Her Sister's Lie

by Debbie Howells

  You’ll never know that your fucked-up little sister’s attempt to kill me turned out to be my lifeline. While the two of you crouched over my body, you were too drunk to notice my whisper-breath, the flutter of my eyelashes. After almost killing me, you almost buried me alive, except Sam saw. Sam carried me away from you. It was Sam who dug my grave and buried rocks in it. Sam, not you, who gave me freedom.

  I couldn’t come back. I couldn’t do anything, just wait until I was older. But I was lucky, Mother. I had Sam to take care of me. Sam, who persuaded me to stay with him, who made sure I was safe and warm, who taught me about art and English, who protected me. But I couldn’t rest, Mother—not ever. How could I? Not with my brothers still in your so-called care. Jude was older, tougher, but Abe was vulnerable. You didn’t care, did you? I wanted to find you and try to get custody of him. Sam tried to talk me out of it. Sam, who was under your spell, even after all this time, who said you’d suffered enough. But when I went looking for you, you’d disappeared.

  You know how I found Jude? When he was sentenced and it was in the press. Angry Jude, who no one had time for. I went to see him, Mother. I knew you wouldn’t. But it wasn’t just about me and Jude, was it? There was the secret, invisible child in the background. Abe. Hannah’s child. And all the time you thought we didn’t know.

  Then all we had to do was wait. For Jude to get out, for things to start falling into place. Everything in life is about timing. Death too, when the moment comes that something can go on no longer. Has to end, here. Now.

  So it was for you, Mother. Brutal but essential, the termination of your slow decay, of the misery you left in your wake. But you were already dying. All three of us knew that. Those last minutes you saw me in your house, I read your life story in your eyes—regret, anger, guilt, pain, weakness—they were all there. But it was too late by then. The three musketeers had their own, painstakingly constructed, perfectly orchestrated plan. The plan was in motion, the perfect weapon chosen. The time had come.

  You first, Mother. The older sister does everything first. Paves the way.

  The first to lie. The first to betray.

  The first to die.

  One sister followed by another sister . . .

  Hannah was next. Hannah who was born to be a victim. Selfish, irresponsible, weak Hannah, guilty of condemning Abe to fifteen years of misery, of not caring about her only child. She could have redeemed herself when he went to live with her, but she chose not to. What kind of person could do that?

  But after her failed music career, after hiding away for years, she finally had a starring role that served a dual purpose. By becoming Hannah, the killer of her pathetic sister, she earned a punishment that fitted both her crimes.

  Watching from a distance, I knew Hannah’s every movement. Took my time when she went out, picking the lock on the door of the shed, where I found the murder weapon. She never knew I’d been to her house, just as she’ll never know it was I who called her that day, Mother. Your last day. I pretended to be you—you were too drunk to notice. You didn’t take much persuading, did you? You needed a drink for the shock.

  And as always, Hannah couldn’t help you. She never could, could she? Not even when you really needed her. By the time she arrived, you were dead. I watched her arrive from across the street, then leave minutes later. She didn’t even stop to think of Abe, about to come home from school and find his mother’s body. But as we all know, Hannah only thinks about herself.

  I shouldn’t have gone to her house that day, but Hannah drew me to her like a moth to a flame. By chance, or maybe it was destiny, I was there when she crashed her car, leaned over her barely conscious body the way she had over mine, all those years ago, the night she thought she’d killed me. I made sure she saw me, Mother. Gave her another ghost to haunt her nightmares, to make her question her sanity.

  My one regret was what Abe had to go through to get to this point. Abe, who was innocent, who had to stay with your fucked-up sister. But one of us had to be there. It was the only way the plan would ever work.

  But it’s behind us. Now, in this cottage you escaped to all those years ago, it finally ends, Mother. Your and Hannah’s crimes of neglect, your web of lies. The perpetrators have been sentenced. The penalty delivered by the victims. Justice perfectly carried out, in as much as it ever can be, without winding back the past and rewriting it.

  And as all endings are, this is a beginning. The start of the rest of our lives. That’s what this was about, Mother. The suffering is over, for Abe and for all of us. The baby no one wanted now has freedom.

  I’ve just watched him and Jude arrive in a battered old car. Abe’s face is blank, the way it’s always been. He’s carrying a huge black knapsack, walking slowly as he looks around at the cottage, then at the trees, stopping for a moment. I’ll have to ask him what he remembers about living here. Jude looks cocky. Pleased with himself—and perhaps he should be. While for me, seeing them here, at last there is peace. Hope too for all three of us.

  Abe doesn’t know that there’s a fridge full of food and warm covers on the beds. Sam’s fixed the windows—we can close them now. I want to tell Abe all of this. He needs to learn what it means to have a home, to feel safe, to be loved.

  I’m going out to meet them now. I’m not Summer anymore, by the way. I haven’t been for years. I’m Jess. Our future begins in your old cottage, Mother. But I don’t know how long we’ll stay. There’s the shadow of history repeating itself. Sam owns it, says it’s mine for as long as I want it. Is that how it started for you?

  But the similarities end there, Mother. Our lives are going to be real. Coming here isn’t about running away. There will be school, work, people. But we’ll never be free of you. Not entirely. You’ve left us with our own secret. The ultimate lie, the one that put an end to your lies, which made it possible for us to be here.

  But no more lies, Mother—or lies that aren’t really lies.

  No regrets, no remorse, no guilt.

  Those days are behind us.

  We’ve changed the script.