“I told you I was leaving.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t think of anything that I could say to make her step away from the door, to stop her from leaving us. So I just stood there, staring at her like an idiot.
“I just can’t take any of this,” she motioned to the chaos of empty bottles and cigarettes scattered around the floor, “anymore. So I’m going.”
“Please, Cathy,” I whispered, finding my voice, “Please don’t go.”
She looked up at me with her pleading brown eyes, eyes so tired and filled with pain. It hurt so much to look at those eyes I had to look away. “I can’t stay here, Thomas. You know that. Why should I stay? What’s here for me?”
“She’ll get better, I swear she will,” I was nearly begging now, nearly on my knees.
She couldn’t leave me. Not now. We’d stuck together all this time, she couldn’t leave me now when I needed her most.
“Oh, for goodness sake Thomas!” she snapped, exasperated, “You know as well as I do mum’s not going to get better! She’s got a serious problem, one that she won’t let us fix. She’s never going to get better.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So you’re just going to give up on her then?”
“She’s given up on herself. Stop kidding yourself. Look at this house. Covered with her cigarette stubs and her empty wine bottles. Because of her stupid drinking problem.”
“So you’re going to leave us instead of trying to help?” my tone was patronising as I glared at her accusingly, “You’re not just going to give up on her. You’re going to give up on me and Eden too. That’s great. Thanks, Cath.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and fell to the floor. “I’m sorry Thomas. I’m so sorry.”
And as those words escaped her lips I knew there was nothing I could do to change her mind. She was leaving.
I wanted to slap her, to strangle her, to scream in her face. I wanted to bury her in my arms and cry with her. My head was sore with my contradicting feelings.
“So this is it,” I said softly, my voice empty of emotion, just tired.
“I guess.”
She laid a hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with her tear-stained face. “I will come back some day, and I’ll take you and Eden away with me. And it will all be okay. I swear.”
Her eyes told me she wasn’t lying. I nodded solemnly and squeezed her hand.
She turned and picked up her backpack, filled with her possessions. Flinging it over one shoulder, she turned and opened the front door.
Just as she was about to step out, she turned back and flashed me a weak smile. “Don’t miss me too much, little brother.”
“I’ll try,” I replied, my voice catching with emotion.
She strode down the path, past our overgrown messy garden, and opened the old broken gate. Then she turned and headed down the street, each step taking her further and further away from me.
She looked back once to wave, and then she turned a corner and she was gone. Just like that, as if she had never really been.
I closed the front door and turned around to see Eden standing in front of me. Her big brown eyes, so alike to Cathy’s, were clouded with fear and confusion.
“Is Cathy going away forever?” she said, on the verge of tears.
As I looked at my little sister, standing there with her lip trembling in the half light of the hallway, I realised how vulnerable she was, and felt a sudden surge of love for her. She was only five. Too young to understand anything, too innocent to understand.
I gathered her into my arms and she buried her head into my shoulder. “Of course not,” I mumbled into her hair, “She’ll come back some day, and everything will be okay.”
“You swear?” she asked, her innocent eyes poring into mine.
I smiled at her, my beautiful little sister. “I swear.”
