sofa.

‘These fell from the rubbish bags,’ she said carefully, handing them to him.

‘God, that was years ago,’ he said, looking at the photos. ‘Must have been for an advertising campaign.’

‘This one looks just like my sister Faith, don’t you think?’ she asked, pointing to it.

He frowned. ‘Can’t see it myself.’

‘Do you remember I told you about an argument Niall and I had in India?’

Niall.
She’d not mentioned his name for seven years. She hadn’t heard from him in that time either. But she’d read that he was doing even better with his photographs, travelling the world, taking photos of submerged forests and selling them for a fortune.

Dan’s jaw tensed. ‘And?’

‘This is the girl I saw just before, I swear it is.’ She pointed at the image.

‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at, darling.’

Charity examined his face. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird that it’s the same woman?’

‘How can it be? I suppose she might have gone on holiday to the same place as you. But it’s all rather unlikely, don’t you think?’ He pulled her close to him, looking down at her. ‘I suppose you’ve been thinking about your sister more recently, what with Willow’s birthday?’

She sighed. ‘Yes, it makes me sad to think Willow will never meet her aunt.’

‘Or her cousin,’ Dan said. ‘Willow would have had an older cousin if Faith and the baby had lived.’ Charity tensed. The thought had crossed her mind many times but it was hard hearing it spoken out loud. ‘It’ll be difficult explaining all that to Willow when she’s older, won’t it?’ Dan continued. ‘The fact your ex killed her cousin.’

Charity moved away from him, looking him in the face. ‘Willow will never know. She doesn’t
need
to know.’

‘Why not?’ he asked, face cold. ‘She ought to know she had another aunt, surely? You can’t just pretend Faith never existed.’

‘I – I haven’t thought about it properly.’

‘But it’s a no-brainer. We must tell Willow, surely?’

‘M-maybe,’ Charity stammered. ‘She doesn’t need to know about the accident though.’

‘Why not?’

Charity peered up at the ceiling, imagining Willow sleeping in her little bed, arms wrapped tight around the old blanket she so loved. ‘I haven’t thought about it properly.’

‘Now’s the time then.’

She looked into Dan’s eyes and then down at his glass of wine. He got like this when he drank sometimes, matter-of-fact and cold. It was even worse when he was stressed, as he was with the cruise ship launch fast approaching. ‘I really don’t think she needs to know about the accident, Dan.’

‘She’ll find out,’ Dan replied. ‘The internet’s really flying, we’ll be able to search archived articles online soon, enter someone’s name and boom.’

The thought filled Charity with horror. ‘Regardless, I’d rather not tell her. All she needs to know is her aunt passed away when she was young. If she asks how, we can say it was a car accident. No details.’

Dan shook his head. ‘But that’s not the truth. I’d feel more comfortable if she knew everything.’

‘Dan,’ she said softly. ‘Faith was
my
sister, remember? I feel it’s up to me to choose what to tell Willow about her.’

Dan held her gaze for a few moments and she could tell he was struggling with what to say next. Then he shrugged and turned back to the TV. ‘Fine.’

She put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s just—’

He shrugged her hand off. ‘It’s
fine
, honestly.’

Charity leant back against the sofa. Was Dan right, should she tell Willow the truth?

‘What’s wrong with Dan?’ Hope asked Charity in a low voice the next morning. They both glanced over at Dan who was angrily tearing at some toast with his teeth as he read his paper.

‘No idea,’ Charity replied. But she did know: it was that conversation from the night before. The first mention of Niall in over seven years seemed to have been enough to send him into one of his moods.

In the years Charity had spent with Dan, she’d seen more of his dark side; how he’d grow quiet for days. Often, she wouldn’t know why and presumed it was work. Sometimes she knew it was her fault: something she’d said out of turn, like the time she’d brought up the flooding threat for the cottage again, another subject he’d wanted closed. She grew used to his moods, letting him be when she saw one approaching. Even Willow knew when to leave Daddy alone nowadays. But when he emerged from one of his moods, he’d shower them both with attention and affection, presents and trips away. It almost made up for the days when they lost him.

She could see he was sinking into such a mood now, all because of the conversation they’d had the night before. She wasn’t sure she had the patience for it.

‘I was wondering,’ she asked, turning to Hope. ‘How do you fancy
two
houseguests this week?’

Dan peered up from his paper, brow creased.

‘But you need to be here for the launch,’ Hope said.

‘Not for a few days. I could visit with Willow then return the night before the launch.’

‘You want to go to Busby-on-Sea?’ Dan asked.

‘It makes sense. It’ll give you some space before the launch.’

‘Sounds like your mind’s made up,’ Dan said, folding his newspaper up and standing. He walked around the table and kissed Charity on the lips. His lips felt hard. He pulled back to look her in the eye then his face softened. ‘Just make sure you’re back in time for the launch.’