My Sister

by Michelle Adams

  I step from the room and stare at the photographs on the dresser. Elle and another little girl. A girl I know cannot be me. I take each photo one by one, looking for the mistake, looking for me. But I don’t find it. I’m not in any of these photographs.

  I allow my anger to get the better of me and snatch up the heaviest frame, launching it at the dresser. It clatters forward, smashes into the back of the cupboard. I stand there in silence, shaking. But as I look up, I notice that along with the glass of the frame, part of the dresser has shattered too. Wood splinters fly up, and a chink of light creeps through the hole. I push my fingers into it and find space on the other side. I grip the wood and pull, breaking another flimsy part away. Beyond there is no wall. Instead there is a corridor, and as I put my eye to the hole, I see the same red carpet that runs underneath my feet.

  I pull the dresser away and find that the corridor continues behind it, with only a narrow outline of bricks built to mask the remaining gap around the edge. I step through the space where the dresser once stood, into a side of the house that I’ve never been able to access from my bedroom before. I follow the corridor as it turns to the right, and at the end I see the same upturned table that I was kneeling at only moments ago. Beyond that I hear music, and I can see the open door of Elle’s bedroom just up ahead.

  But I retrace my steps because there is another door that had remained hidden until today. I open it, bursting through as if I want to catch somebody in the act. Before me is a room, pink, a small bed to match my own. More sad, dated furniture, everything grey with dust, as if it is slowly fading away. A large bay window with the curtains pulled shut. On a shelf there are three albums, the same size and style as the albums in the study. I pick up the first, faded gold lettering reading 1984. My mother isn’t pregnant any more. Instead there is a baby in her arms. I turn the page. The same baby, a little bigger. Two children in the background. One of them is Elle, and she is holding a red marker in her hand. There is a butterfly on the baby’s plaster cast. A cast that extends all the way up her left leg, above the hip. My hip. The other little girl has her hands on the edge of my crib. She has blonde curls. Blue eyes. She is the girl from the tricycle. The girl I thought was me, but who was not.

  Because I am Casey, the youngest of three, born in February 1984 with a dysplastic hip. I am the child who is supposed to be dead. But if I am Casey, who is the other girl?

  I snatch at the album marked 1985. I flick through the pages, and there I am. Bigger. Growing. Alone. No other children. My parents are there with me, pictures of them holding me, of bath time, nappy change, days in the garden. All the pictures are from the house. As if they never took me out. My parents’ features are heavy. The easiness of their youth has gone. Their faces talk of the decision to exclude one of their children, and the unexplained loss of another. 1986 is the same, me with my parents, until it stops halfway through, an album unfinished. A family disappeared.

  I stare at my mother, wish I could ask her what happened, beg her to tell me the truth. But it’s too late to ask for the answers, because all that remains is her grave, the secrets of the past buried with her and out of reach. I remember what Matt told me: that when our parents die, they take part of us with them, the part that belonged to them all along. I wonder if the reverse is true. Perhaps they leave part of them behind with us. The part of them that was always ours to keep. Maybe if I wish for it hard enough, part of her will live on in me.

  And that’s when I remember. I run from the house, grabbing my keys just before I slip out of the back door. I am panting by the time I reach the car, rain streaming down my face, my heart pounding. I drive towards the village, screeching to a halt as I pull up alongside the graveyard. I hobble forward, my hip throbbing in pain as if it knows, as if it is excited that the secret will finally be uncovered. I stagger towards the muddy mound under which my mother lies, and right next to it, just as I remember from the day of the funeral, is the other grave. The headstone with no dates, filled instead with an empty promise, no stronger than the one they offered me.

  I peel back the covering of moss and brush away the remnants of mud, read the engraving.

  Our dearest Casey.

  You live on in her.

  41

  It took weeks for the exhumation licence to be approved. But it came through for early November.

  Who will they dig up? My bet is that we will find a little girl who once went by the name of Irini Harringford, the second child of Cassandra and Maurice Harringford. The little girl whose place I took. I’m not sure what happened to her yet, or if Elle had anything to do with it. If she was here, maybe she could help answer the questions. But my best guess is that Elle was involved with her death and that my parents sent her to Fair Fields in a desperate bid to help her. Casey’s reported death at roughly three months old ties in with Elle’s admission. So they passed me off as Irini, perhaps easier to convince people of the death of a baby with health problems than it was a toddler. I became Irini, and nobody became any the wiser. I inherited her name, and she inherited my health problems. But when my parents found out what was happening to Elle, they had to bring her home, leaving them with no option but to send me away, or risk losing Irini all over again.

  I suppose there will be questions afterwards. The police will open an investigation, will want to know who killed little Irini, the actual Irini. They’ll want to know who knew the truth, and who kept it hidden. Somebody must have signed the death certificate for a baby who didn’t die. Somebody in the village must have wondered why Irini was suddenly kept at home. Perhaps some of them were even at Casey’s funeral.

