The Forgotten Sister

by Caroline Bond

  Leah set off back to the high street towards the solitary bus stop. Erin! What a bitch, what a little bitch. Shows you. You shouldn’t judge a person by what they looked like, or acted like. Butter wouldn’t melt. Yet Cassie loved Erin. Loved her more. Loved her most. Loved Leah not at all. Fuck ’em. Fuck the lot of them, with their big shiny house and their money, and their tiny, tidy minds. Fuck ’em, fuck ’em, fuck ’em, fuck ’em. Leah gulped some of their precious, clean air into her creased, dirty lungs. It was a stupid idea going to their house. Even if Erin hadn’t been there to screw things up, Cassie still wouldn’t have listened – wouldn’t have cared. Not really. She should’ve known better. She did know better. Jesus, she was a dumb fuck.

  A woman with a pair of the biggest motherfucker scissors Leah had ever seen was snipping away at some dried brown flowers on a plant in her front garden. She stared as Leah walked by, an expression of alarm stapled on her face, the scissors paused mid-air, mid-snip. Uncharacteristically, Leah looked away. She hadn’t the energy.

  Half an hour later, sitting on the bus, she finally breathed out. She leant back in her seat and watched the scenery change, becoming more recognisable with each mile: darker, harder, messy, busier. She was heading back where she belonged. The chink of light that Cassie had represented was extinguished – for good. The thought was depressing, but at least it was definite. Hope was a fucking tiring, confusing, hurtful, ultimately useless emotion. She was better off without it. She would go back to her flat, where she would wait, not knowing what the fuck she was going to do. Naz would come round, when he wanted something, and she would let him in. And life would go on, just like before, until it didn’t. That was the plan – such as it was. The thought of it made Leah feel less shaky, but also vaguely sick.

  Her situation was clear.

  No more stupid fantasies.

  Cassie had made her choice – and it was not Leah.

  It was Erin.

  She needed to forget that she’d ever had a sister.

  She needed to forget that she’d ever been a sister.

  She was on her own.

  Chapter 62

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  THEY DECIDE to take the narrow stairwell rather than face the confines of the lift. The sounds and smells of the building are horribly familiar. Cassie’s last, disastrous visit feels a lifetime ago, but the memories are still sharp and clear, the environment still alien and unwelcoming. There is nothing to soften the hard edges of Leah’s world. The floors are unforgiving, the walls gouged and badly scratched. It’s unremitting. Grey paint, grey skies and the occasional grey person, toiling down past them with grey, suspicious eyes.

  As they plod up the stairs, Cassie focuses on her parents, trying to read their thoughts in the hunch of their shoulders. Her dad is transmitting fake calm, her mum nervous energy; both of them are emanating a quiet, grim determination to get this over with. Cassie’s own feelings are clawing at her insides, scrambling over each other for supremacy. Fear is winning. She has not seen Leah for months, not since she broke into the house and attacked Erin. Absence has not made her heart grow stronger. Cassie is genuinely terrified of seeing her sister again. Leah is nothing like her, and never will be. She isn’t normal and civilised and predictable. She’s wild and unreadable, seemingly incapable of kindness or affection. What she has proved herself very capable of is manipulation, lies and rage.

  Common sense, self-protection, loyalty to Erin, a renewed belief that Tom and Grace have her best interests at heart – everything is telling Cassie to stay as far away from Leah as possible.

  Yet here they are.

  The phone call from Social Services had shocked and unsettled them all.

  Gail rang, out of the blue, and said they’d been approached by Leah – that she’d asked for permission to contact Cassie.

  ‘Really?’ Grace had failed miserably to disguise her dismay at the news.

  Gail picked up on her tone. ‘Sorry, I thought you’d be pleased. I know it all came to a bit of a dead-end last time we tried.’

  Grace recovered, slightly, reminding herself that Gail was unaware of the incident at Leah’s flat, the theft, the car crash, the break-in. They hadn’t told her about any of it, wanting nothing more than to close in on themselves. The girls had recovered well from their physical injuries, but the after-effects of their contact with Leah still lingered. Her shadow was slowly beginning to dissipate, but they were not the same family they had been; there had been too much hurt and deceit all round for that. As Gail chattered on, Grace felt awkward not telling her about what had happened, but she didn’t, there was still a need for some omissions. Cassie had insisted that they say nothing, and Grace wasn’t about to break a confidence with her eldest daughter any time soon.

