Something in the Air (Skylarks #3)

Chapter 24

24

Before Nadia left Switzerland for Dorset, she would’ve described Monica as rebellious, unwilling to bend for anyone else, intent on causing trouble. And yesterday, Nadia had barely registered anything about this woman who was family and who she hadn’t seen for twenty years.

Now, when she approached the bed and her sister dragged her gaze from the baby in her arms to the sister who’d left her decades ago, Nadia knew without her saying a word that she was different in more ways than she would ever be able to realise unless they talked properly. Somehow just by watching her sister with a baby showed Nadia that the passage of time had mellowed this woman and turned her into a different person.

And yet she still braced for Monica to let her down, for her sister to open her mouth, speak and for Nadia to realise nothing had changed at all.

That was what she was dreading the most: the fear that any chance she gave Monica would be pointless. And it was hard to talk herself down from that, to make herself open and able to listen.

‘Hi.’ Monica’s voice was small, soft, a buffed version of what it had once been.

‘Hi.’ She turned her attentions to Bella; it was the easiest thing to do. ‘She’s beautiful.’

‘Thank you. She really is.’

‘Is she feeding okay?’

‘A little fussy at first but we’re getting the hang of it. I’m a bit sore, though.’ She winced as if reminded of the pain.

‘Did the nurses give you something to apply?’

‘They did.’

Nurse-speak was far easier than sister-speak right now.

‘Did Giles behave himself with you last night?’ Monica asked eventually. Their attentions had been on Bella and her little mannerisms she’d adopted at less than twenty-four hours old.

‘He enjoyed himself.’

‘Ah, code for very little sleep. I could tell; he was yawning.’

‘I’m sorry, I?—’

‘I’m not complaining, I promise. I’m not having a go at you, I swear.’ The words rushed out in defence, little gasps of breaths between the punctuated sentences suggesting Monica was more apprehensive about this than Nadia was herself.

‘Sorry, I just expect…’

‘Conflict? Yeah, well, we spent so long in that state that I can understand why.’

She sounded grown up. She was, of course. They both were.

‘A sleepover would’ve been such an adventure for him. He’s like I was at that age. I still remember my first.’

‘At Debbie Mason’s house.’ Nadia grinned.

‘You remember?’

‘You fell asleep in our Wendy house the morning after. You were so quiet and out of sight that Mum and I were searching the house for you. She hadn’t thought to check in there, at ground level, because usually, you made enough noise that her ears told her where you were at all times.’

Their smiles and laughter settled. ‘Well, thank you for taking Giles. It could have been a really stressful day and evening for him following the weeks of hell I’ve put him and Archie through, so I really do appreciate it. He likes you.’

‘And I like him. He’s wonderful, Monica.’

She nodded, held back tears.

Nadia wasn’t sure whether to ask her question – she didn’t want to ignite a fuse that would burn quickly and then explode – that was usually what confrontation did to her sister – but she had to know. ‘What made you leave them behind and then not get in touch?’

‘It’s hard to explain.’

‘You could try.’ Nadia turned away. ‘Maybe you did try over the years and I never understood you.’

‘Oh, no, do not take any blame for me. I shoulder all of that and all of the guilt. Have done for years and rightly so.’

‘Archie said you struggled with depression for a while. I know you did as a teenager.’

‘It’s been on and off for me. Mostly off thankfully, but not always. After you left, with Mum gone too, I felt lost, alone, guilty, not good enough. I knew I only had myself to blame for most of it. That was the worst thing. I thought I deserved what I got pretty much all of the time. Even at school, once I’d struggled, it was hard to break out of that mould and be anything other than the kid who got crappy grades, the kid who was slower than others.’

Bella stirred in her arms and when the fussing didn’t stop, Monica latched the baby to her breast, wincing at the obvious discomfort at first. ‘Whenever you tried to get through to me, I wasn’t interested. I pushed you away. It almost made me worse – I’m not blaming you, but it did – I was so frustrated, so jealous that you were completely together.’

Nadia waited until the baby was feeding. ‘I wasn’t all that together, you know.’

‘Are you kidding me? While I kept making mistakes, you never did.’

‘I did well at school but I struggled with friendships sometimes, with things at home. It wasn’t always easy worrying about you, worrying about Mum.’

‘I was in a bad place. I was selfish; I could only think about myself.’ Monica looked down at Bella. ‘I can’t be that person now; I have to be more. I was doing so well, but then the pregnancy…’

She didn’t carry on straight away, her focus stayed on Bella. It must be difficult to talk so candidly after all this time. It certainly was for Nadia.

