Little Sister

by Isabel Ashdown

  I remember arriving, and the magnificence of the setting sun that spread out beyond Sammie’s big house, bathing the garden in golden light. I know I felt glad that I’d agreed to come after all. I remember drinking, perhaps just one or two, but not enough to get me drunk—and I remember a friendly boy who fetched me a top-up and who I know would have talked to me more if Emily had been less icy. I remember Simon turning up late, the awful disappointment that poured off Emily when he went off with his friends, and the hateful scowl she shot me when I asked if she was all right. I remember feeling light-headed and looking for somewhere to sit down for a while, and I remember walking into the downstairs bathroom and catching Emily in there with a boy called Alex. I can see it quite clearly, like a short video: they were kissing, and he had his hand up her T-shirt, and he glowered in my direction, and I shut the door before Emily even noticed.

  I remember resting on the top step of the stairs, and again that familiar sensation of my blood slowing and my breaths growing shallow, and then there was Sammie helping me to my feet and Simon pushing past, saying, “Shit, Jess. Overdone it a bit?” and Sammie telling him to piss off as she took me into her bedroom.

  And then it’s as though I’m there again, and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed and trying not to close my eyes as Sammie smooths my denim skirt over my knees and feels my forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ll go and find Emily,” she says, and I’m grateful. I’m scared, but it’s going to be all right, because Emily is coming. My big sister is coming, and she’ll make everything all right. And I desperately don’t want to recall any further, but somehow I can’t stop it, because here comes Simon with his hair all poking up and his flashy diamond earring, but this time he’s being really kind, and he’s sitting on the bed and offering me a glass of Coke, and I really don’t want it, but he says, “The sugar will make you feel better,” and even though it tastes a bit funny, I drink it all down. And then he’s helping me lay my head on the pillow, and I think I might sleep, but right before the memory runs out, I notice Lizard in the doorway beside the Little Mermaid poster that Sammie won’t part with, and as my eyelids grow too, too heavy—wholly unlike any episode or faint I’ve ever experienced before—I see the look that passes between Simon and Lizard. And it’s not a kind look. It isn’t kind at all.

  18

  Emily

  So that was that. They’ve had their hopes raised only to have them dashed again. Emily really believed they would get Daisy back today, really, truly wanted to believe it, and she has been distraught since they arrived home, finally releasing her emotions the moment she was alone behind her bedroom door. She knows the media and public all think she’s a hard cow—they probably even wish they had more reason to suspect her—because she’s not breaking down in front of them every time they point a camera at her, because she won’t play the textbook heartbroken mother. But they don’t know her, do they? They know nothing about her. They don’t know the spiraling darkness of the pain she feels, they don’t hear her muffled cries, they don’t see the pale, salted circles that stain her pillowcase. What they want is a wilting Madonna, a mother driven half mad at the loss of her child. If only they knew, she thinks as she stands before the bathroom mirror, drying herself off from a long-overdue shower, her gaze drawn blankly to the hollows of her collarbone and her protruding ribs. She certainly feels half mad; she certainly feels like a woman out of her mind. Thoughts of Avril naturally follow. That mad bitch didn’t even turn up today, and now, thanks to James and his big mouth, she may never make contact again. What did the detective tell them? Stay away from the press. “They’ll try to push your buttons,” DCI Jacobs had told the family, right at the very start of all this. “They will try every trick in the book to get you to say something—anything—that will make good headlines.” Idiot, Emily repeats over in her head, recalling the sight of James chasing off the journalists on the front drive, giving them just the kind of juicy headline they were after. Idiot.

  Of course, her own subsequent behavior—leaning from the window, showering them with expletives—was not a proud moment, and she thanks God that that image only made it to page five. Her heart races at the very thought of it. Emily throws her towel to the bedroom floor and dresses.

