‘I have to go now. Time to cook the dinner as Matthew will be home soon. He has such a tough life out on the sea every day in all weathers. You know how dangerous it can be. The least I can do is make his life at home easy.
‘Say hello to Ava from me!’
Susannah put the letter down on the table and took a breath.
‘Well that’s good isn’t?’ Ava asked her, getting up from the green chair.
‘I guess,’ Susannah said. ‘But why do I feel so flat?’
‘Because she’s tolerating us, not accepting us,’ Ava said, wrapping her arms around Susannah’s shoulders and kissing the top of her head.
‘Is there a difference?’
‘Yes, a big one,’ Ava sighed.
‘She’ll understand, one day,’ Susannah said. ‘She has to, because she’s Katie. She’s my sister.’
27
Emer
August 2011
They had fought as children. It was hard to believe it now. As adults, she and Orla had been so close. More than sisters: best friends and confidantes. But when they were little, their different personalities had clashed. Emer couldn’t even remember what they’d fought over. But she did remember terrible, vicious fights. Hair-pulling, kicking; Orla even bit her once. Another time, she knocked out Orla’s front baby teeth. Their mother had been driven demented by the two girls. Because she was the eldest, Emer felt as if Orla got away with more than her. Orla always started crying when they were getting told off, so that Emer received more of the blame. She remembered feeling so furious with Orla. Running out into the garden after her and screaming, I hate you! I wish you were dead!
How could she have said such awful things to her own sister? How could she have been so angry with her? In her heart, Emer had to admit she’d always been a bit jealous of Orla. She was the favourite. The prettier sister, better at singing, dancing, and all sports. Emer was the bookish one. Boring.
Things had calmed down a little when they were teenagers. Apart from the fact that Emer had to hide all her good make-up and lock her wardrobe. She didn’t mind the fact that Orla ‘borrowed’ her stuff, it was that she either never returned it, or returned it damaged. Emer’s favourite dress crumpled on the floor, or put in the wrong wash. Her lip glosses stuck with bits of grit, the end of her eyeliner pencil blunt. No apology, ever.
For a couple of years, Orla had gone through an emo-goth thing, only wearing black and getting her nose pierced. Their dad had gone mad, but their mam had said it looked good, and bought Orla a little silver stud for her nose.
‘I might get my nose pierced too,’ she’d announced, much to the horror of both girls.
Orla was just so cool. Everyone wanted to hang out with her at school. Boys were drawn to her. Orla had her first boyfriend way before Emer. Lost her virginity before her, too. Emer remembered Orla ringing her in Dublin, and telling her in excited whispers how she and her first boyfriend, Sean, had done it in the back of his father’s big Audi.
‘It’s not that big a deal,’ Orla had told her. ‘I don’t know why there’s so much fuss over it.’
‘You did use protection, didn’t you?’ Emer asked her. Always the older sister.
‘Of course, I’m not thick.’
Emer always associated Orla’s dark phase with the time preceding their mother’s cancer. The once sunny little girl turned taciturn, monosyllabic. Spending hours in her room with Sean, playing morose music and then painting on her own in the good room. Orla had been obsessed with graphic fiction, and horror. Even as an adult, Orla had still loved horror movies. Something Emer found very hard to understand. She hated any hint of horror. Wasn’t there enough frightening, dark stuff in real life? She didn’t want to fill her head with zombies, devils and poltergeists.
As soon as their mam got sick, Orla dropped the whole emo thing, spending more time in the good room painting. She was in her final year in school, and Emer had already left home for nursing college. When she looked back now, those months with their sick mother had become a sort of blur. Emer had come home every weekend to help, but it had been so intense and exhausting. Often, their dad would have gone off drinking in the pub with his pals, unable to cope with his wife’s sickness. Orla was with their mam on her own, trying to keep her positive. Was that when Orla’s personality had transformed? In her fight to save their mother? She dropped all the black clothes, along with Sean, and wore colour again. Sat in the bedroom with their mam for hours, reading to her. Painting the view from the window, while their mam slept, just to keep her company. No wonder her Leaving Certificate was such a disaster.
Emer had never asked her sister how she must have felt when she’d been told she had cancer too. Had she believed she could beat it? Or had the experience of watching her own mother die from the disease right from the start made her feel hopeless? Emer had been angry. Wasn’t one loss in a family enough?
They had told each other everything. All their feelings, and fears. It was this which had tortured Emer during her sister’s final weeks. For everyone else, Orla had put on a brave face, but with Emer she’d told her how very frightened she was. Emer would wake up in a cold sweat every night, just thinking about how her sister must be feeling. She’d told Orla about Lars as a distraction. To lighten the conversation.
‘I met this cute guy at the vending machine downstairs. We went to the canteen together.’
‘Oh yes? Tell me more.’ Orla had broken out in a smile.
Every day, Emer would tell Orla a little bit about her and Lars’ chat. Her sister had insisted she