  ‘Do you know what she wants?’ Money? Another attempt to win Cassie over? Threats? Whatever it was, Grace was frightened that it was going to do more harm.

  ‘No,’ Gail said, ‘but it’ll come through Letterbox – the usual protocols. I’d recommend that you read the letter before you pass it on to Cassie. It’s better to be on the safe side. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but it never does any harm to be cautious about contact at the beginning – at least until you’ve worked out people’s motivations.’

  Grace was uncomfortably aware that it was much too late for such sensible precautions. Gail wished them well and rang off, unaware of the anxiety she’d just provoked.

  Grace and Tom waited on tenterhooks for the letter to arrive.

  It did, five days later.

  It was lying on the hall mat when Tom came downstairs for breakfast. A perfectly ordinary-looking white A4 envelope that might as well have been an incendiary device. He picked it up and put it away in his briefcase. A Tuesday morning was not the time to tackle this. He took it into work with him, not even telling Grace that it had arrived.

  At lunchtime Tom put on his coat and scarf and headed to the canal, the envelope tucked inside his jacket pocket. It was a mockingly clear, bright, cold day; a beautiful day for walking or cycling, but not for sitting. His bench was empty. He drew the envelope out and, with cold fingers, clumsily unpeeled the tab. Inside was a smaller, cheaper, buff-coloured envelope on which was written one word: CASSIE. The handwriting seemed shocking personal. It disturbed Tom, deeply. It was the closest he’d come to actually having contact with Leah. Up until that point she’d only ever been a dark shadow that stalked his life. The uneven block capitals, penned in black Biro, forced him to think about her as a real living, breathing person. He didn’t want to, but the physical reality of the letter made him; it demanded that he acknowledge her existence, and her power. He stared at the envelope and wondered at her motivation for contacting Cassie. Why now, when they’d thought it all over and done with? What else could she possibly have to throw at them?

  The envelope was lumpy. Tom squeezed it, trying to guess the contents. He turned it over. It was sealed with two raggedly torn pieces of sticky tape. He weighed the letter in his hand. With every fibre in his body he wanted to throw it in the canal and let the scummy water swallow it up. If he got rid of it, he could get rid of Leah. It was a neat, appealing equation. He had the right, hadn’t he – the right and the responsibility to protect his daughter? Again?

  A sudden loud splash made Tom look up.

  A pristine white swan (the same swan as on his previous visit?) had crash-landed on the canal. It folded away its wings, shook its head and fixed Tom with its glassy eyes as it glided towards him. When it reached the weed-choked bank, it stopped and began dipping its head smoothly in and out of the black water, sifting for food. Tom watched it, feeling the cold of the bench creeping up into his bones. After a few minutes the swan stopped, stretched out its long neck and silently, effortlessly slid away.

  Tom put the letter back into his pocket.

  Tom and Grace told Cassie about the letter after dinner that evening. They watched her struggle to control the emotions that chased across her face at the mention of Lea
h. Tom went to fetch the envelope and put it on the table in front of her. She eyed it nervously, but didn’t pick it up.

  ‘We were advised to open it first, before we gave it to you, but we thought that wasn’t right. It’s addressed to you. It’s your letter. It’s for you to open – if you want to.’ They really were trying to learn from their mistakes.

  Cassie picked it up. ‘Why now?’

  ‘We’ve no idea.’ Grace said.

  ‘I suppose I’d better open it.’ She seemed very reluctant.

  ‘You don’t have to.’ Tom said, hating Leah for messing with his daughter.

  ‘No. I do.’ Cassie ripped open the envelope as if speed would lessen the pain. A photo fell out, face-down on the table, along with a folded piece of paper and a wad of toilet roll. Cassie flipped over the photo. It was the one Leah had taken from her the day they first met: Cassie and her birth mum; but when Cassie picked it up, she realised it wasn’t only her picture, because stuck to the back of it was another print, the one of her birth mother with both of them. Tom and Grace both craned forward, curiosity proving stronger than sensitivity. Cassie pushed the photos aside, indifferent, or at least feigning indifference. She unfolded the piece of paper. Her face flickered as she stared at it.