‘You used to ask me about school and how things were going,’ said Monica. ‘I shut you down every single time. I was embarrassed, I felt helpless. I was so behind with my work and the more behind I got, the more I rebelled, the more I didn’t want my big sister having to swoop in and fix everything. It became easier to joke and have a laugh at school than it was to admit I was still struggling. I was a hopeless case; that’s what I told myself. And even though Mum went up to school often enough, got me the help I needed with a tutor, I still felt like a failure. I didn’t always turn up for those tutor sessions either which was terrible. I apologised to Mum for doing that.’ She smiled at Nadia’s reaction. ‘You seem shocked.’

‘I never knew, that’s all. But it’s nice to know you apologised.’

‘Well, I did. And I told her that the way I was wasn’t anything for her to feel bad about.’

Nadia couldn’t check her sister’s claims but something in the way she spoke told Nadia it was the truth even before she said the next thing.

‘Mum spent a lot of time trying to sort me out. I’ll never truly forgive myself for that, you know. But I didn’t see it, Nadia. Not until it was too late.’ When she looked up from Bella, her gaze didn’t waver. ‘I didn’t see that I was taking all of Mum’s energy, all of her compassion. You were almost her equal, when you should’ve had time being mothered. And I will always hate myself for that.’

‘Hate is a strong word.’

‘Well, I do. I wish I’d been able to see it then but I couldn’t.’

Nadia wasn’t going to say it was okay, because it wasn’t. But was there any point getting upset and angry now?

The way Monica was looking at her was completely different from the way her sister had looked at her over the years, as if waiting for a reaction, to gauge how much trouble she’d caused. Now she looked expectant, nervous, when previously, she’d had an air of confidence and hopeful one-upmanship.

Monica shushed the baby as she finished feeding. She looked such a natural at being a mother that it almost tipped Nadia’s emotions over; this was the part of her sister that she’d never seen, never had a chance to know.

‘I wanted to find you, Nadia, and at least tell you that I was sorry for the way I was back then, for taking all of Mum’s time, for not being the sister you deserved.’ Her voice broke and she hid the fact behind a cuddle with Bella, gently placing her against her chest to rub her little back. ‘And I wanted to apologise for Archie, for the way we got together when you and he… You were friends and more than that, you’d been together. And you two…’

‘We lost a baby.’ Nadia finished what she thought her sister might be about to say.

The nurse came to check on them and ask Monica about the feeding and how it was going and Nadia excused herself to use the bathroom. She didn’t need to go at all, but what she did need was to get a bit of breathing space. She found the bathrooms, then a corridor that looked out onto the car park, an open space beyond the walls. And she stayed there a while, letting what her sister had said sink in. She was apologising, she was sorry, she had regret. But was it enough?

When she went back in, Bella was settled in the little plastic crib beside the bed, bundled up in a pink blanket, her little mouth the perfect ‘o’ as she slept.

‘Was I gone that long?’

‘I did wonder if you were ever coming back.’ Monica was sitting up; she fussed at the sheets across her, a smile curving her mouth and at odds with the sad tone of her voice.

Nadia perched on the edge of her sister’s bed, past the middle, but so that she could reach into the plastic crib and touch the baby’s wrapped torso if she wanted. ‘I know you tried to find me once before,’ said Nadia. And that was another thing convincing her that her sister meant every word she said, every attempt at an apology. ‘Archie told me.’

Tears sprang unbidden to Monica’s eyes and her voice wobbled so much, she struggled to say anything else and when Nadia offered her a tissue, she covered her eyes rather than wiping them and gave in to her feelings.

Once she was calmer, Monica told Nadia more about the wave of postnatal depression she’d experienced after Giles was born.

‘I felt so hopeless, guilty that I wasn’t feeling the joy I should be with a new baby. I felt weak, not worthy of Archie or Giles. Eventually, the doctor came out to our home and he was wonderful, really understanding. I think Archie was so lost until that home visit. But I was able to access the right support and over time, I got better.’

‘What happened this time? To make you leave your son, your husband, take the risk with your unborn child and come here?’

Monica’s head was resting on the pillow and she turned to look up at the ceiling. Nadia waited. She didn’t want to rush this; she wanted the truth. They both needed it.

‘I don’t think… no, I know I wasn’t prepared to feel the way I did with this pregnancy. Archie and I were wary of what would happen once the baby came; we felt prepared because it happened with Giles. I never expected it to happen during my pregnancy. My GP had moved on so I’d lost the continuity of care. I felt good in the early stages but as I got to my third trimester, I started to feel much more anxious. I put it down to being a mother, the pregnancy hormones. I thought that if I got through the nine months, that would be when I’d have to take stock and deal with depression again. Guess the joke was on me; depression found me before I thought it would.’

‘And you just packed your bags and left.’

