Big Sister By Isabel Ashdown

FICTION Having her beloved Jess back in her life is at once intensely familiar and totally strange…

Emily hadn’t expected to see her sister at the funeral. After all these years, Jess had faded until she had begun to take on the sepia tones of a distant memory or of a film seen long ago, the images patchy and incomplete.

It wasn’t that Emily never thought of her; she was aware of her in the world, but just not in hers.

And so it took her by complete surprise, the lurch of yearning affection she felt when she spotted the unmistakable outline of Jess sitting alone at the far end of the empty front pew. From the doorway, she appeared unchanged, the sharp downward light from the stained glass windows outlining her narrow shape.

Emily would have known that shape anywhere: the sun-streaked hair that bordered on messy, the modest tilt of her head, the delicate frame of her shoulders still evident beneath a heavy, mannish coat.

How must it have been for her, returning to their gentle home town after all those years away? Emily found it strange enough on her yearly visits back to the mainland, but to have been absent for the best part of two decades? It must have felt like walking among ghosts.

Stranger still, Emily thinks now, standing in the kitchen of her Isle of Wight home, pouring Prosecco for three, that Jess should be here just weeks later, her jacket hanging from their coat rack, her walking boots kicked off beside the front door, her rucksack dropped untidily at the foot of the large spare room bed. Strange, and joyful, and unsettling all at once.

James is doing everything he can to ease the awkward excitement that has descended upon the house since her younger sister’s arrival, sweeping up baby Daisy to free Emily to fuss about.

They’d been expecting her – it was all arranged soon after Mum’s funeral – but still there is a sense of having been caught on the hop. Chloe seems quite taken with her “new” aunt and has even managed to put down her phone for a few minutes to flit about, filling a bowl with nibbles as Emily and James carry the drinks into the expansive living room.

“Ooh, fizz!” Jess says, leaping from her seat to take a glass, tugging at her spotty neck scarf and apologising again for her scruffy appearance. “I feel like the guest of honour – I wish I’d dressed for the occasion!”

She is nervous, it’s clear to Emily, but there’s a bright optimism in her that almost spills over. Where has she been all these years? What was Jess doing while Emily was graduating and starting a career; when she was falling in love and becoming a mother?

Where was Jess on Emily’s home visits to Mum, when she bit down on her irritations, rolling eyes at her mother’s unshakable faith? Part of her feels anger at Jess’s absence. The other part of her feels guilt.

“To family,” Emily toasts, pushing a lock of sleek hair behind her ear, “and new beginnings!”

Their glasses join in a pleasing clink of crystal, picking up the light that streams in through the tall windows overlooking Emily’s well-tended lawn. She’s proud of her home and family; proud that Jess can see everything that she’s achieved.

How come we’ve never met Jess before?” Chloe asks, drinking her Coke straight from the can, feigning nonchalance as only a fifteen-year-old knows how. “You don’t look all that much like each other, do you? You’ve got the same kind of smile, I guess.”

She flops onto the sofa, reaching up to take Daisy from her father, blowing kisses onto the soft dome of her little sister’s head. Just as Emily thinks she’s got away without answering her stepdaughter, Chloe looks up and meets her gaze, silently pressing for a response.

Emily locks eyes with Chloe for the briefest moment, before taking a sip

from her drink and breezily wafting a hand through the air.

“I told you I had a sister, Chlo – you probably forgot the moment I said it!”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Jess says now, taking a seat on the sofa beside Chloe. She smiles at Emily; she’s helping her out. “No real reason. We just drifted apart – got lazy, I suppose! I always was a bit rubbish at keeping in touch with people, wasn’t I, Ems?”

Handing her glass to Chloe, she shifts Daisy onto her own lap.

Emily notices how effortlessly Jess slots in with her newfound family, already the favourite aunt, the helpful sister-in-law, the interesting new stranger who’s come to stay.

Chloe takes a sly slug from her aunt’s drink as Jess studies the baby in awe. “She’s adorable, isn’t she?” “Look at this,” Chloe replies, taking the baby’s wrist and pointing out the deep dimples on each chubby knuckle. “Did you ever see anything so cute?”

With this Chloe emits a low growl, pretending to nibble the baby’s fingers and sending her into fits of giggles.

Jess laughs too, pulling Daisy closer and raining soft kisses on her cheeks as though she’s known her forever.

Perhapsthat’sthewayitiswith family, thinks Emily. Perhaps it’s the way she would feel if the shoe was on the other foot? Would she feel the same affection if Jess had a child? A niece or nephew. OfcourseIwould, she tells herself. OfcourseIwould.

“She likes you,” James says, throwing Chloe a mock look of disapproval and confiscating the glass. He tops it up and places it on the coffee table out of his daughter’s reach. “We’re really glad you’re here, Jess.”

That evening in bed, as she lies beside her husband, Emily thinks of her little sister Jess just along the hall, sleeping under the same roof for the first time in years.

