“Sleeping off last night.”
“Ah.” Lily switched the kettle on and retrieved her favorite mug, a chipped bowl-sized pottery one, from the cupboard. Rachel watched her, noting how she’d dyed the tips of her hair fuchsia, and she had three piercings in one ear. When had she done those things? Why hadn’t Rachel noticed? Lily certainly hadn’t consulted her, and with an unpleasant jolt Rachel realized how little Lily consulted her about anything these days.
When Lily had been a baby, Rachel had done nearly everything for her. Changed her, bathed her, fed her, tickled her tummy. Her father had looked after her while Rachel had been at school, and when he’d had work, she’d gone to the nursery in Egremont. But whenever Rachel had been home, Lily had been hers. At first she’d liked having her own doll baby to play with. It had felt like a game, and there was nothing quite like the feeling of chubby baby arms wrapped around your neck, a sweet, plump cheek pressed to yours. But then her mother had fallen and her father had had to take any job he could, and suddenly taking care of Lily had stopped being such a game.
But she hadn’t minded. She’d never minded sacrificing her social life so she could be there for Lily. She’d seen all her milestones: first steps, first word, first lost tooth. She’d been the one to put the pound under her pillow; she’d bought her Christmas and birthday presents and helped her write invitations in her painstaking best joined-up script for the party she’d had when she was ten. She’d baked the birthday cake, hadgreeted the children at the door. She’d done everything a mother would.
But sometime in the last few years she’d stopped being so involved in Lily’s life. When Rachel had come back from Durham, after Dad had left, she and Meghan had made a deal. Meghan would quit school that summer, after Year Ten, and get a nighttime job so she could look after Mum and Lily during the day. Rachel would restart Mum’s housecleaning business. Even though she’d been working ten-hour days, Rachel had made time back then for Lily. She’d gone to her parent-teacher conferences and cricket matches, and she’d kept her weekends clear.
So when had it all changed? Perhaps when Lily had become a teenager and had naturally became more secretive, more hidden. Perhaps it had happened gradually, and Rachel had been too busy and tired to notice. Yet in that moment, in the dawn light of an April morning, Rachel realized she really didn’t know her sister at all.
Lily had her own life now, her own friends whose names Rachel didn’t even know: a couple of pimply boys with hair that always got in their eyes, chunky glasses, and ironic T-shirts. The arty, geeky crowd, and Rachel couldn’t tell one of them from the other.
“So,” she said, her voice a little too loud and bright as Lily dunked her tea bag a couple of times. “I’m meeting your biology teacher this afternoon. I e-mailed your other teachers, but they haven’t gotten back to me.”
Lily shrugged and tossed the soggy tea bag into the bin. “They’re busy, I suppose.”
“You’re doing well in all your subjects, though,” Rachel said. The trial exams in January had given Lily predictions of two As and an A star in biology. She had a conditional offer from Durham for biology as long as she got the grades, and threeother backups if she didn’t. “I don’t think she’ll have anything important to say,” Rachel continued. “But it’s good to check in.”
Lily shrugged, her thin shoulders hunching under the pilled fleece of her dressing gown. Rachel stared at her, wishing Lily would say something. Wishing she knew what to say to her. When had this tense silence started? Maybe last year, when Rachel had insisted Lily drop Design and Technology. Lily had wanted to drop one of her other subjects, but no serious university was interested in what was generally considered a soft option.
“You can go almost anywhere you want,” Rachel had said. “Why hamper yourself with a subject good universities don’t take seriously?”
“Maybe they should take it seriously,” Lily had said, and Rachel had shrugged her words aside. The fact was, they didn’t.
Last autumn she’d taken Lily on a tour of universities, including Durham. It had felt amazing and yet agonizing to stroll down those narrow, cobbled streets, walk across the footbridge that spanned the River Wear to the student union. Her two weeks at Durham had been the best of her life, but she didn’t talk about them to anyone, and certainly not to Lily. Rachel didn’t think Lily even remembered that she’d gone there.
Lily had been quiet during that trip, although she’d seemed to enjoy the meals out, and she’d liked the student union with its walls full of students’ artwork, all self-consciously stark lines and messy blobs of paint. But at the end of the trip Lily had told Rachel she wasn’t sure university was for her, and Rachel had replied that it most certainly was. Lily hadn’t answered, and in the six months since, she’d worked hard and filled out her university application online, smiled when she’d gotten her offers. Rachel had assumed all the uncertainty and teenaged angst was behind her.
Now, as Lily picked at her black nail varnish and sipped her tea, Rachel wondered if it wasn’t.
“What have you got on this weekend?” she asked.
“Revision, I know.” Lily answered with a sigh.
“I’m trying not to nag, you know,” Rachel answered lightly. “It’s only that it’s so important, Lily—”
“I know it is.”
She couldn’t keep herself from giving Lily these pep talks. “You’ll thank me one day,” she said, and Lily rolled her eyes. Rachel couldn’t blame her. She sounded as sanctimonious as Andrew West. “Maybe we could do something this weekend. Go to the cinema.”
“There’s only rubbish on.”
“I don’t mind rubbish.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to the cinema, or done anything fun with Lily. “Do you want to check the times?”
“I’m going out on Saturday night,” Lily said. A few flakes of black nail varnish drifted to the floor. “With some friends from school.”
“Oh?” Rachel tried to pitch her voice light and interested. “Where to?”
“Just Will’s house.” Lily shrugged, and Rachel decided not to press. She didn’t know who Will was, but Lily went out a lot of weekends, usually to someone’s house to hang out or watch a DVD. Rachel didn’t keep tabs on her social life; during the weekend she was usually too busy catching up on errands and bills, before the week and all of its demands and pressures rolled around again. It hadn’t bothered her before, but now she felt the loss.
“Well,” she said. “Maybe next weekend.” Lily didn’t answer.
It was after seven and Meghan still wasn’t up. Nathan had finished his cereal, and so Rachel dumped his dishes in the sink and wiped him down with a wet cloth. “I think you got more onyou than in you,” she remarked. “Better go wake up Mummy, Nath. Ray-Ray has to work.”
Lily had disappeared upstairs, no doubt to grab the shower first, and Rachel took Nathan by the hand and led him to her bedroom, where Meghan was stretched out on her bed, drooling onto her pillow.
“Wake up, Snow White,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Your prince is here.” She deposited a wriggling Nathan onto Meghan’s stomach, and her sister groaned. Nathan squealed.
