TW: Grief

We lie, wide awake, spooning in bed and listen with frustrated envy to our younger

neighbours putting their mattress to work on the other side of the wall. It's not lost on me

how ironic it is that their lovemaking intrudes on our own. The sounds are so distracting

that I feel physically exhausted just listening and suddenly the wild night we'd both

planned doesn't feel so appealing anymore.

"Im sorry" I sigh hugging Santi's arms wrapped around my soft middle, "I just...can't. Not

with that in the background."

Santi's chin nudges my tensed shoulder with understanding. He yawns unexpectedly and

we both start to giggle.

"They're like rabbits" He sniggers. And then adds: Do you think she's pregnant yet? His

question is totally innocent, of course. I know he means no harm. But it stings all the

same.

I draw in a sharp breath, willing myself to get a grip and not get emotional. But Santi feels

it, he realises his mistake. And without words, he immediately pulls me in deeper, close

enough for me to feel his steady heart against my bareback.

"One day" his promise is a whisper, a gentle breeze through my hair.

"Yes" I sigh sadly and allow my disheartened chest to rise and fall in time with his.

I guide his hands from my middle up to my own heart until his warm reassuring touch

calms it down again. We somehow, despite the racket, fall asleep and remain rooted to

each other all night. Because when I wake up the next morning, Santi and I are still

entwined - yet our double bed has remarkably shifted several inches away from the wall.

I met Santi nine years ago. I was a student graduating three years late. I had almost

stopped believing it would finally happen, the road to recovery had been far from smooth

or timely.

The psychologist had always told us it would take time.

"It's a process," she used to tell us over and over again until I got sick and tired of seeing

her rosy withered face every week and stopped going to her sessions the year I became

an adult and could choose my own path.

My sister, however, didn't follow me out of Dr Marion's office that day. I can't quite believe

that it's been over twenty years since she entered our lives. I can't quite believe it's been

over twenty years since that fateful day when everything changed forever.

I told Santi about my parents on our second date. I knew, from the moment I spotted him

bolting out of his taxi to avoid the rainstorm and arriving apologetically shielding a

beautiful bouquet of flowers like a mother hen shields her chicks that he was going to be

in my life forever.

I wanted the man I could envision spending my days with to know everything about me,

including that very detail that had chased away many in the past. If he truly wanted me,

he had to know about the baggage I was still carrying, the things I was still navigating.

When we met nine years ago, my life was just beginning again. It had been on pause since

that fateful day when my sister and I lost our parents.

I had been so nervous to tell him, afraid I would lose the first potentially good thing in

years. But Santi had istened. And when I had shared everything, he quietly took my hand

and told me how fortunate he felt and would love to meet the other piece of my

complicating puzzle, my sister.

I will never forget how my sister had sat at the furthest table at our wedding, alone with

the other bridesmaids' handbags and high heels, watching us all dance and cheer. I had

made sure to catch her eye as Santi spun me around during our first dance waltz, just so

she knew I was still with her, that I was always thinking of her. But she just stared back at

me, her eyes were glazed and troubled. Dr Marion had insisted she attend my wedding.

"Good for the process," she had advised. But how much longer did this "process" go

on? Should a woman still be as broken after all these years?...

Santi and I had made some crucial wedding decisions. We completely avoided having our

to be continued.

celebration in the month of July. And the 15th date of any month. For obvious reasons.

Santi understood that it was off-limits. It was that one detail that I still navigating, that I

was determined to overcome completely, one day.

One day, July 15th would not control me.

We also decided to exclude the traditional Mother/Son and Father/Daughter dances. I

had dutifully asked my sister beforehand to give me away but that request had triggered

her and she had had one of the worst meltdowns I can recall in living memory. And so, as

not to further upset her fragile nature, I was forced to walk the aisle alone and watch my

new husband forgo an intimate dance with his mother with the yolk of guilt heavy on my

shoulders.

"You're my wife" Santi had assured me during our first dance, "We are one. From now on,

whatever you do, I1l do too."

"Babe -Td motioned over to where my sister was slumped in her seat, her fingers

destroying her delicate up-do "I don't know what to do. I'm worried about her:"

Santi pressed his face into my turned cheek.

"You've got me now. You're not in this alone anymore. We can do this together. You'll be

okay, shell be okay. Okay?"

I had nodded trying not to cry on the dancefloor with all the watching eyes.

"I love you so much" Id exploded in sharp gasps. "Gosh, Santiago Rey, my parents

would've absolutely loved you too"

When I resurfaced from our kiss, I heard a door bang somewhere over the muted cooing

and soft violins and noticed my sister was gone.

+

The smell of bacon catches the attention of our neighbours' dog. Santi and I grimace at

each other through our matching sunglasses as we sit at the patio table. We are having an

alfresco lunch, to make up for the night's failed romance.