  Downstairs, James is out in the early evening darkness of the garden, talking with DC Cherry, and as she approaches the window over the kitchen sink, Emily sees they are both smoking. She has never seen James with a cigarette, though he once told her he had been a smoker in his university days. Under normal circumstances, she’d be rushing out there, snatching it from his hand and grinding it beneath her heel, berating him for his childish behavior. But not now; now she couldn’t give a stuff what he does to himself. All she wants is her daughter back. All she wants is the life she once had, the good life she had before Jess came to stay.

  Even as she thinks this, she knows it is irrational. This isn’t Jess’s fault—none of this is really Jess’s fault. But Emily wants it to be. She wants it to be anyone’s fault but her own.

  There’s no wine in the house, so Emily heads to the drinks cabinet in the living room to locate the vodka one of James’s clients gave him at Christmas. They seldom drink spirits, James preferring lager or red wine and Emily favoring white, but they keep several bottles of spirits in for their friends who do. Marcus likes a scotch, and Jan always asks for gin and tonic. Becca gave them a bottle of limoncello when she returned from a holiday in Italy a year or two back, and Jess got a bottle of Jamaican rum in for the festive season. In the living room, she averts her gaze from the Christmas tree beside the window, its dropped needles and drooping branches a terrible reminder of the passing of time, the time that has elapsed since Daisy was taken from them. The baubles and light garlands now lie on the carpet like discarded clothes, the weight of them too much for the slack branches to bear. Jess offered again to take it down only yesterday, and James was in agreement, but Emily won’t hear of it.

  As soon as she opens the door to the glass cabinet, she knows there are bottles missing. When it comes to cans and jars and bottles, James is particular, to the point of obsession, about straight lines and ordered rows. And although it is a strange detail, Emily remembers that the front row of bottles was complete, a full row of four bottles to match the rows behind. Now, however, there are two spaces, and when she searches across the labels she sees that both the vodka and the rum are missing. She heads back to the foot of the stairs.

  “Jess? Jess! Are you up there?”

  She hears the sounds of James and DC Cherry returning through the back door, and Jess appears from her bedroom at the top of the stairs, bleary-eyed with afternoon sleep, and then Chloe is pushing open the front door, and she’s standing in the hallway with Max. Emily can hardly believe her eyes. He looks young, far younger than his nineteen years, his hair sandy-colored, his nose freckly, disappointingly unlike the darkly seducing older man Emily had allowed herself to imagine. How dare she bring him here? Her rage is rising again, but then Jess answers her from above, and she turns to reply, but she can’t quite remember what it was that she wanted in the first place.

  James now stands in the entrance to the kitchen, and Emily feels as though she’s watching from a distance, standing on the outside, looking in. She sees the calm-faced husband, his arms open wide to the prodigal daughter, the daughter hand in hand with the usurping young male. Then there’s her, the slighted mother, at the center, conflicted and confused. And here’s Jess, dropping off the bottom step to take in the scene. Jess, who knows just exactly what to do as she slips her hand into Emily’s and leads her into the kitchen, asking DC Cherry if he’d mind filling the kettle, while father and daughter embrace, and no words are spoken.

  It’s Emily who is the first to break the silence.

  “What is he doing here?” she asks from her position next to the island unit. She points toward Max on the far side of the dining room, where he stands at the front door, his jacket still buttoned up. “What is he doing i
n my house?”

  Chloe pulls back from James’s arms and waits for him to speak. Weak, Emily thinks. He’s so weak. “Dad?” Chloe says, and it’s suddenly clear to Emily that they’ve already spoken about this, already agreed how it’s going to be.

  “It’s time for us all to accept that Chloe and Max are together,” James says firmly, but he doesn’t look at Emily, just keeps his eyes locked on his daughter’s for strength.

  “But the police—the stuff he took!” Emily screeches.

  James raises a hand. “We need to put all that police business behind us, Emily, because Chloe has told me how important Max is to her, and that’s good enough for me. We’ve all been through too much to risk losing her too. I’d rather have Chloe with Max than no Chloe at all.”

