Thank God for that – maybe wine will help with the small talk. Lissa sits on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar as her dad gets down the glasses and sets them on the counter for Nicole to pour. His hair is the same salt-and-pepper grey as the last time she saw him, with a few days of stubble growth in the place of the beard he once had – and which Nicole made him shave off before their wedding.
She remembers that – he’d not told her he was doing it, and when she’d seen him before the ceremony it had been like seeing an entirely different person. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t only the lack of beard making him seem different. She’d been a teenager – it was only a year after he’d left her and her mum, and barely two since Chloe had died.
The wedding had been awful. Lissa had been put on a table with her dad’s side of the family, whohebarely spoke to, let alone her. She’d been allowed to bring a friend and she’d brought Mia, though that had been awkward because she was a cousin on her mum’s side. Mia had snuck them both champagne, which they’d pretended to enjoy, and after watching the first dance, Lissa had hidden in the loo to cry. It hadn’t seemed real until then. And she knew he wouldn’t change his mind now he was married. He wouldn’t come back.
‘Here you go, love,’ her dad says, handing her a glass of wine.
‘Thanks.’ She takes a grateful gulp. It has that smooth, light taste she’s come to associate with expensive wines she can’t afford. She glances around the kitchen, through the big French doors that lead to the huge garden. ‘Where’s Elsie?’
‘Up in her room,’ Nicole says, getting out a chopping board. ‘You know what teenagers are like.’
‘Can I do anything to help?’
‘Oh no.’ She waves a hand in Lissa’s direction. ‘You just relax, it won’t take long.’
She’d rather have been set to work – at least when chopping food you can pretend to be busy. Now she has to think of something to bloodysay. She taps her fingernails on her wine glass. ‘So, Dad. How’s the life of a copywriter treating you?’ He was a teacher when she was growing up, teaching history at one of Bath’s best secondary schools. But after Chloe died, he quit. She often thinks it’s because he couldn’t face seeing all those young faces and knowing Chloe would never be one of them. It’s how she felt when she saw the younger years of her sister’s primary school filtering through the gates, or caught sight of one of Chloe’s friends years later. Her mum, on the other hand, still works as a nurse, though admittedly on reduced hours. In her darkest moments, Lissa can’t help wondering if she does it as punishment to herself – to save other people’s children, when she couldn’t save her own.
‘Oh, you know,’ says her dad, picking up his glass. ‘Much the same as always. Lots of coffee, a bit of staring at a blank screen, a lot of checking for typos. But soon enough it will all be done by AI, won’t it? Might as well enjoy it while I can.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Lissa says.
‘What about you? Still in the same job? Marketing, right?’
‘Mm-hmm. Not much new to report there.’ There’s quiet for a beat as he nods along to that. She hates this. When she was growing up, they had such an easy relationship. She used to lean against his office door while he was marking papers, chatting to him, enjoying the peace he brought to the house in contrast to her mum’s mood swings, even then. She can remember the smell of that room – like old books, but in a nice way, not a musty way. The smell lingered for a few years after he left but has now faded completely.
She remembers one time hovering outside his office, her hand poised to knock, wanting to tell him that her mum is upstairs, crying again. She can see her own shadow against the door as she wonders whether to ask him what he thinks about the idea of her leaving Paris. And above all, whether he’ll even be behind the door, or if he’ll be out with another woman.
Only, no. She doesn’t remember that. Her dad’s office door was never closed when he lived at home with them. She’s never wanted to talk to him about leaving, and although there was probably a crossover between her mum and Nicole, he didn’t make a habit of staying out late with random women. So where the hell did that come from?
Paris. Paris again.
‘And your mum?’ her dad asks, forcing Lissa’s attention back into the room. She swears Nicole stills, the knife she’s using to cut cucumber hovering over the wooden chopping board. ‘How is Esme?’
For a moment, it hangs in the air around them, even though he asks this every time he sees her. ‘Oh, she’s fine,’ Lissa says, as she always does.
‘Good,’ her dad says. ‘That’s good.’ Her parents don’t talk any more – haven’t for years, as far as she knows. She wonders how often her dad thinks of Esme, still in the house they bought together in their early twenties – or if, in general, he tries not to think of her at all.
She is saved from having to think of a change of subject by the arrival of her half-sister. Elsie slides into the kitchen wearing an oversized hoodie, dark eyeliner to match her brunette hair – the same colour as Nicole’s, but curlier – and baggy jeans. She seems to deliberately avoid looking at Lissa as she moves around the breakfast bar and takes a loaf of bread out of the bread bin, only to have it immediately taken out of her hands by Nicole.
‘Dinner is two minutes away,’ Nicole says. She bends to get a stack of plates from one of the cupboards. ‘Here.’ She hands them to Elsie. ‘You can lay the table.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ Elsie mutters, turning with the plates.
‘Hi, Elsie!’ Lissa immediately cringes at how her voice comes out, too bright and over the top.She is your sister, Lissa, not a puppy.
‘Hey,’ Elsie says. Or grunts, to be more specific.
‘How are you?’
Elsie shrugs. ‘All right.’
That’s all she gets before Nicole gestures them through to the table in the adjoining dining area, near the sliding doors. It’s fair enough, Lissa supposes, as she helps Nicole carry through the impressively colourful bowls of salad. She’s barely around, and although she has Elsie’s number, it’s not like they text or anything.
Lissa takes a seat next to her dad and opposite Elsie, as Nicole tops up her wine. ‘So, how’s school, Elsie?’ she asks – a glutton for punishment, apparently.
‘Fine,’ Elsie says, with a big eye-roll. Right. School – not a great question to ask a young teenage girl. Lissa should know that, shouldn’t she? She’ll be asking about her grades next. This is another reason she gets so anxious about visiting them – this is hersister, for God’s sake, how does she not know how to talk to her?
She wonders what Chloe would have been like as a teenager. Would she and Lissa still have got on, even with the six-year age gap? Would she have aced her exams or been a sporty type? She loved playing outdoor games as a six-year-old, but then who doesn’t? Would she have gone to university? Maybe she’d have moved to London, as so many of Lissa’s friends did, or to Bristol, like Mia. Lissa tries to imagine her sister as an adult but just can’t – she’s forever six years old in her mind. She wonders if Elsie knows anything about her – if her dad talks about her at all. She doubts it. There are no photos of Chloe in this house, no reminders. He left her behind when he set up this new family. And unlike Lissa, he’s managed to forget.
