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“I’m glad.”
“Daddy, there’s something I want to tell you. I’ve never told anyone else. Not since it happened.”
“You can tell me anything, pumpkin.” He rolled over onto his side and looked into beautiful eyes. They were rimmed with tears, and he felt his heart jerk as he felt her pain.
“This is a bad thing.”
“I won’t judge.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this. It still hurts me when I think about it…” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
Rainer stroked her hair tenderly. “You can do anything, pumpkin.”
Was this the best idea in the world, or the worst? It had to be the best. Being honest with people was always for the best, right? That’s what her Daddy said. It was just so painful to go to that place again. She’d spent years trying to forget what had happened to her, and now, she was about to share it with someone who didn’t just think she was a freak, or a floaty, flighty, mess.
She hoped it was a good thing to do. Prayed it.
“I used to have a sister. Called Rowan.”
Perfect, sweet Rowan. Her clever, funny, wonderful sister. Golden-haired Rowan. Kind Rowan.
“I didn’t know.”
“She was two years younger than me, and basically my opposite. My parents always used to say I was a nightmare as a baby, that I would kick and scream and barely sleep. Then Rowan came along. She was quiet and kind and slept through the night from basically day one. They loved her. It’s not like they were ever mean to me exactly, and I knew that they loved me too, but theyreallyloved Rowan.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
Esme was taken aback by this statement. It was such an obvious thing to say. The kind of thing she would say to someone else if they’d said this to her about a sibling. And yet, no one had ever said it to Esme before. And she’d never thought of it. We rarely consider our childhood when we are children, and Esme hadn’t thought that her childhood with Rowan was anything but normal up until this point.
“I guess it was hard for me. I think maybe I was jealous, and then I felt guilty for feeling jealous. Geez, that sounds deep, but I barely thought about it at the time.”
“That’s normal, I think.”
“When we got older, and started going to high school, I used to walk Rowan there. Obviously, we’d walk the same route every day. I remember it clearly. We passed a Jewish bakery that always — always — smelled of chocolate. And there was the laundromat and the pawn shop, plus all our friends’ apartment blocks. We lived about twenty minutes from the school, and I was proud that my parents thought I was responsible enough to get my sister there safely. I felt like her guardian.” That last word caught in Esme’s throat.
Rainer was quiet. Maybe he could already tell where this story was headed.
“There was this intersection my mom always told us to look out for, but I was young and I didn’t think there was any chance of an accident.” Esme swallowed. “You know what distracted me?”
Rainer gave her a tender, supportive look. “What was it, darling?”
“A boy,” she said, sniffing. “From my school. Someone I liked. You know, I never even heard the car hit Rowan.” Her voice was wavering, breaking. “First thing I noticed was the crowd. All looking at me like I’d done something terrible. I couldn’t work it out, didn’t understand, because I was still facing the wrong way. Then I turned.” Her voice sounded hollow. “They told me afterward she’d just stepped into the road without looking. The guy who hit her was drunk.”
“Oh, babygirl.” Rainer put his hand on her knee.
“People were crying, trying to help her. Even the drunk guy, the guy who’d hit her, was out of his car, trying to put right what he’d done. But I was just standing there, not able to move. I was too scared even to look. Everyone was watching me. Everyone knew I was to blame.”
“Darling, you weren’t to blame.”
“That’s not what my parents thought.” Esme became strangely calm, as though the clarity of the situation had just kicked in. “After the funeral, everything fell apart. My parentstoldme that they still loved me. Theypretendedto comfort me. But every time they thought I was out of earshot, they screamed at each other. About me. About me sister. About the fact they didn’t love each other anymore.”
“You poor, poor girl.”
Esme was sobbing, each word painful for her. “They broke up. They couldn’t stay together. How are you meant to stay together when the daughter you hate killed the daughter you love?”
“You know it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was just fate,” Esme sobbed, telling herself the only thing that had kept her sane since the accident. “It was all just fate.”
