I flick my eyes toward Willa. What the fuck is she doing with this prick? Unless—fuck—does she believe this shit too? Who is she anyway? It’s twenty-two years since I last saw her—is this what she’s become? How could she even be with someone like that, unless—the breath catches in my throat. I look at her again, at that expensive green dress, the enormous diamonds stuck through her lobes. What kind of woman is she? Someone so wrapped up in her own comfortable life that she’s no longer capable of looking beyond the end of her own nose? I look down the table, feeling an unstoppable fury rising inside me, Laika working her way up through my flesh like a chip of old bone, “And Willa, this is what you think?” My sister jumps to her feet, looking for all the world as if I’ve just put a knife to her throat, and that’s when I notice it—the tiny silver dolphin on a thin silver chain around her throat, glinting like a torch in a wood. Shock charges through my body. What is she doing with that?
I whip back to Jamie. “You should be ashamed.”
Jamie pushes his jaw toward me. Keeping his eyes on mine, he leans back in his chair with a sneer on his face. “What in God’s name happened to your accent? You sound exactly like a Brit.”
And there it is. You asshole. Of all the possible buttons he could have pushed at that moment, he somehow picked exactly the right one. I feel revealed, viciously exposed. I stand up and slam my hands on the tabletop. “Leaving home is terrifying. There’s only one reason why anyone would do it and one reason alone. And that one, single reason is that place is hell on earth.”
Nate gives me a look that says You okay? No. I’m not. I can’t be around this pig. I’m leaving. Right now. I snatch up my bag and storm toward the door but, without warning, Willa steps into my path, a movement so fast and so unexpected that I end up banging into her. She staggers. I grab her, feeling a flash of pure rage. She got everything. Mum, her own real life, my necklace—hell, she’s even laid claim to my fucking memories.
I pull her upright. My mouth by her ear.
A heartbeat to decide.
Say nothing—or break this whole thing apart.
***
“It wasn’t you who pissed yourself. That was me.”
24 Paper Chains Robyn
It’s the morning after our supper party, a night that came to a particularly abrupt end: Nate following Claudette out the door and Michael calling for taxis for the others, while Willa stood encased in the fortress of Jamie’s arms, silent and unreachable, as bright tears coursed down her pale face.
I’m still trying to process the whole thing when, shortly after ten, I hear Cat answering the front door.
“Claudette,” she says, “it’s just us today. Come and meet the kids.”
I stick my head out of the kitchen, my hands covered in flour, where our children are already tackling Nate like the Eiger.
“You’ve got to check out our mad tree before we head out,” Cat says, hauling Nate plus entourage toward the lounge. “The kids decorated it. Sophie’s making a paper chain long enough to go round the entire house.”
“It’s a lot quieter in the kitchen,” I tell Claudette, and she follows me in, dumping an orange backpack on a chair while I turn down the radio a notch.
No mention is made of the spat with Jamie. By all accounts she is back to the zen-like woman we met at the beginning of last night, a picture of serenity and calm. I tell her about the plans for the rest of the day: how she, Cat and Nate will take the kids to see the Christmas lights while I prep the food for tonight.
“I can stay and help if you like,” she says. “I like to cook.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t you prefer to see a bit of London?”
“Non. I can stay. We can talk.”
Perhaps she’s tired, I think, after the madness of last night. Anyway, she seems pretty sure about it, so I put her to work with a chopping board and a big pile of veg.
“So how did you break your arm?” I ask, after Cat and Nate and the kids have found all their kit and eventually headed out. “I did mine falling off a ladder in my parents’ kitchen. I was seventeen.”
“I was six. Actually it happened the same day as my story about the cake. The exact same minute. Those things happened together.”
“Ouch, how did that happen?”
She glances toward the door, almost as if she’s checking that we’re definitely alone, then gives me a long look, like she’s deciding whether to say something or not. Finally, she gives a little Gallic shrug, an almost what-the-hell, and, with her face completely composed, says, “My father was fucking his secretary in the pantry.”
I stop kneading the dough. “Wow.”
“I was already in there, hiding under a shelf. And because of the noise they were making and because I was little and didn’t understand anything, I thought he was hurting her. So I crawled out from my hiding place and said, I’m telling Maman.” She pauses, no doubt taking in the horror on my face, then continues, “And I tried to run out of the pantry, but my father grabbed hold of my wrist and yanked me back so hard my arm snapped. We literally heard it break, me, my father, his secretary, all three of us. Then we all just stood there for a moment, I remember that very well, because I was exactly head height to his dick and his trousers were still around his ankles. So I screamed and then the secretary screamed and ran out of the pantry. And my father let go of my arm and I crashed backward, straight into my mother’s birthday cake and the whole thing smashed.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, well. My father was a brute. He filled our home with fear. My mother was afraid. My sister was afraid.”
“Wow.”
“Me, I was not afraid,” she says, each of her words shimmering with an intense energy. “I was angry.” She holds my eyes, then shrugs, and the heat that surrounds her seems to ebb away. “I don’t see them anymore.”
“I’m not surprised.” Thoughts orbit my mind like the hazy photographs of some distant galaxy, shadowy and unfocused.
“By the way, I want to say I’m sorry about last night. About the argument. I should have done better than that. I’m usually better at dealing with dickheads.”
“Forget it. That was quite a performance from Jamie. We should probably be apologizing to you.”
She shakes her head. “Some people are very ignorant.” She pauses, then says, “And his girlfriend, Weela, does she think like that?”
“God, no, Willa’s lovely. She can be a bit fragile at times.” I put down my rolling pin and face her. “Something truly awful happened to her, years ago. Her sister disappeared. I mean she vanished, into thin air, without a trace. She never got over it. Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”
She doesn’t respond the way most people do when they hear that story. Most people express sympathy or concern. I’ve seen it a hundred times. They’re curious too, keen to hear more: details about the case, exactly what happened and when. Specifically they want to know about the missing girl. But Claudette just looks at me blankly and her next question feels like an odd one, because it’s not about Laika at all.
“And you met Willa when, just after that? How was she then? What was she like?”
I pause, playing for time as I try to bring a thought into focus. “Why?”
