“Did you miss me?
My little sissie?
Are you glad to see me again?”
Her heart now soars.
“You’re here!” she roars.
But stops before the embrace.
Then takes a step forward,
Like it’s somehow ordered,
By the shadowy shape over there.
She cannot resist her,
The darkest sister,
A ghoul,
A ghost,
A silent whisper,
The girl who came home from the
d e a d.
CHAPTER 15
FAYE
Ispend a sleepless night replaying what my birth mother said to me:Get out before I say something cruel to you.
Every time I consider those words, I take a different meaning from them. Either she knew who I was, recognised her own limitations and wanted to spare my feelings, or she took a dislike to me and felt the urge to be cruel to me. Or both.
My mind swims with impressions of her face. I do resemble her. Not only in our facial features, but the tone of our voices too. There were times when it all felt a bit uncanny valley.
There were also incredible similarities between me and Dina. I pull up the photos I got from Jason, wondering if it’s possible that the picture that went viral is of her and not me. But it’s obviously not her. We look alike, but notthatalike.
Before I left, Dina gave me her number and we’ve promised to stay in touch. I complicate everything, and not just on a personal level, but legally too. Rachel is nearing the end of her life and I’m sure Dina now has worries that I might be entitled to inherit part of her estate. If we can carefully navigate our way through that minefield, I hope that a relationship may bloom. Obviously, I don’t want anything of Rachel’s. What I want is something she can no longer give me, because I left it too long. Answers.
After hours of tossing and turning, I eventually give up trying to sleep at 4 a.m. and head down to my office to type out some notes about what it was like to meet Rachel after all these years. Memoir writing is a new medium for me and is so different from my fiction. I keep waiting for a character arc to emerge but that feels strange when I am the character and I’m living it right now. I will have to be patient and let events take their course. I just hope I can afford the time.
After about half an hour my attention span fades and against my better judgement, I check social media. The viral image of me is now being used as a meme. I scroll through a set of videos created from the photo with various captions written across the image.Me the day after Coachella,Me with my girls at bottomless brunch,How I’ll really look when I’m eighty and in the nursing home.
It’s callous mockery. I can’t bring myself to read any more, so I put my phone away and go for a walk.
I head along the coast and up to Seeley Moor. A magenta sky licks the landscape, disappearing behind a cliff to reach the sea beyond. I’m alone, watching the heather shiver with the morning breeze. Even in summer there’s a cool tinge to dawn up here. But that’s okay. I run so warm with hot flashes these days that the chill feels good. I close my eyes and meditate for a minute or two and when I open them again, the sky is blue and my mind is clear.
I haven’t been sundowning since the drama with the photograph prompted me to find my birth mother. Perhaps having a goal is helping to slow down the degeneration of my mind. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.
The doctors who tested me discovered that over my lifetime, I’d experienced a series of TIAs, or transient ischaemic attacks – mini strokes – that had gone unnoticed until they caught up with me, instigating young-onset dementia. Before the day I was diagnosed, I’d considered my divorce to be the hardest thing I’d had to go through. But in one moment that all changed. Heartbreak was suddenly insignificant when compared to the disintegration of my mind. The organ responsible for who I am, my personality, the essence of my being.
And yet I have now revisited a part of myself that I’ve denied for decades. I’m finally serving the teenage girl who never knew her birth parents. I’m findingmoreof me. Not less.