  But until I know for certain what happened to Irini, I continue to live as her. Casey doesn’t quite seem to fit. Perhaps it is because I am fourteen months younger than the age I have believed I was for most of my life. Aunt Jemima must have known the truth, so it’s no wonder she didn’t want Elle in our lives. But she can’t keep hiding, and now that the police are involved she will have to face the truth. I wonder if she will want to talk to me, apologise, atone, beg forgiveness for the lies. Perhaps that is the least I deserve, but really I just want to move forward, find a new life, one that feels true to who I am. Whoever that might turn out to be.

  As part of that effort, I took a trip to London with my medical records from Fair Fields to convince DC Forrester of what I believed to be the truth. Once she could smell a loose end she was all over it like a rash, screaming bloody murder at anybody who stood in her way, bothering the Scottish police to push for exhumation. But I needn’t have worried, because it turned out to be hard for anybody to argue with the fact that Fair Fields had been treating somebody who had been registered as having died.

  While I was in London, I saw Antonio for the first time since the police let him go. We met at my house when he came to pick up his things. He seemed desperate to make it up to me, to undo what he’d done. He even asked me, What am I supposed to do now? He can’t quite believe how his life has unravelled. He doesn’t realise that none of it really matters any more. Not to me, anyway. I spent three years trying to make him fit, avoiding his pleas to open up. I don’t have to do that any more. When I realised he hadn’t anywhere to stay, I offered him the house. He was only disappointed when he realised I wouldn’t be there.

  I stayed in London long enough to pack up most of my things, and to sign the necessary paperwork to get out of my employment contract. Now I am on the road back to Scotland, and the journey is surreal, as if for the first time I am returning to a place where I belong. A place of history.

  I arrive in Horton early, three suitcases in the car. I pass the sign for Mam Tor and head up the driveway, the gates already open. It feels right to stay here, for now at least. Matt is waiting for me on the doorstep with takeaway coffees, as if we are somewhere alien and without supplies. But we are not. I am no longer a stranger to this place. Mam Tor might never feel like home, but until Elle comes back, it has to be. I know I am going to wake up here every mornin
g, wondering if this will be the day when she returns. Until then I live in hope that my presence will lure her to me, so that I can begin to undo my part in her crimes.

  I unload my clothes from the car, deposit them in one of the other bedrooms, one of the rooms that looks unused. While I have been away, a builder has worked on fixing the corridor so that it is open again, connecting my old room to the rest of the house. I have brought linen with me, starch-crisp, straight from the pack. Matt helps, and we find a degree of comfort in the fact that it feels like we are nesting. Moving forward, starting something new. We have agreed to stay here together for now. Maybe we will leave in the future, return to his nice apartment and a new life. Maybe I will leave on my own and go somewhere else entirely. I’m not sure where I need to be long-term. But for now, being here with Matt is enough. In a few months’ time this house and the whole estate will be mine, and then I suppose I’ll have the freedom to do anything I choose.

  The shadow of tomorrow hangs over us, the day of the exhumation, but we spend our time in relative happiness. We get into bed naked and lie there, although neither of us seems interested in making love. It’s like we have covered ten years of a relationship in a few short weeks and are now just happy to be free. He has told me about some of the abuse he suffered in his short time at Fair Fields, and how it makes him want to shut out the world. These are truths I believe I am the first to hear. I get to nurture him, and that seems to undo the past for both of us, one stitch at a time. Our joint story, apportioned into what we once knew as my past and his, tells the tale of Elle, a woman we both need in some way, for she validates the narrative of our lives.

  As fate would have it, it is a wet morning, still dark when we leave the house. Accordingly they erect a tent large enough to accommodate both grave and spectators, but the ground was already wet and the cold nips at our toes. A few villagers linger nearby; others hurry past with shivers running up their spines, telling themselves it’s just the chill of the air. I wonder how the diggers feel. Usually they just dig a hole then move on. This time there is purpose, something to discover. A real possibility of striking the jackpot when it comes to the truth.

  I wait as they dig, expecting a good few hours of toil on their part. But after little more than an hour they have reached something solid. DC Forrester, who has come up on her day off, clears us out as they uncover what they have found, and we stand in the drizzle listening to rushed instructions and the sound of shifting soil. After another twenty minutes they bring out a small wooden box. It is nothing fancy. Nothing like my mother’s. No golden handles of fancy filigree. They fill in the grave, and within another twenty minutes everybody is clearing out. Forrester assures me they will have the results available within the next few weeks.

  ‘Just got to sit it out,’ she says, before making her excuses, saying she is on the next flight home. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Dawn is breaking when we arrive back at the house. My feet are numb, my toes bright pink when I pull off my socks. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ I call to Matt, who doesn’t suggest he join me.

