Page 55 of The Island Villa

Not boring, Adeline thought, just something she didn’t want to share.

She realized how little she knew about her sister. “You’re not tempted to stay in academia?”

“No.” Cassie was vague. “I’m waiting to see if something pans out.” Her phone rang and she snatched it up and checked the caller display.

“Oliver?”

Cassie shook her head. “Number withheld. Which probably means it’s a scam or a sales call. Someone trying to catch me off guard and persuade me to transfer all my money into their bank account.” She put her phone down. “How about you? When did you decide you wanted to be a psychologist?”

“I was ten.”

“What happened when you were ten? Was it the divorce? No, you would have been eight when that happened.” Cassie flushed. “You probably don’t want to talk about it. It’s just that I’ve always felt as if there is a big missing part of my life where you should have been. Our mother doesn’t really talk about that time much.”

Adeline didn’t talk about it either.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it now when her feelings were all over the place and she didn’t feel entirely in control.

But Cassie was looking at her with hope and expectation and memories flashed into her brain. Cassie, aged eighteen months, her chubby arms outstretched for Adeline to pick her up. Cassie snuggled on her lap while Adeline read to her. Cassie by her side wherever she went.

She swallowed. “At ten, I was sent to live with my dad.”

“Oh.” Cassie frowned. “You make it sound as if you didn’t have a choice.”

There had been no choice.

People said memories faded, but that one hadn’t. She still remembered the agonizing, wrenching sense of loss as her world had changed again. That was the point where she’d realized that emotions were so much more than just strong feelings that rushed in and retreated like sea on sand. They were so much more than love, joy, excitement and fear. Emotions had power. Emotions could change you. Deep down, from the inside out, they could reshape you as a person.

“Adeline?” Cassie’s soft prompt dragged her back to the present.

And now it was her turn to frown, because did Cassie really think she’d chosen to leave?

“Is that what she told you? That I chose to leave? It isn’t true.”

It was obvious that this was new information to Cassie. “Would you tell me all of it? From your side of things? If you’d rather not, then I understand. We’ll drop the subject and never talk about it again.”

Her sister was as warm and kind as she’d been as a toddler, and Adeline was relieved that life hadn’t changed that about her. That experiences and emotions hadn’t yet sharpened that softness.

But what would hearing her story do?

“It’s the past,” she said finally. “We should probably leave it there.”

“If you want to leave it, we’ll leave it. But if you’re worried about me, then don’t be. I’d like to know. Until last night, I had a really clear picture of my past, and it’s growing murkier by the minute. There is so much I don’t understand. All I want is the truth.”

Adeline felt a pang of sympathy because she was feeling the same way. There was so much that the pair of them didn’t understand about what was happening. The least she could do was throw clarity on the parts she was sure about.

“You’re right that I was eight when they divorced. Like most kids, it hadn’t occurred to me that my life could change with no warning. At that age, you’re very focused on self. If I’d been older, maybe I would have seen signs, but I didn’t.”

Cassie listened carefully. “It must have been a terrible shock.”

“It was. I won’t bore you with the details because they aren’t relevant, but to begin with, I carried on living here, and stayed with my father during the holidays. For almost two years, that was the arrangement. Then overnight everything changed and she sent me to live with my dad permanently.” It was easier to talk about it than she’d thought it would be. Perhaps it was because her emotional outburst of the night before had cracked something open inside her. Or maybe it was simply that her sister was surprisingly easy to talk to. “She said it was the best thing for me. What she really meant was that it was the best thing for her. She had a new husband and a new baby, and I was in the way.” It was impossible to describe how that had made her feel, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary because Cassie made a distressed sound.

“I don’t get it. She always told me you wanted to live with your father. She told me you’d chosen that. I remember after one of your visits, when you were older, she cried after you left. I mean, really cried. She sobbed in a way I’d never seen before. And when I asked her what was wrong, she told me that life could sometimes be very complicated. She said she missed you.”

Adeline digested that. “That can’t be right.”

“It is. I remember it well because it was so upsetting. I felt sorry for her, because I thought you’d chosen to leave. And I felt guilty, because I assumed I was the reason you’d chosen to leave.” Cassie gave an awkward shrug. “I thought you probably didn’t want to be near me.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.” She’d been ready to close down the conversation after delivering a few facts, but there was no way she could do that now. “You were the best part of my new life. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.”

---