It seems inconceivable that life should have changed so swiftly. Since meeting at Mum’s funeral, they’ve gone from zero contact to living together in one fell swoop.

“It’s just us now,” Jess had said when they’d first spoken, and it had struck a chord. It really was just the two of them now; the last of the Tylers.

Emily had been wrapped up in the

How EFFORTLESSLY Jess slots in, already the FAVOURITE AUNT

gladness of their reunion, and when Jess suggested she move to the island and help out with Daisy while Emily went back to work, it seemed the perfect solution.

But now the time is here, much as Emily is delighted to have her sister back in her world, she is anxious. There are many gaps in her memories of childhood but what she does recall is a deep friendship – a trust like no other she’s experienced since – and she’s terrified that she’ll find it missing.

What if they can’t go back to the way things were? What if she’s just yearning for ten-year-old Jess, the devoted little sister who always let her have her way?

Emily drifts into fitful sleep, disturbed by confused dreams of bicycle races and guinea pig parties and Mum waiting to serve roast dinner after Sunday mass.

The next morning she wakes to the smell of bacon cooking, and finds Jess in the kitchen downstairs, surrounded by the rest of the family. To Emily’s surprise, it’s Jess who is cooking while James and Chloe perch on the bar stools at the kitchen counter, sipping coffee and hot chocolate as Daisy chomps on a teething biscuit.

“You’re up!” Jess says when her sister joins them, and greets her with a hug. It takes everything Emily has not to stiffen, not to feel put out. “I’m doing breakfast – a small thank you for that amazing meal you made last night.” She steps back and takes Emily’s hand. “And then, you and me are going for a walk – the two of us!”

James simply smiles. Jess has obviously cleared it with him, made sure someone’s around to look after Daisy.

“I thought we could go to Shanklin Chine – remember the beach Mum and Dad took us all those years ago?” Jess indicates for Emily to sit and proceeds to make her a coffee just the way she likes it.

Still on edge after her disturbed night, Emily decides to go along with Jess’s plans. It wouldn’t do her any harm to let someone else take over, let someone else cook and take control of the day.

“I’d like that,” she replies, taking in the perfect formation of her family: husband, baby, stepdaughter. When Jess slides a plate in front of her, she cuts into her fried egg, and finds it too is perfect.

“Thank you, Jess.” She smiles at her sister. “This is a real treat.”

On Shanklin beach the sisters walk along the water’s edge reminiscing about the holiday they’d taken here as children, burying each other in the sand while their parents sat primly on the picnic blanket further up the beach.

Emily had all but forgotten, yet Jess recalls the scene with such precision that Emily can now see it as clear as day.

Her worries still nag at her, fears that they might never return to the way they were. It was such a silly thing, the reason they fell out. Over a boy, of all things.

The memory of it brings heat to Emily’s cheeks, and she’s startled when Jess places a hand on her arm and asks if they can sit on the stones for a while.

From her rucksack Jess pulls out a grubby lunchbox in a plastic bag.

“What’s that?” Emily asks, a feather of recognition floating through her mind.

Jess unwraps the box and holds it up to display a label stuck to the front: The Time Capsule of Emily and Jessica Tyler. If found DO NOT DISTURB !!!

Emily releases a single loud laugh, clasping her hand to her mouth. “No! When – ?” “After the funeral. I remembered it during the service, and headed straight back there afterwards. It was under the willow tree, exactly where we hid it.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Shall we take a look?”

“You mean you haven’t already?” Emily scoots round, cross-legged, so that the box sits between them. Jess mirrors her, fingers on the lid.

“No! I couldn’t open it without you, could I?”

As the contents are revealed, Emily’s memories rush in. There’s a dog-eared menu card from Minxies, the Fifties-styled cafe where they’d been for an end of term treat the week before – a place that would later become the teenage girls’ favourite hangout.

A bottle of Isle of Wight coloured sand, and a withered stick of Alum Bay rock. Two Palm Sunday crosses from the unbearably long Mass they’d sat through together that very morning. The last items are letters, one for each of them, and Emily and Jess sit holding them awhile, quietly contemplating what it is that they’ve found.

Jess goes first, easing open the age-loosened flap to reveal a Holly Hobby notecard. She reads aloud:

“Dear Jess, I solemnly swear to never, ever break up again. Is wear on Taz’ s life. Love Emilyx” “Taz?” asks Emily, frowning. “Your guinea pig.” Jess smiles. Emily opens her envelope. As she reads, her eyes prick with tears.

To the Best Big Sister IN THE WORLD. Friends forever and ever, amen, love Jessxxx

And that’s all it takes to calm Emily’s fears, a few words written decades ago and buried beneath a willow tree in an English country garden.

Knee to knee, the sisters embrace as though they might never let go.

A FEATHER of RECOGNITION floats through her MIND. “What’s that?”