2

She studied me for a while without words, and I didn’t care about the silence that stretched. Honestly, it was more welcome than her constant chattering.

“Brandon talked to a friend who has a company here,” she started, and I couldn’t even pretend the slighted interest. “He can get you a job and it’s in finance.” I raised my eyebrow, I wasn’t expecting that at all. “Finance was your minor and you paid for your tuition exclusively working for investment companies. If you are not writing, maybe you just need a change.”

My big sister, always trying to fix everything. It took me back to my high school year when she tried to explain to my math teacher I’d never be his protege because although I was the best in his class, I had no interest. To this day, I wasn’t sure how she convinced him to stop nagging me to join his math groups for national competitions.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled. Really, I just wanted to be left alone.

“No, you are not. Please, Eve,” she begged. “It breaks my heart to see you like this. It could be good for you. Just to get out there and get a routine going.”

“I don’t want to get out there,” I uttered.

“Maybe,” she pushed in a pleading voice. “But it is what you need. Brandon said his friend, Colin McLaren, needed someone to take care of light finance data entry tasks. See where it takes you till you decide what you want to do.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled flat.

“Eve,” she started in her motherly voice. “You can’t live off your book royalties if you are not promoting and writing. That income will wither away.”

I shrugged my shoulder, completely uninterested about such trivial things when the most important person in my life was gone forever, buried six feet underground.

“Whatever you say.”

“Does that mean you’ll take it?” she asked hopefully.

“I guess,” I muttered. I would say anything to get her out of my hair, and when she is gone, I’d tell the company whatever position she found me just wasn’t for me.

“Ok,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m having your apartment professionally cleaned right now, then we’ll unpack and get you all settled.”

I glanced away from her and stared out the window at the busy street. People were rushing on the street, in and out of the bistro. Where were they going? They acted like they had a purpose in life. Something I no longer had.

I felt disconnected from everyone and everything. Even my family. I haven’t seen my mother and stepfather since the funeral. Elise and her husband took me to the airport when I decided to leave the States and move to Scotland. That was about eight months ago and I didn’t miss them, any of them. There were too many reminders in Maryland. I just had to get away from it all. I wanted a completely clean slate, guarantee of never running into anyone I knew or anything that resembled a reminder.

When I decided to leave the States, I picked the first English speaking country that came to mind, Scotland. Although, now I had to wonder if it was a result of my sister’s obsessions with The Outlander show. I remembered that night when I decided I had to leave. Both of us were sitting on the couch, she was watching her favorite show, always keeping an eye on me and I just blurted out I wanted to move to Scotland. I wanted to get away and with her darn show playing, Scotland was the first country that popped in my head. She was totally onboard with it, hoping I was finally showing a sign of moving on with my life. She even googled and researched the country and cities and found a few choices of apartments for me in each major city.

I picked the first city and first apartment for sale. I didn’t care where I ended up. All I wanted was to be left alone, away from everyone. In particular my mother.

“Eve, are you listening to me at all?” My sister’s voice brought me back from wandering thoughts.

I looked back at my sister. We were two opposites in appearance and character. My hair was dark brown, hers was the color of light honey. Her eyes were light hazel brown, mine were dark whiskey brown. She was the sweeter and lighter one of us. I was always shy and she was the outspoken one. I was thin, she was more on a plump side. She was ten years older than me and the mother figure in my life.

Sometimes I wondered if she took on the job because our mother was rarely around and certainly wasn’t the motherly type. Elise knew every milestone of my childhood because she was always there… my first word, my first step, my first loose tooth, everything. Our mother wasn’t a mother to us at all, except biologically. Even my teachers at school would approach Elise when they needed a signed permission slip or an immediate response.

We sat there staring at each other and I wondered what I missed.

“Yes,” I answered instead, although not sure to what. I was too tired to ask her to repeat what she said, and truthfully, I didn’t care.

“Great,” she blabbed on. “I’ll be sure I’m still here on your first day so I can go with you.”

I blinked my eyes in confusion at those words. “Go where?” I asked her.

“I’ll take you to work on your first day so I can show you where it is,” she sounded exasperated. “You have to get back into a routine.”

There she went with routine again. She took my hand into hers and kissed it, that little gesture took me back to our childhood. I wished all the pain I felt right now was resemblance to the pain from falling off a bike or a swing, just like when we were just children. Elise always made it better. She was always watching over me, hovering over me like the mother hen.

When I was younger, I’d ask Elise why Mother didn’t like us, why she never played with us. She would hug me and tell me we’d always have each other. She promised she’d always love me and always be there for me. To this day, she has never broken that promise. Our mother, on the other hand, had broken almost every promise to Elise and me. She always put her needs before ours.

