Tracy Buchanan - My Sister’s Secret

I’d burst into tears. My aunt had to postpone the visit I was such a mess.

The only thing that got me through those first few months was imagining the grey sea outside my aunt’s house was the Aegean Sea. I’d envisage diving under the waves, plucking my parents to safety. It wasn’t long before I begged my aunt to take me swimming. She reluctantly agreed, and would sit perched on a rock with her notepad and pen in hand as she watched me teach myself to swim in the shallow sea just outside the cottage. Occasionally, she’d look up and shout out some half-hearted words of advice. ‘Kick your legs harder, Willow!’ or, ‘Not like that, you look like a rhino.’

‘Did you get into diving because of your folks?’ Guy asks now.

I nod as I order a beer. ‘If the rescue divers had got down there quicker all those years ago, they might have saved more passengers. I guess I wanted to see if I could do better.’

‘Why didn’t you get into rescue diving then?’

‘I did at first. It wasn’t enough. So I did my commercial training with Ajay.’

‘What inspired you to get into all this?’ Guy asks Ajay.

‘I used to dive the forest in the lake near where I was born. I suppose it got under my skin. You?’ he asks Guy.

Guy smiles. ‘Grew up by the sea.’

When the waiter arrives with my beer, I take a sip, savouring its coolness. We all grow quiet, looking out at the sea. White buildings scatter across a nearby hill that stretches out above the waves, tourists walking up a set of steps towards some ancient ruins, the setting sun casting them in yellow. Beyond, the sea stirs, flexing its muscles, ready for another night.

Ajay tilts his bottle towards mine. ‘To the sea getting under our skin,’ he says.

I cling my bottle against his. ‘To lost souls,’ I say.

I wake the next morning, eyes adjusting to the glare of light slicing through my hotel room. There’s a ringing sound and I can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from.

‘Your phone,’ Guy says, handing it to me. He’s lying naked in my bed, his arm flung over his head to protect his eyes from the sunlight.

I take the phone, see it’s Ajay, and so I drag myself out of bed, grabbing on to the desk nearby to steady myself when I see stars. I put the phone to my ear.

‘Ajay?’ I say as I squint out of the window at the bright blue skies, the clear sea. Behind me, Guy rises and pads into the bathroom.

‘I’ve been looking through the items some of the divers recovered from the wreck,’ he says.

‘They managed to recover stuff?’

‘Only a few bits and pieces. I think there might be something here that belonged to your mother.’

My heartbeat gallops. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

Twenty-eight minutes later, I’m standing in a large warehouse by the main port in Rhodes, looking at one of four tables laid out with items taken from the ship. Before me is a bag threaded with silver, its straps made from satin and silver leaves. It’s faded by the sea and time, but it looks like the bag I’ve seen in photos, the same bag Dad helped me buy Mum for her thirty-fifth birthday just a few months before I lost her.

I gently pick it up and open it…and there it is, etched into a tarnished silver plate inside:

Mummy,

Happy birthday.

Lots of love, Willow x

I clutch it to my chest, emotions so intense I can hardly breathe. I remember how excited I’d been to give it to her. Dad had made her breakfast, setting it all out in our gorgeous garden. I’d patiently sat at the table, waiting for her to come out, the bag carefully wrapped in my lap. When she’d opened it, she’d been delighted.

I look inside, not surprised to find it empty. I wonder what she kept in there that night. Her trademark red lipstick, a small bottle of perfume – that rose scent of hers. Maybe a comb?

I slide open the small zipper, carefully dipping my fingers in. There’s something in there.

A necklace.

I pull it out. It’s rusty and twisted but the pendant hanging from it is still intact. It’s a symbol of some kind, half a circle with a curved thread of gold inside.

‘Was that in the bag?’ Ajay asks, looking over my shoulder.

I nod. ‘I don’t recognise the symbol though.’

‘Looks like two initials, a C and an N. Wasn’t your mum’s name Charity?’

I frown. ‘Yes, but Dad’s name was Dan.’

Ajay shrugs. ‘Maybe it’s not initials then.’ Someone calls him over. He puts his hand on my arm. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. Thanks for calling me, I’m pleased we found the bag.’

He smiles. ‘Me too.’

As he jogs away, I stare at the necklace. It’s not in any of the photos I have of Mum and God knows I’ve stared at them enough to know.

I pull my phone from my pocket, dialling my aunt’s mobile phone number. It takes a few rings for her to answer.

‘Willow?’ she says, voice curt.

‘Hi. Are you at the cottage?’ I ask.

‘I am.’ She pauses. ‘Well, how did it go?’

‘Not great. The ship’s unstable, they’ve had to cancel the recovery. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll get a chance to dive it again, it’s just too dangerous.’

‘Good. It’s best left alone.’

I suppress a sigh. We’d argued when I’d told her I was going to be part of the dive crew who’d be salvaging the ship. She had this romantic notion that it would be disturbing the dead passengers’ souls, even though all the bodies had been recovered long ago.

‘They found some items though,’ I say, looking at the necklace, ‘including the silver bag I got Mum for her birthday.’

My aunt doesn’t respond for a moment. I just hear her breath, quiet and slow. ‘That’s good,’ she says eventually, sounding a bit choked up. ‘I’d like to see it when you come back.’

‘I’ll bring it with me. There was a necklace inside that I don’t recognise.’

‘She had lots of jewellery.’

‘This one’s unusual though. Ajay thinks it might be two initials intertwined, a C and an N?’ My aunt’s silent again. That silence speaks volumes. ‘Did you see Mum wear it?’

‘No, never.’

‘Then why did you go quiet?’

‘No reason.’ She’s lying. I can always tell when she’s lying, her voice goes up an octave. ‘So if the dive’s cancelled, does that mean you’ll be coming to clean up the cottage with me?’

I think of stepping into my parent’s cottage for the first time in twenty years. ‘I might stay here for a few days actually.’

‘Don’t make excuses. It might be the last chance you’ll get to see it.’

I’ve been trying to forget the fact that I finally relented to putting the house I grew up in on the market. I haven’t stepped foot in there since my parents died. Maybe if my aunt had taken me there after, like I’d begged her to, it might have been different. But she’d insisted it would just upset me. And the more months and years that passed, the more painful the thought of going back there became.

I look down at the necklace. Maybe it’s finally time I go.

Willow

Near Busby-on-Sea, UK

August 2016

I peer up at the large white cottage that was my childhood home until my parents died. It seems to blur into the clouds above, the green of the grass that spreads out behind it and the blue of the sea in front add the only hint of colour.

I walk the stones I used to skip up. They’re overgrown with moss now, barely visible. And those large bay windows, I’d once sat by as I waited for Dad to return from work. But they’re so grimy now, no way anybody could see through them. The rose bushes are still here. They used to be so beautiful, Mum tending to them, dark hair wrapped up in a scarf, lip caught in her teeth. Now they’re overgrown and tangled with weeds.