My Sister's Child

by Caroline Finnerty

  Jo had been six years old and her class had been practising the Christmas nativity over and over. She was overjoyed to be given a part as one of the angels. Even though everyone wanted to be Mary, she didn’t because she knew that the angels got to wear the prettiest costumes. She had seen the two dresses hanging in the cupboard at the back of the classroom since they had gone into it on the first day of September. She had loved those costumes from the moment she set eyes on them. They were beautifully made from gossamer silk and were stitched with a shimmering silver thread. There was a halo made from tinsel to wear around the head. She had been singing all the songs at home for weeks, practising them over and over again, determined to get them right. Isla had known all the words just from listening to her singing and would copy her. On the day of the play, Jo had been so excited. They had peeked out from behind the stage curtain and watched as the hall filled up with their parents. Then it was time to take their positions like they had rehearsed many times and the curtains parted. The class had the parents captivated with the nativity scene and had just started to point up to the Star of Bethlehem hanging from the ceiling before breaking into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star exactly as they had practised many times before. Suddenly a ripple of laughter broke out in the audience, distracting the children who looked around and saw a determined-looking Isla climbing the steps to the left of the stage. Jo could still remember her expression: her face was scrunched up and she was earnestly biting down on her tongue. She still made the same face even now when she was concentrating hard on something. Jo had watched in horror, waiting for someone to stop her before she reached them but she came running over to her, her two feet echoing noisily off the wooden floor of the stage as she ran across it in her thick-soled winter boots. Jo still remembered the sickening panic, the sinking feeling in her stomach. Before she knew it, Isla had reached out to hold her hand and was singing “De-Da, De-Da, ickle daaaaar!” at the top of her voice with the rest of the class who were now starting to laugh and giggle. Jo desperately tried to find their mother’s face in the audience but the lights had bleached everyone’s faces. All she could see was a sea of people staring up, pointing and laughing at them, and it was all because of Isla. She couldn’t understand why her mother wasn’t coming up to take her down. Then eventually her eyes landed on her mother’s face and she was smiling, which seemed outrageous to her. She was dreading the song ending because she was worried that she was going to be in trouble from her teacher Mrs Franklin but when they got off the stage she wasn’t cross at all. Instead she lifted Isla up in her arms, rubbed her silky auburn curls and said “I think we have a true star in the making”. She hadn’t even looked at Jo.

  Jo switched her mind back to the play in front of her. They watched as Romeo drank the potion and died and then as Juliet, roused from sleep, tried to kiss Romeo in vain and so used his dagger to take her own life too. Jo felt tears spring into the corners of her eyes but she quickly wiped them away. Then they all stood up to clap as the cast took a bow and the curtains drew closed.

  “That was great,” Isla said afterwards. She could see Jo and Ryan were beaming with pride.

  “I think I’m going to go backstage and see if I can see her,” Jo said.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Jo?” Ryan said.

  “I just want to tell her how proud I am of her.”

  “Well, it might not be the best time,” Isla said.

  “Are you trying to stop me from seeing her?”

  “Of course not, Jo, but I just don’t know if she’s ready to see you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jo asked through gritted teeth.

  “Okay, you know her better than me.”

  “I think I’ll wait here,” Ryan said.

  Jo pushed past Isla and walked down the corridor between notice boards, glass cabinets displaying sporting trophies and project displays.

  Ryan and Isla were left alone together.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea that she’s going back there,” Ryan said nervously. “God only knows how Réiltín will react when she sees her!”

  “I don’t think we could have stopped her.”

  “So how’s Réiltín been?” he asked.

  “She’s okay – she’s still quite angry though.”

  He nodded. “Of course she is. I mean this whole thing – it’s a nightmare. It all seems so surreal to be honest.”

  Isla could hear the wobble in his voice. She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “Look, Ryan, she’ll calm down. She’s had a big shock. She’s at a vulnerable age anyway where any little thing will cause a huge emotional reaction but just give her time.”