“I know you are hurting,” she whispered softly. “You’ll pull through. You have me, you’ll always have me. But please promise me you won’t leave me.” She kissed the scar on my wrist, a constant reminder of how far I went.

I felt like I was watching two strangers and wasn’t part of the scene. I wished her kiss helped ease the pain inside me. It didn’t. But I just nodded anyway, unsure whether I could even keep a promise like that.

She pushed a cup of tea over to me. “Now drink some more tea at least. You didn’t even take a bite of your food.”

“Where is this job?” I asked my voice flat.

She waved her hand to dismiss my question. “We’ll worry about that in a few days.” She motioned her hand to the cup in front of me before speaking again. “Now just relax and enjoy your tea.”

“Ok,” I answered disinterested. Truthfully, I didn’t care where it was or what it was.

I was blowing on my tea to hide my disinterest, avoiding my sister’s eyes. I didn’t want to upset her more.

“Brandon is here with me, although he’s busy with work,” she chatted. My sister always hated silence while I preferred it. “So I’ll spend most of the time with you. Hope you won’t kick me out of your apartment.”

She chuckled at her own joke glancing at her watch. “We have another hour or so then we’ll go back to your apartment and check out the cleaning job. We’ll take a few hours today to unpack and tomorrow we’ll do the rest. Ok?”

No, not ok, I thought. I didn’t want to unpack. But I remained silent.

“Do you want to have our hair and nails done together tomorrow?” Elise asked eagerly. “We could take a few hours and pamper ourselves. Like before.”

“No, not really,” I muttered under my breath.

“C’mon,” She could be persistent when she wanted to be. “I’ll make the appointment for the day after tomorrow then. You look like you could use a haircut.”

“I’m ready to go,” I stood up and headed for the door. I hoped she’d just stay behind but I knew there was no chance. She was right behind me as I exited the door.

We walked in silence all the way back to my apartment and were back right as cleaning ladies were leaving. They nodded to Elise as I walked past them straight into my fresh and clean apartment and into my bedroom. I stripped down into my underwear and bra, getting ready to get into the bed and under the covers when my sister’s voice stopped me.

“We agreed we’d unpack some,” she scolded me.

“No,” I glanced at her over my shoulder. “I never agreed.”

“Eve,” she pleaded, her eyes glistened with tears. I hated seeing her cry. I could never bear to see her upset.

I felt defeated so I just sat on the bed. She sat next to me and hugged me as I buried my face into her neck, feeling like a little girl again who ran to her big sister because she fell off her bike and hurt her knee.

We sat like that for a few minutes, me listening to her sniffling and her cradling me like a child. I couldn’t cry anymore; maybe there was a limit on how many tears you could shed in a lifetime.

“We’ll get through this,” she mumbled into my hair, her voice shaky. “Together.”

What is there to say to that?

“Can we please unpack some of this stuff?” she asked, tears and sadness still in her voice.

“Ok,” I reluctantly agreed.

She stood up quickly as if worried I’d change my mind and pulled me off the bed. Quickly she dug up a pair of yoga pants and a loose shirt and handed them to me.

A few hours turned into eight hours of unpacking and putting everything away. Elise chatted for most of the time we were unpacking and it occurred to me that it was the first time we’ve been alone in almost seven months. Before then, we talked almost every day and hung out every week.

It was way past midnight when we were completely done. The apartment actually looked like home instead of an empty box storage, but it didn’t feel like one. I wasn’t sure if any place would ever feel like home again. She glanced around satisfied with a smile on her face. I couldn’t muster satisfaction or happiness… absolutely no emotion about anything. Just regrets.

“I’m going to bed now,” I muttered to her and asked, “Are you leaving now?”

“It’s kind of late,” she smiled. “Is it ok if I stay here?”

I nodded and walked into my bedroom craving the little relief sleep sometimes brought on, when I didn’t have dreams.

Before I crawled into the bed, I walked over to the windowsill and glanced out over the river and lights of the city. I heard Edinburgh was beautiful in the summer, that Scotland was beautiful. I wouldn’t know, although now staring out the window, the city seemed to glow under the full moon.

It was as if I was seeing it for the first time. Maybe I was? Because I don’t remember looking out this window since I moved into this apartment.

As I continued staring out of the window, this place felt foreign, so did everything I saw.

That was good. That was the whole point of leaving the States.

Forcing my thoughts back to my sister, I decided I’d just have to make her believe I was okay. The sooner I did, the sooner she'd leave.