  The water feels good, and it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to be naked in this place in the way that it did before. I let the heat soak into my body, wash my hair. After ten minutes, when the water from the old heating system is starting to cool, I reach for a towel. That’s when I see the shadows under the door.

  Even though I know Matt is in the house, my first thought is Elle. I open the door, look left and right now that the dresser has been removed and the corridor is open. I cross the hallway, my old bedroom door already ajar. As I push it open, I find her sitting on my childhood bed. She looks smaller than before, her face dirty. I am sure she has been sleeping rough. Perhaps in the grounds, and I find the idea surprisingly comforting. I close the door behind me and speak softly.

  ‘Elle,’ I say, my breath catching in my throat. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I sit down next to her. She gets up, moves to the door. She doesn’t want me near. I know she doesn’t intend to stay.

  ‘You cut my time with Miss Endicott short.’ There is no smile on her face, no glimmer of delight or pride. Just the facts and an accusation.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say, without finding the apology ridiculous. ‘I was only ever looking for the truth.’

  ‘Well now you have it, Casey. You know what they are going to find when they open that box.’ She opens the door a crack, perhaps ready to bolt in case I have the police hidden, waiting to pounce.

  ‘Irini,’ I say, and I sense the first flicker of a smile creeping across her face. ‘You did it, didn’t you? You killed her. That’s why they sent you to Fair Fields, and why they sent me away when you came home. They passed me off as Irini to hide your crime, kept me hidden until I had grown big enough to convince people.’ I take her silence as proof of what I believe. ‘Why did you do it?’

  She shrugs. ‘What do you want me to tell you? The explanation and logic of a six-year-old? I thought you were smarter than that.’ She shakes her head, opens the door, but then closes it again and turns back to look at me, her body still angled ready to leave. How could a six-year-old girl kill a baby? I try to imagine how it could possibly have happened. But I can’t, and I have to accept I will never know. ‘I guess they started calling you Irini to pretend she still existed,’ she says.

  ‘No. They did it to cover up your crime. The same reason they gave me away. To protect you.’

  ‘They tried to keep us both, you know. We were together for a while after I came home. Even after they sent you away, they still hoped that one day they might be able to bring you back. But I couldn’t help myself.’ She looks down at my hip, and now I see why my parents had to let me go, and exactly why they had to keep her. When she arrived home from Fair Fields she hadn’t changed at all. ‘I’m sorry about adding to your list of scars. I thought it might end up like a butterfly. But you should be grateful. Unlike Irini, you at least are still alive.’ She looks away sadly, as if she can’t quite believe how it has all turned out.

  When she slips through the door, I jump up to follow her. I catch her at the top of the stairs, just two steps down. ‘Why don’t you stay? I will help you,’ I say. Thoughts of trapping her run through my mind. I should call the police, force her to atone for what she did. For killing my sister, ruining my life. But I can’t give her up now any more than my parents could.

  She smiles, and there is that face I recognise, the one I could never let in. The sly grin, the emotionless eyes. I remember now why I have spent my life running, and understand why my parents sent me away to protect me. ‘Would you trust me to stay?’ she says. ‘Hide me? Would you trust me to sleep next to you?’ I know I wouldn’t. When I don’t answer she says, ‘No, neither would I.’ Then she reaches down and lifts my towel.

  Her fingertips brush against the raised lumps of tissue that never really healed. Not the long, straight line that runs as vertically as any decent spine. Instead she focuses on the ragged arcs above it. The marks she made. I remain still, goose pimples running across my skin. She traces her finger along the curve of scar. Is she sad, sorry, hurt? Could be any one or none of those things. And I realise that while I’ve spent all my life believing that I have lost everything, it isn’t the truth; I never lost my parents’ love. My father gave everything he had to save me. He told me so. And deep down Elle knows it. That’s why she will never forgive me, and why I could never trust her again. I fear her now the same as I did when she held a knife to my body on the day I ran for my life. With just the touch of her fingers she elicits the same unease.

  ‘They faded, at least,’ she says as she drops the towel. ‘That’s what our father always hoped for.’ She turns, walks down the stairs.

  I chase after her and catch her just before she slips outside. As I hold her arm I whisper, ‘Elle, do you think our father forgave you?’ She smiles but cannot make eye contact. She doesn’t answer me, at least not verbally, as she disappears from my life. I’m not sure if it
is for good. Her own scars run too deep just to walk away.

  But although I know she doubts it, I am sure my father did forgive her. Because she was a part of him just like she is a part of me. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt to know that I was sacrificed for her. For the little girl who cut my leg open and killed our sister. But perhaps our parents did what they had to to save not just me, but both of us. The two children they had left. Whatever their motives, I forgive them. I will let the past go, and Elle’s crimes with it. No matter how terrible or scarring their actions really were. Because we are them, and they are us.

  We are family.