  Grace’s anxiety climbed. ‘What does it say?’

  Cassie let the paper drop onto the table. Just a single word, carved out in graceless block capitals: SORRY. Hesitantly she picked up the lump of tissue and unwound it. Bedded inside the wad of loo roll was her grandma’s ring. Cassie took it, slipped it back onto her finger and stared at it.

  Which is why – despite everything that has happened, despite her parents’ very valid concerns, and despite Ryan’s and Erin’s downright opposition – they find themselves climbing up a grey, depressing stairwell, heading back towards Leah.

  Because Leah is Cassie’s sister. Nothing will ever change that. They’re connected by blood. Cassie can’t forget that, never will forget that. And, if she’s learnt anything over the past year – and she has – it’s that families aren’t always nice and neat, that love isn’t always expressed politely, and that care isn’t always soft and sweet. Sometimes a sister looks and acts like Leah, not Erin.

  And there is no denying the past.

  It was Leah who had saved Cassie when she was a baby. She was the one who had cared for her – the only one. Somehow she managed to protect her from the squalor, the neglect and the dangers that surrounded them. She was the one who put the needs of her baby sister before her own, providing food, warmth, protection, even love and affection, in circumstances that would have overwhelmed most adults. She was a better mother to Cassie than their real mother ever was.

  Seven-year-old Leah had empathy and loyalty, and huge reserves of resilience and ingenuity. She only changed because they were ripped apart.

  So if twenty-two-year-old Leah’s behaviour is erratic and incomprehensible, and sometimes plain scary, it isn’t her fault. She’s faulty because no one ever truly tried to mend her, at least not enough to succeed; not her mother, not Tom and Grace, or any of the subsequent long list of professionals, carers and guardians who were supposed to be on her side. Little wonder she’s nothing like Cassie. How could she be? But she is still Cassie’s sister. The letter was Leah’s way reminding her of that. Cassie has to find out why she sent it.

  They make it to the seventh floor, where they gather on the landing, catching their breath. There are six identical doors, each as blank and utterly anonymous as the next: a letterbox, a spyhole, a scratched lock. Behind number forty-five is Leah. Even at this late stage, they’re unwilling to announce their presence. They stand close together and whisper about who should knock and what they should say. In truth, Tom wants to turn round and creep, like a coward, back down the dirty stairs and out of the depressing building, back to their clean lives, but Cassie is resolute. It’s shaming and inspiring, in equal measure. Despite Tom’s pleas that it’s safest if he knocks and speaks to Leah first, Cassie is adamant that it should be her.

  ‘The only person Leah trusts, even a tiny bit, is me. If she opens the door and sees you, she’s going to slam it in our faces. It has to be me.’

  It’s hard to argue with her logic, but it still makes Tom feel inadequate that his seventeen-year old daughter is more in control of the situation than he is. ‘Okay,’ he concedes, ‘but if she’s at all aggressive, we’re leaving.’

  Cassie makes a non-committal noise; and Grace, who knows her daughter well, squares her shoulders and accepts that, whatever happens in the next few minutes, it isn’t going to involve leaving quickly or cleanly. They crossed more than miles and demographics when they set foot inside the building, they crossed the barrier between their lives and Cassie’s past.

  Time’s up.

  Cassie steps forward and knocks, and Tom and Grace fall in line behind their daughter.

  There’s no response. Nothing. Only the rapid thudding of their hearts. Cassie waits, then knocks again, not louder or longer, just the same two short, firm raps. Still nothing. They listen for sounds from the other side of the door, but there are none. Perhaps she’s left, Cassie worries. Perhaps we can still reverse away from this, Tom prays. She’s there, on the other side of the door, Grace is certain.

  Then the lock rattles, the door opens and Leah stands in front of them.

