Tracy Buchanan - The Lost Sister

It has been ten years since they last spoke. They’d had an argument over her mum’s reluctance to send money to help Mike after a walking accident in France. Not that they’d talked much before then anyway, just the occasional awkward dinner for some birthdays, the odd letter. Of course, the cheque had arrived the next day for her dad. But the words her mum had spoken as she’d tried to defend herself, the bitterness and hatred she’d directed at Mike, the lies , had been the final straw.

Until now.

Her mum clears her throat. ‘He said I ought to call.’

‘Who said?’

‘The annoying nurse standing over me right now. Honestly, you should see the look he’s giving me.’ There’s a voice in the background, some laughter.

‘You’re in hospital?’ Becky asks.

A sigh. ‘It seems so.’

Fear bubbles at Becky’s core but she swipes it away. She can never be sure with her mum. She must wait, see what she says, before she allows herself to react.

Summer pads over, nudging her nose into Becky’s lap as though sensing her discomfort. She pats her dog’s head, drawing strength from her.

‘Are you okay?’ Becky asks politely, like she’s asking an acquaintance.

‘I’m dying.’

Becky drops the phone. She scrambles to grab it before it hits the wooden floor. The other dogs bounce in, crowding the hallway. Becky stands, pressing the phone to her ear.

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Just … wait. What’s wrong with you?’ she asks, voice trembling.

‘Cancer. Of course it’s cancer. When isn’t it cancer?’

‘Jesus.’ Becky paces up and down the hallway as the dogs trot after her. ‘Have they actually told you you’re dying? The doctors, I mean?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Becky’s medical training suddenly rushes to the fore. She grasps at it like it’s an anchor stopping her from drowning. ‘What type of cancer?’

‘Breast cancer.’

‘Have you had chemo? There are new advances, new treatments being developed. You have money, they can—’

‘Oh Becky, sweetheart, I’m a lost cause.’

Becky feels tears spring to her eyes. She looks up at the ceiling. It doesn’t matter what her mum has done really. She’s Becky’s flesh and blood. The person who gave birth to her, who had her curled up inside of her for nine months.

And now she’s dying. She will be gone , the person she wakes each morning thinking of despite all her attempts not to.

Becky takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. ‘How long?’

‘Days, they’re saying.’

Becky suddenly feels sick. How could it be days ?

‘Are you still there, Becky?’ Her mum’s voice cracks then. The first hint of vulnerability. It strikes such sadness in Becky’s heart, she can hardly breathe.

‘Sorry, Mum, just trying to get a handle on things,’ Becky whispers.

They’re silent for a few moments. Just breathing together, mother and daughter.

‘Will you come?’ her mum eventually asks, her voice small like a child’s. ‘I don’t want to die alone.’

Becky puts her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. ‘Of course. Where are you? I’ll be right there.’

The ward Becky’s mum is staying in isn’t bleak like Becky expected. Instead, there are sunny scenes painted on the walls. Becky can even see her old hometown’s quaint shops from the vast windows that line the back, including the charming little bookshop she remembers her mum doing a signing at once. It was three years after her mum had left. Becky was living in Busby-in-Sea with her dad then, settled at school … just. It had taken time to adjust to a life without her mum’s presence in it, without any woman’s presence, especially at certain times, like when she needed to buy her first bra. A chat over the phone or a quick lunch snatched in between her mum’s writing deadlines weren’t quite enough for occasions like that. She’d hoped a weekend stay with her mum to attend the launch of her novel would change things, but her mum had been so busy and flustered sorting out her party, practising her speech. Did that sound right to you, Becky? The part about writing being like the float keeping me above water? Would boat be better? It meant they barely spent time together to say hello, let alone talk about shopping for bras. An eleven-year-old Becky had attended that book launch resentful and sulky, the photos after showing not one smile from her.

Now that same bookshop displays a poster of a moody-looking novel called The Cave , described as a ‘gripping novel from debut author Thomas Delaney’, a photo beneath it of a slightly overweight man in his thirties with a walking stick.

It was strange coming back to the town she’d left all those years ago, seeing the familiar chalk stacks in the distance, the sandy bay and the quaint shops. Maybe part of her had known she’d be here for this one day, her mum ill or dying.

But not so soon.

She pauses at the entrance to her mum’s ward. The last time she was here would have been when she was a newborn on the maternity ward a floor down. She thinks of the photos she once pored over after her mum left, especially the one of her holding Becky in her arms, looking down at her with a frown, as though the tiny being was so confusing to her, so alien.

Becky sighs and peers at the sign at the front of the ward.

Ward 3. Oncology.

The sight of that sign makes her stomach turn. She is used to seeing that word on notes and in books. That word was for her patients, which was bad enough anyway, but now it is for her mum.

She takes a deep breath and walks in, past the smiling suns and fluffy clouds. She knows her mum would hate all that. Her old office in their first house was dark and brooding: an autumnal forest scene across one wall, brown paint on the others, mahogany furniture, the only sparks of colour in the form of deep purple cushions and scarlet pens. No doubt she is feeling out of sorts here in this hospital.

Maybe that’s why she needs me , Becky reasons. A familiar face.

Is she really so familiar though? It’s been ten years, after all. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in a window she passes: blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face makeup free. Old jeans peppered with muddy paw prints. At least her light blue T-shirt is fresh, pulled on from the top of the clean laundry pile in a rush. But it’s a contrast to her mum, who was always glamorous, always perfectly made-up. Would she be any different now? She was sixty-five, after all.

Becky searches the ward for her mum. There are ten beds squeezed in. People are dozing. Some have visitors. There are cards wishing them well, flowers bright and thriving as though to detract from the life seeping from their recipients’ bodies.

A male nurse passes. Becky wonders if it’s the nurse who was with her mum when she called.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, stopping him. ‘I’m looking for my mum, she’s—’

‘Oh yeah,’ he says, smiling. ‘You must be Miss Rhys’s daughter.’

Becky nods. It is strange that her mum has kept her married name all this time, but Becky is not surprised. It is the name her readers know her as.

‘Come through. She’s in the private room,’ the nurse says.

Private. Of course. She is an acclaimed author, after all.

‘Is it as bad as she says?’ Becky asks the nurse as they walk to her mum’s room.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he says with a sigh. ‘She does a good job of looking well, but it won’t be long.’ He pauses and puts a hand on Becky’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I just had no idea, that’s all. We haven’t talked in years.’