‘I was unbelievably sad. And it was a sadness I couldn’t claw my way out of; I couldn’t see reason. Logic told me I had a gorgeous little boy, a wonderful marriage. But those things were buried by the thought that I had no extended family because I’d driven you, the only one left, away. I became obsessed by everything that happened when we were younger; I couldn’t let it go. I’d try to talk to Archie but he had work, Giles, and he said we’d concentrate on the baby first then after he or she arrived, we’d think about everything else.

‘I felt so alone; I had this overwhelming need to come here, to try to find you. I wasn’t intending on staying so long. But when I found no trace of you, I just felt like I’d failed again. So I pushed it, I stayed, thought I had plenty of time. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all.’

All those years they’d lost, all the time she’d been a different person to the sister Nadia remembered. The pain Nadia felt knowing that was crushing. ‘I can’t begin to understand what it was like for you.’

Monica pushed the wobble out of her voice. ‘It has been hard. And all I wanted was for us to get to know each other again, to have you back in my life. But I knew I couldn’t blame you. I was awful to you; I wasn’t much of a sister. I was hard work, stubborn, obstinate – all of those things. On top of that, I was angry at how I struggled over the years. I wanted to be a better person. Even though I could see myself how others did, I still didn’t seem able to change.

‘My relationship with Archie happened in a whirlwind. I knew I was playing with fire; I often questioned whether that was why I’d done it. You had a wonderful friendship with him even after you two broke up; I’d heard about it from Mum. She was always saying Nadia this, Archie that, and yes, I was jealous. But that wasn’t why I fell for Archie, I promise you.’

Nadia couldn’t speak; she still remembered the hurt that day finding them together.

‘It took time to settle into life with Archie after you left and after I came here but couldn’t find you. I felt undeserving, regretful; I felt so many things. We started to get more serious, Archie and me. I eventually found a job in hospitality and when I did, I felt like I’d found a little bit of myself I didn’t realise was missing, I was happy. I had so many hobbies, too. I took up hiking, went bike riding, swimming. In my darker days, my interests really only centred around drinking and smoking dope.’ She said the last bit in a very quiet voice. ‘I haven’t done that in almost two decades. The odd glass of wine, but that’s it.’

‘I’m glad.’ And she was. But talking about Archie was still difficult; it was hard to hear all this when she and Archie had once been together. ‘Giles tells me you still do some creative things these days.’

Monica smiled, probably glad to talk about something lighter if only for a moment. Perhaps their getting to know each other again would come in waves, with big peaks, and then calmer shores. ‘He’s my biggest supporter. As well as being so active, I started painting again eventually, and these days I also draw a lot and I sew.’

‘I was always useless at those sorts of things.’ Nadia laughed.

‘I find it therapeutic; it’s an escape. It worked well over the years to help me cope. When I couldn’t find you, I felt like that silly little girl who couldn’t read as well as others in class, who handed in all her assignments late, who was ridiculed when some girl at school got hold of one of my essays and they were falling about laughing at my letter muddling. Archie enrolled me in an evening class to do needlework, I went to appease him, and ended up realising it was exactly what I needed.’

‘I wish you’d told me the other kids were mean to you about your struggles.’

She shrugged. ‘I developed a thick skin. But also an attitude. Not proud of the second part.’ She leaned over and opened the top drawer of her cabinet, pulled out a bag and opened it to retrieve a photograph. She handed it to Nadia.

‘It’s your wedding day. You look stunning.’ She did, she was beautiful, she looked happy and so did Archie.

‘My only disappointment that day was not sharing it with my sister. But Archie, well, you know Archie; he’s been there for me in ways I never thought a guy could ever be there.’

‘He’s a good man.’

‘I never meant to take him away from you. I promise you that wasn’t what I thought at all when I first got talking to him. At first, I saw my sister’s friend, then we started hanging out and I forgot that he was your friend and got to know him as his own person. We both knew we had to tell you. I never meant it to come out the weekend you caught us at Mum’s.’

‘You didn’t do that on purpose?’

‘No, I had no idea you’d show up when you did.’

‘But it was a bonus, right?’ Nadia felt nausea rise up. Talking about Archie seemed to chip away at the worst part of their relationship, the utter devastation and sense of betrayal she’d felt back then when she lost her best friend to her sister.

‘I admit that yes, it was, at least for a moment. I reverted to that horrible person, not the person I was with Archie. My first reaction was to feel happy that you were hurt by us being together; it felt like payback for all the nagging, the way you saw me as trouble. It didn’t matter whether I was being fair or not. I felt like I had one up on you. That lasted all of about five minutes – a high like you get from a drug that is a false reality, then real life crashes down.’

Nadia tried to digest it but it was hard, sitting here going over the past, trying to move on when a lot of it still hurt.

‘I’m really sorry, Nadia. About everything. I know an apology can only go so far, but I really want to try.’

But Nadia couldn’t say anything else, not yet.

She had to get out of here.

And in tears, she turned and abruptly left the ward.