  Across the room Jess nods in agreement, and Emily hates her for it.

  Max’s stance is one of remorse. He stands with his shoulders slightly bowed, his hands limply joined together in front of him. “I’m sorry, Mr. King—Chloe and me, well, we didn’t know each other all that well when I did that—and I guess I was just being an idiot. I really regret it. And I really care a lot about Chloe.”

  James crosses the room and shakes Max’s hand. The boy’s face lights up, and to Emily’s astonishment, the two of them kind of hug, making contact in a cringingly awkward shoulder-bump. Chloe claps her hands together, and Jess quietly says, “Well done,” and Emily now knows the whole world has gone insane.

  “Am I the only person in this room who thinks it’s wrong that she’s been staying at his place? Or that he is nineteen and she’s not even sixteen!”

  Emily searches their expressions for signs of disapproval or shame or something, but instead she sees pity.

  “Ems,” Jess says gently, and her tone is so bloody patronizing and their collective eyes are so full of embarrassment that it feels as though they’re all in on it together, united engineers in the great scheme of her madness. “Chloe had her birthday a week ago. Chloe is sixteen now.”

  “You were asleep, Emily,” Chloe says, folding her arms across her chest. “I told Dad I didn’t want a big fuss made over it this year, but I did think you might have woken up for the cake.”

  Emily is horrified at having forgotten her stepdaughter’s birthday—Chloe, the girl she’s baked a cake for every January for the past twelve or thirteen years. Until all this happened, she’s been a good mother—the best mother—and now, what would people say? One daughter kidnapped and the other ignored. This is too much. Too much. Her rage spills over. “Well, that’s just fine, isn’t it? Max, you can screw her to your heart’s content now, with absolutely no fear of prosecution! Fill your boots, young man!”

  Max, to his credit, doesn’t say a word, nor does Chloe. Instead, Chloe kisses her dad and aunt, picks up her coat, and disappears through the front door with Max without a backward glance for Emily. I’m vanishing, Emily thinks as she gazes across the room toward Jess and James. Their eyes are on each other, and they’re speaking without talking, and it’s as though she’s disappearing as surely as Daisy did before her.

  * * *

  Everyone lies, don’t they? At some point in the life of every single human being who walks this earth, they will construct a lie, whether large or small. No one is without sin when it comes to the art of lying. The hacks on the drive lie to them daily, hoping to extract scandalous headlines for their tabloids. Chloe’s been lying for months. James, well, he’s lied about the very fabric of his life: his ex-wife, his past, his secret meetings with Jess. Lies don’t get much bigger than the ones her husband has told.

  In her mind’s eye, she sees one of the corny postcards Becca has pinned up beside her till in the café. Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth—Buddha. But that’s not true, is it? Secrets are so often the vehicles of truth, aren’t they? And unlike the sun and the moon, secrets can remain hidden for years—for decades, lifetimes even. Secrets are as good as their keepers’ ability to conceal, and the fewer who know the secret, the stronger the chances of concealment. Emily knows this only too well. She knows better than to spread her secrets any further than she has to; it seems James has taken the same approach with those secrets of his own. Who is he? she wonders in her quiet moments. Who is this man she’s devoted her life to? Has she ever really known him?

  And Jess . . . there’s so much that Emily is uncertain of there, so many little half-truths and concealed details, that there has to be more to uncover, have to be more reasons to mistrust her. So Emily is entitled to a few lies of her own, isn’t she? She’s no worse than any of the others, but she’s damned if she’ll let them in on her secrets. She’s damned if she’ll let them make her feel any worse than she already does.

  * * *

  Emily could have throttled Sammie when she came hammering on the bathroom door that night, just as she and that nice sporty boy were getting along so well, and she would have ignored her had she not been quite so insistent.

  “Emily? It’s me. I’m worried about Jess—she’s looking really off-color. Em? Are you coming out? She looks like she’s about to pass out!”