  “You see, I can do that but Jo . . . this is killing her.”

  Less than two minutes later they saw Jo coming back down the hall towards them. Her steps were brisk and purposeful. Her face was flushed and her eyes red.

  “What happened?” Ryan said as she got close to them.

  “What do you think? She told me to go away – she told her own mother to go away – in front of everyone! All the other parents were looking at me –” Her voice choked. “Come on, Ryan, let’s go. There’s no point in us hanging around here.” She turned to Isla then, “I presume you’ll wait here until she’s ready to go home?”

  She nodded. “Yes, of course I will. Look, Jo, I’m sorry, I really am . . .”

  “It’s too late for sorry now, Isla.” Jo turned on her heel and walked away.

  After Jo was gone Isla was left standing in the chilly reception area on her own. She felt awful. In a way Jo was right – this was all her fault. If she hadn’t asked for that embryo then the topic of Réiltín’s conception would never have come up again and she would never have overheard her parents arguing about it. She felt wretched and wished she could turn back the clock. No one had won. Jo wasn’t going to give her the embryo and now her world had fallen apart, which had never been her intention. She was starting to think that maybe her mother had been right all those years ago. Maybe she did bring trouble, maybe being born in that heat wave meant she was destined to hurt people her whole life.

  When Jo got up the next morning her head was fuzzy with tiredness. As she lay back against the pillows, she felt like Goldilocks waking up in Baby Bear’s bed, her own life seemed so alien to her now. She had lain awake all night long thinking it through. She had two columns in her mind – the reasons For were on the left and the reasons Against on the right. She had spent all night putting arguments into each column. Sometimes she would take them out again but then she’d mull it over some more and she’d put them back in again. The end result always came out the same and her mind was made up for her.

  As soon as the clock read nine, she lifted her phone off her bedside table and dialled the number to the clinic. It rang for a long time before Dr Collins’ secretary answered, out of breath. Jo imagined her running to get to her desk to answer it.

  “Hello, the Dublin Reproductive Centre, how may I help you?”

  “This is Jo Kingston. I have a storage licence which is due to be renewed in the coming weeks.” Jo held the letter in front of her that had arrived in the post earlier in the week and quoted the reference off it.

  “Just give me a moment while I pull up your file. Would you mind if I popped you on hold for a moment?”

  “Not at all.” Jo was instantly rewarded with an ear-splittingly, squeaky version of ‘Für Elise’.

  “Yes, I have your file here on the screen.” The woman was back on the line.

  “I was just ringing to say that my husband and I have given it a lot of thought and we have decided that we won’t be renewing the storage contract but we would like to donate our embryo to medical research.”

  “Well, that is very generous of you. I’ll have Dr Collins call you back as soon as he is available and he will talk you through the necessary steps and of course the dreaded paperwork that needs to be filled out.” She gave a little laugh.

  “Ah yes,” Jo groaned
playfully. “I knew we wouldn’t escape without some paperwork.”

  “I always joke that if I want to use the bathroom here I nearly need to sign a consent form. Okay, well, thanks for that, Mrs Kingston, and Dr Collins will be in touch shortly.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  After she had hung up the phone Jo stayed lying where she was. She couldn’t get out of bed. She couldn’t face the world.

  Chapter 35

  Calamari

  Isla stood back from the mirror and looked at her appearance. It was Saturday afternoon and she was meeting Greg for an early bird. She had thrown on jeans and a sweater initially but then had second thoughts and pulled the sweater off over her head and instead put on a silk blouse that she thought looked a little more sophisticated. She tied up her hair into a ponytail and put on her eyeliner as usual. She was just about to switch off the light when she remembered the bracelet that Greg had given her for her birthday. She opened the box and carefully lifted the bracelet out and placed it around her wrist. She fastened the clasp and held her arm out to admire it. She didn’t usually wear jewellery but he had chosen well. Then she put on her parka and set off to the restaurant where they had arranged to meet.

