Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,25

a while before she could talk.

‘I was ill for another two years. Until I was eight. Is that how long she was giving it to me?’ She was suddenly flooded with memories and didn’t see Abby glance away awkwardly.

‘God, the sickness,’ continued Ellie. ‘That’s what I hated the most. The nausea. I would dread it. And the missing out. I always felt like I’d just be watching everyone else have fun, feeling like the outsider.’ Her voice cracked. ‘The only thing that made it remotely bearable was having Mum. The way she looked after me. I felt like she loved me so much.’

‘She did. You know that you were her favourite.’

Ellie scoffed. ‘Funny way of showing it.’

‘She doted on you. Trust me, I remember. It was always about you.’ Abby paused. ‘I know it’s hard to understand but I think she needed you. Couldn’t stand it when you started school and left her alone.’

‘All kids leave their mothers when they start school!’

‘I know but . . . Dad had also left her. And her parents. I asked Grandma once why Mum never came on the visits with us. She said Mum had betrayed them and it wasn’t something she could forgive. Did they ever speak to her again after she ran off with Dad?’

Ellie shrugged but she didn’t think so. She wanted to know for certain, wanted to ask questions that would take away some of the shock. She wanted to ask her mother. Ellie was suddenly overwhelmed with a crushing sense of abandonment as she realized she’d never know the whole truth.

My mum hurt me. The thought kept on going round and round in her mind. And yet the loss was almost unbearable; Ellie couldn’t reconcile the two different people in her head: the one who’d deliberately made her ill with the one who’d been so supportive, who’d encouraged her when she was low – right on into adulthood, even as Abby was racing ahead in life. Her mother – that beautiful, wonderful woman who’d been by her side her whole life – was dead, and it was her fault.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Abby.

‘What for?’

‘If I’d said something, told a teacher or something . . .’

Ellie stiffened. As much as she wanted to lay some of the blame at Abby’s feet, she couldn’t really. She had to remember that Abby had been a child too.

‘You were only nine. You couldn’t have understood.’

‘I was then,’ said Abby quietly.

Ellie looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw her again.’

A deep, sickening feeling was nestling in Ellie’s stomach. ‘When?’

‘Two years later. When I’d just started secondary school. When you were eight.’

Ellie’s mouth dropped open. ‘You what?’

‘I’m so sorry. I said to Mum it didn’t seem right. I told her I didn’t like it. She thought I was going to tell someone.’

‘And did you?’

‘No. I had no idea of the enormity, the severity of what she was doing. I was a kid. And anyway, she told me it would stop.’

‘What? And you believed her?’

‘Well, yes. I mean, she did. Stop.’

‘But how did you know she would? What if she’d carried on? Maybe she kept on poisoning me and you didn’t even know?’

‘I’m sure she didn’t. You got better, you stopped going to the doctor’s—’

‘But that’s not the point! I was already damaged. I needed help.’ Ellie was shouting now, crying with despair. ‘I thought I was stupid. That I’d never catch up. I thought I’d get ill again. I always thought that. Don’t you see? I could’ve been different! If you’d said something!’ She rained her fists down on Abby’s shoulder.

‘Stop it!’ said Abby, trying to simultaneously push Ellie’s hands away and hold on to the steering wheel. ‘I’m sorry!’

Ellie heard the apology but instead of soothing her, it inflamed her further. There was something so inadequate about those words, something that was so disproportionate to the years of misery that she’d suffered. She continued to rain blows down on Abby. ‘You just carried on, looking out for yourself. But what about me? I could’ve been differen—’

The noise was like an explosion, the deafening bang of flattened steel. Ellie lunged forward, the seat belt slicing across her shoulder, and her face hit the white pillow with a force that winded her, and then everything was quiet.

She lay there for a moment, gulping for breath, panicking that she couldn’t take in any oxygen; then, as the airbag deflated, her lungs seemed to regain control.

‘Shit!’ said Abby, unbuckling and wrestling with her door.

Ellie looked up