  “Shit,” Emily muttered into the boy’s ear, and he gave a little huff of disappointment as she pushed him off and tugged down her skirt. They were on the floor of the downstairs bathroom, wedged up against the bathtub, and despite her irritation, she knew she ought to think about making her excuses anyway. Alex was nice enough—handsome even—but it wasn’t the most romantic of settings, and the lumpy bathmat was making unsightly dents in her thighs. At any rate, Simon would go ballistic if he found out. Shit, she thought again, shit shit shit!

  Sammie banged on the door again. “Emily! Please, I’m really worried about her! Will you hurry up? She’s in my room upstairs—I don’t want to leave her on her own like that.”

  Emily motioned for Alex to hide behind the door as she left, bringing a finger to her lips and hissing a low shhh. She unlocked the door, switching off the light as she left the room, and hooked her arm through Sammie’s to steer her away.

  “Who were you in there with?” Sammie asked, looking over her shoulder to see who might emerge from the bathroom.

  “No one!” Emily replied. She did her best to look affronted.

  “But Jane said she saw you go in there with a boy. That’s how I knew where to find you.”

  Emily halted, yanking Sammie around to face her. “Jane’s a bloody liar!” she said. “She saw me talking to that Dougie boy earlier, and she tried to make a big deal of it then—she probably fancied him herself. God, she’s pathetic. I’m going to have a word with her later.”

  Sammie looked back again, and sure enough, Alex appeared from the doorway of the darkened bathroom. “Em—” she said, bobbing her head in his direction, but Emily’s eyes contained such warning that Sammie was forced into silence.

  She might look like a sweet little pixie, Emily always said of Sammie, but she could be a real meddler when she wanted to be. Naturally, Jess disagreed with this description of their best friend, but then Jess was such a square that she never did anything worth gossiping about, did she?

  At the foot of the stairs, Sammie gave her an anxious little shove, and Emily led the way, leisurely stepping over legs and beer cans and pausing to chat with some girls from their year. The light bulb on the top landing was out, but they could just make out their friend Jane, who was waiting in line for the toilet.

  “Em?” Sammie wheedled, trying to convey her worry about the time it was taking them to get back to Jess. But Emily knew she had to nip this in the bud right away. She had no idea where Simon was, and if Jane was spreading nasty rumors about her, she had to be stopped right now, before it got out of hand—before it reached his ears.

  “Em!” Sammie repeated.

  “Wait!” Emily snapped, reaching out to spin Jane around. Jane’s smile dropped like a stone when Emily brought her face close to hers and whispered, “Not another word, Jane. OK? Not even to Jo.” And the girl nodded ferven
tly and pushed her way into the now vacant loo.

  Along the corridor, Lizard stood stoop-shouldered outside the closed door to Sammie’s bedroom, and in the moment it took for his startled eyes to meet Emily’s, she knew it was bad news.

  * * *

  In Emily’s dreams, there is a baby crying; it’s so real, so clear that she tries desperately to rise from sleep, so that she can go to Daisy and pluck her from her crib, soothe her into peace. But Emily doesn’t wake; instead, she walks across the landing of her dreams and enters Daisy’s nursery and gazes down on the infant, whose face is broken by the slices of light that pour through the bars of her cot. And she sees it isn’t Daisy at all. The face is little Jessica’s, and she’s crying for her big sister, and deep down Emily wants to help, but she resists because the cot is sealed in glass, and she doesn’t want to cut her hands breaking it apart; she doesn’t want glass splinters in their nice thick carpet.

  The ringing of the telephone wrenches her from the dream, and she leaps from the bed, her breaths coming short and fast as she rushes into the hallway to grab the receiver.

  “Yes?” she barks, and she wonders what the time is, who could possibly be phoning this late.

  “Emily, it’s DCI Jacobs.”

  There’s a beat while Emily processes the voice, the possible significance of her phoning so late.