Dark Mirrors by Siobhain Bunni Page B

together for the best part of a year, you know.”
    This was news to Esmée. Her memory of that particular family event was one of excitement and anticipation. She remembered the power of her assignment to the top bunk and Lizzie’s relegation to the bottom. She remembered the fun and games that those beds brought, transformed with draped blankets and torches into caves and treasure troves. The move into her little sister’s room was made without argument – so releasing the fourth bedroom on the half landing for her dad’s new ‘study’.
    “Christ. Mum, I never realised.” She was amazed as slowly the links connected and the revelation finally dawned.
    As if proving a point, her mother nodded purposefully. “I know. We made sure that none of you found out.” Gripping the dishcloth harder, she continued. “You know, I thought he was having an affair too.”
    “Dad wouldn’t do that!” Esmée leapt up, almost choking on her own breath as she pushed out the objection, shocked that her mother could even think like that.
    “Why not?”
    “Because he just wouldn’t – because he loved you, he loved us!”
    “Yes, he did, there’s no doubting that, but like you I knew things weren’t right. I never asked him and he never told me.”
    Steam billowed from the tap as she spoke to the water that filled the sink to wash the few dishes.
    “Even when he was . . . just before he . . .” the same magnetic charge tickled her skin as she felt his essence brush by, “before he passed away, I thought about asking him but I didn’t have the nerve. What would I have achieved if he said yes? Why would I ruin what we had? Why end our time together by looking to the worst of so many beautiful wonderful years?” She passed her hand across her chest and smiled pensively, quietly lost in the memory. “In hindsight,” she eventually continued, “I doubt it was true, but if he had done I’d understand why.”
    “Mum! You’re kidding – aren’t you?” Esmée found the conversation almost too hard to take. It was certainly taking a turn that she hadn’t anticipated. She actually felt nauseous as her mother stated her case.
    “We were in a bad place, he and I,” Sylvia went on, “and people do funny things when they’re depressed.”
    Esmée’s head was reeling, having always thought, never doubted, that her parents had the perfect life, the perfect marriage. Depressed, who was depressed? Her father? Why?
    “But we got through it,” Sylvia continued as she rinsed the soapy cups under the hot tap. “We kept at it, not only for ourselves but also for you, your brother and sisters.”
    In that moment Esmée saw her mother in a very different light. She didn’t know if she felt respect or pity.
    “I don’t know what to say, Mum.”
    “There is nothing to say really,” her mother consoled her almost cheerfully. “In those days you didn’t go to counselling – you just got up and got on with it.”
    She came back to the table, drying her hands on a tea towel before throwing it over her shoulder and sitting back down. “I knew my place, and that was to be by your father’s side, through thick and thin, to support and care for him. I was his ‘other half’! I pushed him when he needed a shove and held him back when he needed to take time out. I listened to the stories from his day when he got home in the evenings and advised him when he needed help. Those stories in the evening over dinner completed my day.” She stopped to allow memories that she had blocked out for a long time now to come flooding back. “I used to host the most wonderful dinner parties for his work people, you know.” A vacant misty look came over her as she proudly remembered – as they both remembered – those magnificent nights.
    Esmée recalled how her mother would rush upstairs to get ready in the late afternoon just before her dad would arrive home, how she wore those brightly patterned maxi skirts and garish ruffled shirts with