Tim Wynne-Jones - The Uninvited

“Yeah,” said Jay. “He did. He even said it. But it took me awhile to figure it out-later, I mean. At first I thought he was just coming to warn me, but he needed help.”

“Of course he did. Shit, can you imagine? His own mother.”

They were quiet for a while, both of them thinking about the scene in that little house in the middle of a storm in the middle of nowhere and how it all played out and how many other ways it might have gone down.

“Anyway,” said Jay. “You asked how I felt about him living with Lou and Jo, and it’s okay. It’s better than okay. And it’s not just something we should do, a duty. It’s… I don’t know exactly.” He paused. “It’s right,” he said.

Mimi merged onto the 417. The hospital was twenty minutes away.

Jay laughed. “This sibling business is hell,” he said.

“Who knew?” said Mimi, and grinned a little maniacally, as she flicked on her indicator light to pass a truck. “But, apparently, it’s always like this.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, not quite like this. Jamila said something to me the other night when we were talking. She said when her younger brother was born, it really pissed her off. It was such an intrusion.”

And they thought about that. About intrusions. How Mimi had burst into Jay’s life two troubling months ago and how Cramer had been there already like something circling, planning to land, and then been born into their lives two weeks ago in a startling and bloody birth. Each of them had been unwelcome, uninvited. And yet they knew-Mimi and Jay did, anyway-that they were ready to spend the rest of their lives learning how to do this, how to welcome in the outsider and to become family. This most unlikely of families.

Had he heard the other shots when he lay in the bottom of the hidey-hole? Had Mavis spoken to him, apologized, cried over his battered body, said some final words? Or had he only overheard what had happened to her, while lying here in this dim room drifting in and out of consciousness? Had Mimi explained to him about his mother’s death, or was it just her absence that let him know she was gone?

However it was that he knew, he had grieved alone in his darkness. He has missed her and ached for her and been furious at her for dying and finally, all on his own, come to a place of her being gone. The only question was how long she had been gone. It seemed like a long time now.

Mimi’s hand was on his chest. She loosened the sheet that the nurse had just tightened. Jay was there, too, a little way off, as always. But his voice had sounded okay when he’d said hello. Like he wanted to be there.

“Do you know who I am?” Mimi asked, her voice soft and yet firm. “Do you know, Cramer, who I really am?” He wanted to nod. He wanted to take her hand and grip it tight and let her know. “How much did you hear before you opened the trapdoor?” she asked.

He had heard enough, enough to know who Mimi was. It changed everything and didn’t change anything. He would have to try to explain that to her somehow. Find words to let her know that it was okay. Not to worry. There were so many words he was going to have to find. Words to apologize with, for one thing. He would somehow have to find a way to repay them for the harm he had brought upon them, the evil he had brought into their midst.

“We’re here for you,” said Mimi. “Right, Jay?”

“Right,” said Jay. “But you’re going to have to come out of hiding.”

That made Mimi laugh. And maybe it was the sound of her gritty laughter or maybe it was hearing that they were there for him, but suddenly, as if he had been holding back, Cramer found the will to open his eyes-his one good eye. And it filled up with Mimi’s face, and she was smiling. His sister.