Scarlett nodded, a flush of relief crossing her features, and set off towards the garden at breakneck pace. Instead of heading for the table and chairs on the terrace, or the spacious summer house, Scarlett kept marching downhill through the gardens. Without even glancing back over her shoulder at Jackie, she launched herself at the old tree and swung her leg over one of the thicker, lower branches.
‘I thought we might as well talk on your territory,’ she said.
Jackie just stared at her. This week had to be the most bizarre of her entire life.
Scarlett smiled at her—not her usual bright, confident grin, but a little half-smile that reminded Jackie of the way she’d looked when she’d stuck her head round Jackie’s bedroom door and had asked her to read her a bedtime story when Mamma had been too busy.
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’ Jackie hoisted herself up onto ‘her’ branch again. ‘I thought you said this was silly,’ she said, shooting a look across at Scarlett, who was now sitting quite merrily astride a branch, swinging her legs.
‘It is.’
Jackie grunted and pulled herself upright and straddled the branch so she could look at Scarlett.
‘We always used to come here to whisper about things we didn’t want Mamma to know,’ Scarlett said. She picked at a scrap of loose bark on the branch in front of her, then studied it intently for a few seconds. ‘Are you going to tell her?’ she said, not taking her eyes off the flaking bit of tree she was destroying.
Jackie waited for her to meet her gaze.
‘I have to. It’s all going to come out into the open shortly.’
Scarlett nodded.
Jackie drew in a breath and held it. ‘But I have to tell Romano first.’
A look of pain crossed Scarlett’s features. ‘I’m so sorry, Jackie. I should have told you earlier…’
Jackie kept eye contact. Scarlett didn’t shrink back; she met her gaze and didn’t waver.
‘Yes, you should have,’ she eventually replied.
Scarlett sighed. ‘It was easier to pretend it had all been some horrible nightmare once I’d moved to the other side of the world. I thought I could run from it, pretend it hadn’t happened…But as time went on, I realised the true implications of my actions and I…’her chin jutted forward ‘…I chickened out. I’m sorry.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘What can I say? The gene for self-preservation is strong in our family.’
Jackie exhaled. She knew all about chickening out, all about desperately wanting to let the truth out but not being able to find the right word to pull from the pile to start the avalanche.
It was much harder than she’d anticipated to stay angry at Scarlett. Just yesterday she’d thought this fierce sense of injustice would burn for ever. But these weren’t just pretty words to smooth things over and keep the family in its disjointed equilibrium. Scarlett’s apology had been from the heart. After all that had passed between them, could they use this as a starting point to building their way back to what sisters were supposed to be?
‘At least I understand why you hated me all these years.’ She’d done it herself many times—made an error of judgement and turned her fury on the nearest victim rather than herself. A trick they’d both learned from their mother, she suddenly realised.
She wanted to say she was sorry too, for disappointing Scarlett, for setting up the series of events that had forced her to leave her home and live with her father, but she couldn’t mimic Scarlett’s disarming honesty. The words stuck in her throat.
In one quick movement Scarlett swung herself off her branch and landed on the same one as Jackie, side on, so both her legs dangled over one side. Her eyes were all pink but she hadn’t surrendered to tears yet.
‘Is that what you thought? That I hated you?’
Jackie felt the skin under her eyebrows wrinkle. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘No!’ The volume of her reply startled both of them. ‘No,’ she repeated more quietly.
‘But…’
Now the tears fell. ‘I didn’t leave because of you, Jackie. I left because I couldn’t live with myself.’ Scarlett hung her head and a plop of salty moisture landed on her foot. ‘When you came back from London you looked so different, so sad…I couldn’t face seeing you like that. So I did what any self-respecting little girl would—I ran away and told myself it wasn’t my fault.’
Jackie hadn’t thought the pain could get any worse. She’d only ever thought about how she’d felt, how she’d been wronged. Emotionally, she’d never matured past fifteen on this issue, too concentrated on her own wounds to see the others hurting around her. It was as if she’d only just woken up from suspended animation, that she could suddenly see things clearly instead of through a sleepy fog of self-absorption.
Romano had a daughter he didn’t even know existed. He’d missed all those years; he’d never be able to get them back.
And Scarlett had carried the scars of this terrible secret round with her all her life. It had affected their relationship, Scarlett’s relationship with their mother…everything.
Jackie’s eyes burned. She closed her lids to hide the evidence and grabbed at the sleeve of Scarlett’s blouse, using it to pull her into a hug. They stayed like that just resting against each other, softening, breathing, for such a long time.
‘I was too proud,’ Jackie whispered. ‘I should have gone to Romano myself, but I took the coward’s way out. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it, Scarlett.’
Scarlett pulled back and looked at her, eyes wide. ‘You mean that? You forgive me?’
Jackie had to stop her bottom lip from wobbling before she could answer. ‘If you can forgive me.’
Scarlett lunged at her, tightening the hug until it hurt. Unfortunately it caught Jackie off guard and she lost her balance. Scarlett let out a high-pitched squeak and it took a few moments for Jackie to register what that meant. Uh-oh. They clung even tighter onto each other as the tree slid away from them and they met the ground with a whomp, leaving them in a tangle of arms and legs.
‘Ow,’ said Scarlett, and then began to laugh softly.
Jackie wasn’t sure whether she was moaning in pain or laughing along with Scarlett. The pathetic noises they were making and their fruitless attempts to separate their limbs and sit up just made them laugh harder.
‘Girls?’
Their mother’s voice sliced through the late-afternoon air.
Scarlett and Jackie held their breath and just looked at each other. Unfortunately this prompted an even more explosive fit of the giggles, and Lisa found them crying and laughing helplessly while trying to wipe the dirt off their bottoms at the foot of the old pine tree.
The boy slowed his Vespa to a halt at the back of the abandoned farmhouse and cut the engine. Everything seemed still. He looked up. The sky was bright cobalt, smeared with