  Something has happened. Cassie can see it immediately. Leah looks different. She’s fatter, her face fuller and her cheeks plump. All the definition is gone, replaced by a pale, smudgy softness. Even her eyes have changed – they’ve grown smaller, the dark glitter dulled. Tom needn’t have worried; this young woman looks incapable of sharpness or anger, never mind violence.

  She isn’t what they were expecting. It’s disorientating.

  ‘Hey,’ Leah says. If she’s shocked to see them, she does a good job of covering it up. She tugs at the edges of her hoodie, trying to pull it together across her chest, but it’s too small. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I got your note.’ Leah doesn’t say anything. ‘I wanted to say “thank you” for sending my ring back to me. And I thought it was maybe a sign…that you might want to see me.’

  Leah doesn’t move. She looks at Cassie, and Cassie holds her nerve and looks straight back. Tom and Grace stand, surplus to requirements, witnessing the silent conversation.

  Cassie tries again. ‘And I wanted to come to say “sorry”. For last time. For how it ended. It wasn’t right.’ Leah blinks, but she doesn’t move. Cassie holds her voice steady. ‘Are you okay?’

  Leah shrugs and finally breaks eye contact with her. She glances at Tom and Grace, a swift, utterly dismissive appraisal. The flatness of her expression is absolute. It’s as if she’s looking through them, rather than at them. It’s no less than they deserve.

  ‘This is my mum and dad. They wanted to meet you. Could we maybe come in, just for a few minutes?’ Cassie ventures. Leah doesn’t respond. Cassie perseveres, ‘We won’t stay long. Please, Leah.’

  Still Leah doesn’t move. She stands, a lumpen sentry, on the threshold to the flat. They wait.

  Leah looks at Cassie and at her shiny, polished parents standing there, a mere foot away from her life. Is she going to let them in? She doesn’t know. She still blames them, still wants to wreck something of theirs, but she doesn’t have the energy. She can see now that they come as a sealed unit, that this is what a proper family looks like; this is how it functions, where its power comes from – they stick together. Leah knows she will never be able to peel Cassie away from them. She’s not even certain she wants to any more. Together they are strong and she is weak.

  She is also painfully aware that she’s poised on a knife-edge. She knows that whichever way she falls, she’s going to get hurt; the question is: how badly? Behind her, in the jaws of the flat, lies impossible. She knows that if she closes the door on them and goes back inside, something bad is going happen, if not this day, then the next, or the next – because that’s where her life is
heading, it always has been. In front of her stands a chance of changing that, but at what cost? She knows that if she invites them in, she’ll lose. They’ll take over, of that she’s absolutely certain. They’ll crush her with their knowledge and their words and their swift, assured actions, and they’ll take away from her the only thing that matters. And for that she hates them – all of them, even Cassie.

  Or she would, if she weren’t so damn tired. Leah has no anger left and as, she’s discovered, without her anger, she is nothing. The last month is proof of that. She’s useless, inadequate, pathetic and so, so lonely. She wishes she could just stay there, at the door, with her head leaning against the frame, balanced in the void.

  But they’re waiting.

  She turns abruptly and heads back into the flat, thereby issuing an unspoken, unwilling invitation to follow her – which they do, filing in, one after another: Cassie first, backed up by Tom and Grace. They walk through the tiny hallway and step into the living room. It’s bare and yet messy at the same time, a palette of beige and brown. The thing that strikes Cassie immediately is the smell. Gone is the astringent, floral scent of disinfectant, in its place an oddly sweet, almost fetid smell hangs in the stale air. The ceiling light is on, despite the light flooding in through the window, and through the smeary glass the compact sprawl of Manchester is visible, but it isn’t the view that catches their eye.

  The room isn’t empty.

  On the floor, in front of the unlit fire, there’s a baby.

  A newborn baby, soft-skulled, thin-skinned. It’s sleeping peacefully, covered by a grubby baby blanket, which rises and falls gently in time with its breathing. Tom, Grace and Cassie stop and stare. Leah walks round the child and goes over to the far side of the room, where she stands, silhouetted against the window, her arms folded across her soft, unreliable body. ‘She’s called Lola.’ Her voice is full of compressed distress. ‘I came to tell you, but you didn’t wanna know.’