The Sister Surprise Abigail Mann (most difficult books to read TXT) 📖

As I step away to look at her, Ross lightly touches my shoulder. ‘Hey, I’m going to head back to the church. Call me if you need to, OK?’ He kisses me on the forehead and I notice for the first time that he doesn’t give a furtive glance up the road to see if anyone is watching.

‘Thanks. Honestly. I really appreciate it.’ I reach for his hand and he folds my fingers into his palm, his thumb grazing my knuckles. He steps back, keys in hand.

‘Hey, no worries. Glad I could help. Lorrie, it was a pleasure. Speak soon?’

‘Hope so!’ she says, perky all of a sudden.

He drives up the hill, leaving us clutching each other on the pavement. Mum takes a deep breath and looks up and down the road, fiddling with the zipper on my coat.

‘Of all the things I couldn’t predict, you and that priest is at the top of my list. I didn’t raise you to be religious.’

‘He’s not a priest, but he is a minister. The rules are different. Our relationship isn’t … spiritual, as much as it is—’

‘Say no more. They didn’t make them like that when your grandma marched me to church twice every Sunday. I probably would have been more enthusiastic.’ For two people who have candid conversations about the menstrual cycle over tea and cake, we’ve never been so good at The Big Topics. Tiptoeing around them in a conversational Morris dance is more our style. Here, there’s no time to waste.

Mum slips on a pair of mittens, the wind buffeting her wild hair, like she’s in the epicentre of a hurricane. ‘I think you’re getting more use out of my old raincoat than me.’

‘Mum, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming here. I don’t know how much you—’

‘Ross explained some of it. It started with that video, didn’t it? The day you came back with a migraine?’

I nod and fold her hat back so she can see properly. I lighten my voice in an attempt to diffuse awkwardness.

‘The fun news is that we’re a tiny bit Russian and Great-Grandma might well have been secretly working for the KGB. The not so fun news is that I found out I had a sister during a live broadcast and then I vomited everywhere, which is now preserved on the internet, for time immemorial.’

Mum’s lips are pursed, but her eyes are doleful and soft. She cups my jaw and looks at me like she’s trying to recognise the parts that belong to her.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she says.

‘Because I knew you’d be upset. And you are, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I bloody am,’ she says. She shoves her fists in her pockets and scowls. ‘I’m fuming.’

‘This is why I didn’t mention it at the time,’ I say, forcing a smile as Jenny the Wink walks past, a bag of M&Ms poking out of her raincoat pocket. ‘I was going to, the night before the live stream, but then Ginger came in and it wasn’t the right time. I knew basically nothing about my father and whenever I brought him up you got all weird and sad.’

‘We didn’t need him,’ says Mum with an edge of stubbornness.

‘The fact that you’re the one who gets to say that is exactly the problem. But this isn’t about him anymore. It’s about Moira. Oh, you’re not going to like it, but there’s someone else here—’

‘Who? Oh …’

‘Ava!’

I turn around, looking up the street to where Moira stands with one foot out of the tearoom. She waves with a swooping arm, giving us a double-handed thumbs-up before disappearing back inside.

‘Let’s get on with it then,’ says Mum, picking up her suitcase.

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘I’m not being like anything.’

‘Let me carry it,’ I say.

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Please let me carry it.’

‘I said I’m fine.’

‘Stop being difficult!’

We jostle on the spot, each with a hand on the suitcase, our fingers curled tightly around the handle.

‘This is like one of those god-awful episodes of Chucklevision,’ she says, putting on an accent. ‘To me, to you—’

‘How dare you take the Chuckle Brothers’ names in vain. I won’t stand for it. Not on my watch.’

We stop jostling, the suitcase poised between us. She stares at me and I stare back, unblinking, until we crack and burst into laughter. We laugh for so long that my cheeks hurt, the wind pulling tears from my eyes. Overhead, seagulls squawk at a pair of fishing boats. The sound is just as shrill as the two of us, gasping for breath on the cobbles below.

‘Stop. I’m not wearing my TENA ladies,’ says Mum, clutching me for support, one leg crossed in front of the other.

‘This is why I wanted to bring you up here,’ I say, when we’ve both composed ourselves. ‘Moira wants to meet you. Jacqui’s had less warning, but I’ve got a feeling she knows who I am, so …’

‘Oh, Christ. Is she here?’

I clench my teeth and nod. ‘Like it or not, we’re a family now, of sorts. A blended family. Actually, a curdled family might be more accurate. It depends on what happens when we get in there,’ I say, nodding towards the tearoom.

‘And this Moira … she’s Andrew’s daughter? His other daughter?’

‘Yep. She talks about ten different things at the same time, is totally bananas, and completely brilliant.’

‘If she’s related to you, she’s going to be at least a little bit off the wall. You’re a two-person portion of banana split yourself.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

I zip my jacket up and try to rub warmth into my hands. The wind blows up the cobbled hill from the bay, where the oil rigs sit on skeletal haunches, crouched behind a veil of sea mist. ‘I didn’t mean to drag you into this,’ I say. ‘But I couldn’t think of how else to move forward. I can’t unknow the results of that DNA test.’

Mum tucks her hand into my pocket as we walk up the hill.

‘If anything, I dragged you into this. Twenty-eight