"Can't we do anything without the intrusion of others?" Santi tuts, his ankle bobbing up

and down over his knee. The sun is white in the sky, the hot weather is unexpected on

this spring Bank holiday weekend. "Maybe we just need to escape and take a long

excursion?"

My ears prick.

"Really?" I lower my own glasses.

Santi tilts his head.

"Why not? Where do you wanna go?"

I grin back, imagining. We haven't been away together ina long time.

We'd spent the last few years saving up to buy a family home; a pretty three-bed away

from the city to start a new chapter in our lives. Our first place was a maisonette with no

rooom to swing a cat let alone raise a child. Santi was convinced that the commuting and

grind of our jobs were contributing to my heighterned stress levels and subsequent

hormonal imbalances.

There's nothing medically wrong" a private GP had informed me "youre healthy and very

fertile, even at thirty-three. Just keep taking your vitamins, manage your workload,

handle your relationships and look after your body:

It all sounded so simple and yet we had been trying for five years with no success.

And so once again, I started believing it wouldn't happen. Just like how I believed I would

never finish university. Or eventually, break free of my tragic childhood.

*

I rest my overthinking head against the deckchair as a wave of anxiety floods my mind.

But Santi is right next to me instantly, his calm poising to fight alongside me.

"This could be good for us. A chance to really get away and enjoy ourselves.."

"Hmm. That really does sound like bliss"

So I allow Santi to grab his laptop. We cuddle and amuse ourselves gasping over last-

minute deals of lengthy trips to luxury retreats and backpacking tours.

to be continued

Until the memory of my other covenant relationship leashes me back down from my high.

"But, what about her?" I ask, helpless to the diehard habit of worrying about my sister.

Our move from London had been no less than emotionally exhausting. My sister had cried

for days, mourning as if I was joining our parents in the grave. She hadn't let me go

without drama - she'd even gone on a hunger strike and called my phone non-stop until I

was forced to contact the unshakeable Dr Marion to intervene. I couldn't even stomach

visiting her in her home after the wahala. Moving away felt like fresh air but it hadn't fixed

the duty I still felt complied to give.

We would always be sisters, united by a shared loss. I couldn't remove that attachment

even if I wanted or tried. She wouldn't let me forget, she wouldn't let me forget her. Since

our parents' passing, my sister and I lived like celestial bodies in a predestined orbit. I had

even turned down my dream of studying at Edinburgh just to be near her. Just to make

sure she remembered how to survive. She had always needed someone - usually me or Dr

Marion - to remind her to keep fighting, to keep wanting to live, even when she couldn't

find reasons to anymore.

It had been her idea to remember our parents' passing. She was the youngest, our

mother's twin and the apple of their eyes. Their death had understandably hit her

hardest, she had been only nine years old.

One year on the anniversary of our parents' death, we stood by their grave together and

she turned to me in a heavy black pea coat despite the summer heat. She had started to

laugh and I had looked across at her with such shock I almost lost my footing on the

uneven grass. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard her laugh.

"Have you seen that film?

"What film?"

She rotated the peony flower stem between her fingers - my mum's favourite flower.

"It's about today;" she said.

I noticed our foster father in my peripheral vision watching us beadily from his Corsa. My

sister instructed him not to get out of the car. Everybody was terrified of her, her grief

was like a battle-axe when provoked.

When I didn't reply, she took a big breath as though mustering up the courage to speak

the forbidden words.

"July 15th" she breathed shakily, "Today. It's about today. It's about two friends and their

lives every July 15h after they meet.!"

Irecalled seeing a movie poster the previous year. One Day.

"Odd" I managed. Because it was eerily odd that this fictional story held such truthful

significance for us

"We should do that," my sister insisted "We should do something together, like the friends

in the film, to remember Mum and Dad. Every year, every July 15th

My insides twisted.

"Listen, Nina..." I started, readying to remind her to live in the present.

But my sister sapped.

"No, Stephanie, no". And suddenly there it was. The tears. Her face started to contort, to

crumble. I had this perception that I had power over her. Just the sound of my voice

reduced her to tears. I watched her sob until I felt faint and sick at the sight of her

shaking and gasping for air.

"Stop" I pleaded. I couldn't bear another meltdown. I was exhausted.

Ha, who was I kidding? Because my sister had a much stronger power over me. The same

power a baby has when they cry for their caregiver, knowing they'll get whatever they

want if they just screwed up their face and cry. She could do that to me. She was my

younger sister. I had a duty of care to her. And there was nothing I could do to change

that.

Our foster father came running over, looking like Santa on vacation in cargo shorts and

hiker boots. But his approach only agitated us.

to be continued.