  She came upon the building with its bay window lit by the yellow glow of candles inside. She pushed back the door and scanned the dark interior. A young guy was standing at the back of the room, playing the Spanish guitar. His fingers plucked and teased out a lively song. She followed the waiter down to the table. Greg hadn’t yet arrived.

  While she waited, she looked up at the blackboard with the daily specials written in chalk. She let her eyes run along the words as she tried to sound them out inside her head. Ca-la-mar-i. She was amazed by how far she had come – just a few weeks ago she would have avoided looking at that blackboard because the inner shame of not being able to understand it was too much.

  She knew that she was growing ever closer to Greg; she was falling in love with him. It scared her if she was honest. She felt vulnerable opening herself up to him like this – she had nothing left any more – she had exposed her very biggest fears to him – but then she would look into his clear blue eyes and know that he wasn’t going to hurt her. She liked being around him and, whenever anyone else was there, she couldn’t wait for them to be gone so that they could be alone again. He had seen the one thing that she had been so fearful of. She had laid herself bare; he had seen the real her and he hadn’t run away screaming. In fact it was the opposite – he wanted to help her. Isla had never imagined in a million years being able to open up to anyone the way she had with Greg and it felt amazing. It was liberating not to be carrying around secrets any more. Not even Nevis had known that she couldn’t read. He had never noticed.

  Greg appeared a few minutes later, dressed in jeans and an open blue checked shirt, showing a T-shirt underneath.

  “Sorry, I’m late, Isla – the bus took forever!”

  “No worries at all. I’m only just here myself.”

  The waitress came and handed them menus. Greg chose a steak with chips on the side. Isla, with a thumping heart, decided to be brave and to order the calamari. She hoped that she had read it correctly – her big fear was that the waitress would tell her there was no mention of it on the menu and that she would look stupid. But then she remembered what Greg had said about believing in herself and pushing herself outside her comfort zone. She was elated when the waitress wrote it down without hesitation. It was a simple thing but Isla felt the door to a whole new world was slowly opening up to her.

  “Well done, I’m proud of you,” Greg whispered as soon as the waitress had left them alone.

  She smiled across the table at him.

  They chit-chatted some more until their food was served.

  “So how’s Réiltín doing?” he asked after a while.

  “She’s doing alright. I really thought she’d have gone home by now but she’s not calming down.” Isla picked up her fork and speared a piece of rocket from her side-salad.

  He leant in across the table conspiratorially to her. “So I presume you haven’t raised the topic of the embryo with Jo again then?”

  “Are you mad?” Isla put down her cutlery and leaned back in her chair. “No, not after everything that has happened. I can say goodbye to that idea.” She sighed. “It was a crazy idea anyway.”

  “Well, at least you tried. Wouldn’t it be worse if you had never plucked up the courage to ask Jo for the embryo and then you looked back on all of this some day and wondered what might have been?”

  “Maybe, but at least then my niece wouldn’t be living with me and my sister would still be talking to me.”

  “Réiltín will come round – she just needs time.”

  “But what if she doesn’t? The longer it goes on, the more comfortable she seems to be with the situation. I’m stuck in the middle.”

  Greg reached across the table and placed his hand over hers.

  “It’ll all work out, Isla – these things always do.”

  He walked her home and they kissed goodbye outside.

  “I wish you could stay,” she sighed.

  “Me too,” he said, leaning in and kissing her on the forehead. “But there’ll be lots of time for that. Goodnight, Isla.”

  “Goodnight.”

