Page 73 of Isle of Pain

TO HEAL FROM THE PAST

My throat clogs as I watch Nico’s back shift on his way out. I know I’ll see him tomorrow. After the initial phase, I can now have visitors every day, and I’m hopeful that I can go back home within the next two weeks. But I miss Nico and Ember viscerally. They’re both embedded in my soul and I realised, while stuck here, that I can’t live without them. I don’t ever want to be separated from them for so long.

I pick at the skin around my cuticles while I wait for Lana to appear. If she’s here, she knows about me, about my struggles and that brings a new wave of shame to take host inside my chest. I’m working hard with Dr Linberg on that part of my mental illness, but recognising I was ill in the first place already took so much, I can only take baby steps towards the rest of the recovery process.

“Marie?” she asks, uncertain.

When I lift my eyes to take her in, the image I had of my sister shatters. Instead of a goddess with her head held high, dark locks of brown hair curling around her beautiful face, is an ordinary woman with gaunt cheeks and grey under her greeneyes, betraying a lack of sleep and deep sorrow. Even her pristine signature white suit has been replaced with jeans and a black cashmere turtle neck that makes her look ordinary.

I run to her and she opens her arms, welcoming me. I don’t let go despite theumphon impact, and clutch her to my chest. Her hand clasps the back of my head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my hair over and over. “I’m so, so sorry, Marie. I should have seen. I should have been there for you.”

I want to shake my head, tell her that’s okay, but I can’t anymore. Because I did hope that she would see, I did hope that she would save me like she saved everyone around her. That’s part of the problem. I hoped for someone to see me, even as I hid, including my older sister, and I perceived her failures as failure towards me, as proof that I was unloveable and invisible.

She smells faintly of the sea breeze on the maritime pines in Kalliste, and I don’t let go for minutes. We stay standing, caught into each other’s embrace, my cheeks leaving tear stains on her dark sweater. When she pulls away, her eyes are red and puffy, her own cheeks wet with pain.

Hand linked together, I take her towards another corner of the room, a little nook hidden from view where I feel we’ll have more privacy. Overlooking the garden, it’s my favourite spot in the facility. I don’t know what that says about us that I want to share it with her.

“Thank you for coming, Lana.” She opens her mouth to speak but I cut her off. “Before you say anything and keep beating yourself up, I need to speak. And I need you to hear what I have to say. Will you do that for me?”

She nods and it gives me courage. I hold her eyes captive as I continue. “Iam sorry. I’m sorry I held you and everyone in our family responsible for my own toxic coping mechanism.”

Her hand tenses where we’re linked. “It’s not your fault. You were just a child,” she says.

“I was. And I still hated you for not fighting your first marriage. I think I thought that after a few months, you’d be back with us. Angele was already married and mostly gone. You were gone and I knew you were suffering, but I felt abandoned. Lisa was always up to some shit, chasing boys and not caring if they lived or died. And I just… existed in between. Mum and Dad were having all these meetings and they kept me away, inventing more and more excuses. I only wanted to be part of the family, you know?”

“We just wanted to protect you.” Her voice wobbles as she speaks and it’s the first time I see my sister for what she is. A woman with her flaws. An equal. I always had in mind that she was a God. With her shoulders hunched over and regret written all across her face, she looks so fragile.

“I didn’t need protection, Lana. I needed acceptance. My mind took the protection you thought was best for me for rejection and that turned quickly into self-loathing.”

A deep sigh escapes my lips. “In hindsight, it’s easy to see how mistaken I was,” I add.

“No. If I had been more present for you, especially after I returned to Kalliste, you wouldn’t be here.”

“You know what the French say?‘Avec des si, on mettrait Paris en bouteille’. With ifs, we could put Paris in a bottle.” She regards me like I’ve lost my mind and I scoff. “There’s a French girl here and she taught me this saying, it sounds fancy. All of that to say that we don’t know. Besides, I started drinking when you left for Mallorca. When you came back, the habit was… a bigger issue than I realised. There’s only so many diners and parties and occasions when I could drink, it was easily accessible, and I hid it well.”

Silence descends upon us and we both watch snowflakes fall in the garden. It’s so peaceful here. Not necessarily here at The Nightingale, but here in this quiet part of the West Hill suburbs.I’m only an hour away from Nico’s house and I know somewhere close must bloom hundreds of Scottish bluebells come early spring. I’m longing to see the change of the seasons here.

As much as I love Kalliste and its beautiful landscape made of sea cliffs and snowy mountains, the island is small and chaotic at times. The green leaves of trees aren’t as deep green as they are here with the humid air pretty much year round. We have months of drought that turns the coast into a desert-looking scenery. And strangely enough, I don’t miss the shimmer of the sea. What I do miss are amber eyes looking at me like I can do no wrong. Though they did hold a lot more pain when he was here earlier and the thought sobers me.

“Are you thinking about him?” Lana’s silky voice permeates through my thoughts, and I nod.

“I didn’t think it was possible to love someone as much as I love Lisa, you know,” I tell her. “Sometimes, I fear that I’ll wake up one day and he’ll be gone just like she is, but that makes me hold onto him even harder.”

It’s the first time I’ve mentioned my sister’s name to someone other than my therapist and speaking it aloud almost makes her appear in front of me. It revives the memories I have of her that I tried to hide in the deepest corners of my heart while I was here. I thought if I did, it would preserve them but it had the opposite effect.

“Do you remember the summer we turned fifteen? Lisa and I stole Dad’s boat and went out to the hidden caves in the North?” Mirth pulls at my lips, the memory so vivid I remember how windy it was that day and can almost feel it in my hair. Lisa’s manic laughs ring in my ears.

“How could I forget? You were grounded for a year!”

“More like two months. Dad could never say no to Lisa’s pleading.”

“She was a master manipulator,” Lana says fondly and I have to agree. She got everything she ever wanted with a smile and a smart mouth. My chest constricts thinking of all that she wanted to accomplish, who she wanted to be. She won’t ever be able to live her dreams, but I get to instead.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Lana says, taking me off the cliff of self-loathing without knowing. Or maybe she knows, but it warms me from the inside out anyway.

“I often wonder how I got here. Years wasted hating myself, blaming you and everyone else,” I muse. I’m working through all these thoughts with Dr Linberg but I'm often on repeat on the topic. It’s hard to get out of vicious circles of thoughts despite the therapy and the supportive group of people inside the rehab centre and outside.

Lana turns to me fully and grabs my other hand, urgency spreading from her body towards mine. “I know you said it’s not my fault but I am truly sorry, Marie. I wish you will let me be in your life and show you how much I love you, and how much you are wanted in the family.”

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