“You know what Chef Luc always says, la meilleure recette, c’est quand tu mets du beurre deux fois! The best recipe is when you add butter twice.”
We both laugh together. These lighthearted moments are coming in more and more the longer we stay in Whispers.
His grin falters slightly a moment later. “I miss Chef Luc.”
I sigh but nod. “Yeah, me too.”
Chef Luc was our family’s personal chef, a man who was the head chef in our household since we were kids. He was the one person who was always there when we got home from school when we were younger, the person who made us our favorite meals when Mom died. And he’s the one person who looked out for James when I was asked to leave. He heard and saw more than most in that house.
“Remember when he made you eat snails!” James is back to laughing. This is what we do most nights. Sit around and reminisce about our former life. We had a good time before Mom died.
“Yeah. That feels like so long ago now…” I finish my pie in silence, both lost in our own thoughts of what was and what will be.
“I’m going to go work on my school project,” James says, clearing his plate.
“Need a hand?” I offer as I clean the table, liking the crackle of the fire that embraces the cottage in warmth that’s much needed tonight.
“Nah. I’m just going to do some reading.” He saunters off to his room, and I lean against the kitchen cupboard, watching him go. It’s a Friday night. Before my life took a turn, Friday nights were usually spent hanging out with friends, attending dinners, maybe going to the movies. Now, it’s about survival.
With the cottage tidy, I head to my room, sit on the floor, and lift the loose floorboard, looking at the duffel bag I have hidden underneath before I lean in and pull it out.
I check this every week. Unzipping it, I look through the stash of clothes for James and me. The small stash of cash I have ready for emergencies, our passports, and identifying documents that I won’t use but need to have.
This is our go-bag. The one thing I’ll grab if we need to leave in a hurry. Whispers has been good to us, but I’m under no illusion that somewhere, somehow, we’ll be found. It isn’t a matter of if, but when.
I grab the photo I have in the bag. It’s one taken the afternoon before Mom died. All four of us, Mom, Dad, my brother, and I. We looked so happy. Dad is making a funny face, Mom is laughing, James in a fit of giggles, and I’m looking at all of them with a big smile on my face.
We were happy once.
My brother and I grew up with heavy expectations from our father. He loved us, but he had a plan for our future. When Mom died, he changed. He wasn’t around as much. He wasn’t himself. But it wasn’t until I said no to working in the business that we really started to clash. When I first told him I wasn’t interested in working in the oil business, he laughed. When he encouraged me to do a summer internship during my last year of college, I turned him down. He ignored my pleas until I didn’t turn up, leaving him embarrassed in front of his staff.
He was angry and threatened to take away my trust fund, not expecting me to shrug and say okay. Sure, I grew up with money. But I was a quick learner; my college degree was almost done, and I was optimistic for the future, one that I would forge myself. I get my tenacity from my mom.
While Dad instilled obedience, my mom gave us the love of freedom. Freedom to choose what we want to do with our lives, which is why I want to use my environmental engineering degree for good, for sustainability and environmentalism instead of assessing new oil spots and which land holdings to buy to decimate.
So, unable to change my mind, Dad followed through. He froze my funds and then ensured no one in Manhattan would hire me. So while I finished college on a high, made the dean’s list and had the world at my feet, soon after, I had no money, no job prospects, and then Maribel really sunk her teeth in.
“You checking the bag?” James’ voice is quiet as he stands near the doorway. I gasp in surprise, so locked in my own memories I didn’t hear him.
“Yeah.” I shove the photo back in the bag and zip it all up, pushing the bag back into the floor cavity and placing the floorboard on top, securing my hiding spot.
“Do you think Maribel would really do it?” He steps into my room, and we both take a seat on the edge of my bed.
I release a heavy breath. “At first, no. But now… yeah. I think she would.”
“She really hates us, huh?” He’s a little melancholy, so I reach over and pull him close. He needs to know he’s loved. We lost Mom, we lost Dad, and Maribel almost made us lose each other.
“Yeah. She’s just… selfish.”
Maribel hated us the minute she moved in. While Dad worked long hours, she managed the house, managed my brother. And he suffered. I tried talking to Dad, but he wouldn’t hear it, blinded by his new beautiful wife, thinking that I was just a troublesome child, one who wouldn’t work in his business and now wouldn’t approve of his new wife.
Tensions ran high, until Maribel suggested to him that I learn some hard truths by kicking me out of the house. So that’s what he did. Leaving James all alone. Losing his mother and then his sister, having no one to look out for him and no one who cared.
“We could go to the police?”
I shake my head. We have this same conversation almost weekly.
“You know we can’t.”