  She put her key in the lock and climbed the stairs. When she came into the living room she saw that Réiltín wasn’t home yet. She flicked on the TV and watched a bit of the News but when she looked at the clock on the wall again she saw it was nine thirty and there was still no sign of Réiltín. She decided to ring her to see where she was. She dialled her number but it went straight to voicemail. Hi, this is Réiltín, leave a message! the phone sang back to her. Every time she checked the clock, the big hand seemed to be moving ever slower. When she still hadn’t appeared by ten she tried her number again and again until she began to lose count of the number of times that she had heard the same message. It wasn’t like Réiltín not to call. Something told Isla this wasn’t right. She made up her mind that if she didn’t appear in the next half an hour, she was going to ring Jo. She knew that Réiltín wouldn’t be pleased but she felt like she didn’t have any choice. Ryan and Jo needed to know something like this.

  The longer the minutes ticked on, the more the worry wrapped itself around her. Her mind was imagining all kinds of awful scenarios and she had to push the thoughts out of her head. She still didn’t ring Jo, she didn’t want to upset her when Réiltín would probably walk in the door any minute.

  She turned to the clock again and watched the big hand inch forward until it reached the top, sitting bang in the centre between the ‘1’ and the ‘2’. She was wavering on a knife-edge of anger and worry.

  She picked up her phone and dialled Jo’s number. Her mouth felt dry as she waited for her sister to answer.

  “Isla – is everything okay?” Jo asked quickly.

  Isla could already hear the panic in her tone even though she hadn’t even said anything yet.

  “Réiltín hasn’t come home – she was going to the movies. The film started at six and she was meant to be home by nine but that was two hours ago and there’s still no sign of her. Her phone is switched off too.”

  “Well, who was she meeting?”

  “She just said she was going with some of her friends.”

  “Well, who were they?” Jo demanded in a heightened tone.

  “I’m not sure,” Isla said in a small voice.

  “You mean to tell me that you let her off somewhere without even asking who she was meeting? Jesus Christ, Isla!”

  “I’m sorry, Jo, I didn’t think –”

  “I knew something like this would happen, I just knew it! I’ll call some of their parents and see if they know where she is. Ring me straight away if she shows up the meantime.”

  “Of course.”

  Jo hung up and immediately dialled Réiltín’s friend Fiona’s mother’s number. The other woman answered her phone sleep
ily and told Jo that her daughter was tucked up in bed and hadn’t been out that evening. Jo felt a sinking feeling deep within. When she had seen Isla’s number calling her, she just knew in her bones that something had happened. Call it instinct or whatever but she had always known that something like that was bound to happen with Isla in charge. She went into the kitchen and over to the fridge where she had a list of phone numbers belonging to the mothers on the parents’ association. She ran her finger down through the names until she found the number for Charlotte’s mother Sarah. She dialled her number with trembling fingers.

  “Sarah, hi, it’s Jo – Réiltín’s mother. I’m sorry for calling you so late but Réiltín hasn’t come home. I believe she was going to the cinema with some friends and I just wanted to check with you whether Charlotte was with her?”

  “Hi, Jo – yes, Charlotte was at the cinema earlier and she said that Réiltín was going too but, I’m sorry, I picked Charlotte up from the bus-stop just after nine.”

  Jo felt her heart plummet like someone had just poured it full of lead.

  “Hang on a minute until I go and check with her to see if she knows where Réiltín might be. I’ll just be a sec.”

  “Thanks, Sarah.” Jo could hear a tremor in her own voice.

  After a few minutes Jo could hear the sound of footsteps getting closer to the phone. She could hear a mumbled conversation taking place in the background but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Finally Sarah picked the handset up again. “I’m so sorry, Jo, Charlotte said that Réiltín was at the cinema with them but she left and went home early.”

  “Oh, God.” Jo felt her palm grow sweaty around the handset.

  “I’m sorry, Jo, I wish I could help you, I can imagine how worried you are right now.”

  “Thanks, Sarah, I’d better go.”

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

  Jo hung up the phone then and climbed the stairs to the spare room where Ryan had already gone to bed. She knocked gently on the door before entering. He was sitting up in bed reading a Harlan Coben novel under the lamplight. He put down the book and looked at her.