Marlowe

I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Olly make eggs for breakfast. Wài Pó stood beside him, occasionally interrupting his rendition of ‘Into the Mystic’ with questions about his life in London, his family, his work. As he dolloped spoonsful of butter into the pan, she gasped, then threw her hands into the air and laughed.

‘You only live once! Put more!’

I realised that for once she wasn’t chewing nervously on a hawthorn candy or a White Rabbit. It occurred to me that she seemed happy.

A tap on my shoulder. Louis.

‘Um, Marlowe. Stepmonster is here.’

‘What?’

‘She’s at the doorway, but I did not let her come in.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she is a stepmonster.’

‘Louis!’

I rushed to the door.

Without make-up on, Irene looked like a ghost. Her lips were the same colour as her pale cheeks. Her dark eyes seemed to sink back into their sockets, rimmed with grey. She was dressed in sweat pants and trainers. After I got over my initial shock, I found myself missing the Irene I knew: red-lipped, stiletto-heeled, brimming with confidence.

‘I know you don’t want me here, but your father said Harper wanted to see me… and I would really like to see her too.’

When she spoke, she seemed small, vulnerable. Without thinking, I gave her a hug. ‘I’m glad you came,’ I said.

‘I’m glad you came too.’ Dad was standing in the doorway behind us.

I didn’t know exactly how long the two of them had been apart, but I knew I needed to give them space. As I walked back into the house, I turned to look over my shoulder. Dad had taken Irene’s hands in his and was gently caressing her palms with his thumbs. I lost my breath for a moment, recalling how he used to do this with Mum. I let myself realise for the first time that Mum wasn’t the only woman Dad had ever loved.

I told Harper that Irene had arrived, and she smiled and nodded.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

We sat together for a while before she cleared her throat. ‘I want to ask you something.’

‘Shoot.’

‘What do you love about me?’

‘You’re my sister.’

‘No.’ She shook her head before asking again: ‘What do you love about me?’

I thought for a while. How was I supposed to put it into words? I closed my eyes and saw my sister when she was small, dancing in the snow. Her lips were blue and she was about to collapse yet she was not in distress; in fact, she seemed to be somewhere else completely, somewhere I wished I could go. In that moment, I understood the difference between us. It was as if life’s loneliness would never touch her. She was the embodiment of happiness. She made it seem simple. As snow fell onto her hair, her forehead, the tip of her nose and her scarred chest, she laughed. I’d thought I felt envy back then, but as I sat with my sister as adults, trying to put these feelings into words, I realised it was something different. She had one foot in this world and one in another – and this ‘other world’ was one I would never fully understand, no matter how hard I tried in my laboratory. But how was I to put this into words?

‘You are magic,’ I say. ‘Very few people will ever be able to see the world like you do.’

She smiled. ‘I like that.’ A laboured breath. ‘Marlowe?’

‘Yes.’

‘When I’m gone, you won’t forget that… that word for me, will you? I mean… that magic word.’

Would I?

‘I won’t forget.’ I thought of the day my parents brought her home and how, since then, she had enmeshed herself in every fibre of my being. ‘I won’t forget.’

‘Good,’ she sighed before resting her head back on the pillow.

‘Harper?’ Irene walked into the room barefoot. Neither of us had heard her coming.

Harper smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you came to see me, Irene.’

I’d never heard her address Irene by her given name before.

‘I’ll leave you guys to it.’ I stood and turned to leave.

‘No, stay,’ Irene said. ‘What I have to say is for you too.’ She sat beside Harper’s bed and I pulled up a chair beside her.

‘I owe you both an apology.’ She lowered her head.

‘I have had a lot of time to reflect on things. When Marlowe started talking to us about getting you a new heart in China, Harper, I couldn’t believe that she would go through with it. And then, when she took you to Shanghai, I began to remember you both as you were years ago, when I first met you. I realised there was so much I didn’t understand about what you had been through before I came into your lives.’

I thought about how much I used to loathe her, how often I had wished that Dad had never met her, but now I wondered if this was less about Irene and more to do with the simple fact that she was not my mother.

‘Thank you for speaking about your feelings,’ said Harper. ‘And now, I think I need to tell you something back.’ She is silent for an uncomfortable amount of time before she speaks again. ‘One: I am not mad at you anymore. Even though I did have some anger at you in my heart about some of the things you said to me, this has gone now because I understand in my heart and in my mind that some things in life are hard and not everyone feels the same way I do and that is okay.’ She takes a congested breath. ‘Two: this is the most important one. I think that the reason my dad has not married you is not because he does not love you in his heart, but because he is scared about you losing your physical body in the same way our mum lost hers.’

Irene nods, and in a very soft, very hoarse voice she says, ‘Thank you.’

‘Irene?’ Harper says.

‘Yes?’

‘I have to tell you one more thing. But this is a personal private thing that I am thinking in my brain.’

‘Okay…’

‘I think that you need to wash your hair and your face and your body and put on one of your red dresses and some pointy shoes. You look bad right now and you don’t smell so great. This is the worst look I have ever seen you in, ever.’

Irene laughs. A full, belly laugh, and then, when she snorts, I find myself laughing too.