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“Maybe she feels she missed out,” Ellie said, not looking up from her cream cardboard top hat. “You know, eloping and everything. She never got a proper wedding.”
“We didn’t have to go through all this for their ruby wedding,” I grumbled, as a sugared almond escaped my grasp and fell down the side of the seat cushions. I recovered it, and rubbed it against my jeans to get rid of the fluff, before dropping it into the bag. It wasn’t as though anyone actually ate the things, anyway.
“But fifty years, that’s really something.” Ellie added another perfect top hat to the box, and reached for the next one. “It makes sense that they want to celebrate.”
“I bet you and Greg will be doing this in forty-eight years’ time,” I said, trying to sound excited at the prospect. “The big party, I mean, here at Rosewood, with table favours and fruit cake.”
Ellie looked up and caught my eye for the first time since I’d come home. “I hope so,” she said very quietly.
Her eyes were huge under her tidy blonde fringe, I realised. Huge and sad. As if just being near me was painful to her.
Maybe I didn’t need to search for answers. Maybe that pain was all the answer I needed.
But it was a reaction, at last, even if not one I wanted. At least I knew she felt something about me being there. She hadn’t cut me out of her life – out of her heart – completely. I wasn’t sure I should feel so relieved to cause my sister to suffer.
My thoughts and words started to run together. “I mean, you and Greg, you’ve already made it two years, that’s more than lots of couples make it, isn’t it? So, really, you should…”
“Stop it.” Ellie’s voice was quiet, but when she looked up, her eyes were blazing. “Just… stop it, Kia.”
“I just meant—” I tried to explain, but Ellie cut me off.
“No. You don’t get to comment on my marriage. You don’t even get to have an opinion on my relationship with my husband.” Every word was louder than the last, ringing out around the Orangery, battering their way into my head. I froze, hands still wrapped around a stupid cardboard handbag. This wasn’t the Ellie I remembered at all. Had I done this to her? Awakened this anger? “Whatever you might have thought two years ago, there is no place for you in my marriage, or with my husband. You’re not friends, you’re not confidants, you’re nothing. Do you understand that?”
“Of course I do,” I whispered. “I know that. And I wouldn’t—”
“Don’t tell me what you wouldn’t,” Ellie said, bitterness seeping through her voice. “You already did. Remember?”
Shocked silence fell between us. Of course I remembered. Even if I’d spent two years trying to forget.
“I’m sorry,” I said, for what had to be the thousandth time. More, if you counted the letters she’d never read. “I… I’m not back here to see Greg. Or to cause any trouble. I know I did an unforgivable thing; I get that. I just…”
“Want to be forgiven,” Ellie finished for me, her voice hard.
“You forgave Greg.” I didn’t mean to whine, didn’t mean to imply that she was being unfair or that I deserved the same. But still the words came out. And as I said it, I realised I wanted to know why. Why did he get to stay here, to be part of my family, to live the life he’d always wanted, while I was exiled to Perth to do penance?
“Greg told me the truth,” Ellie said. “After… it happened. He came to me, practically on his knees, and told me the truth. He told me he couldn’t marry me, because he didn’t deserve me. Did you know that?” I shook my head. I’d been too preoccupied with my own fate to wonder exactly what happened between Ellie and Greg. “He was ready to walk out, leave his home and his family and his job, his life, because of what you two did.”
“And yet he’s still here.”
“Because I chose to forgive him.” Ellie leant across the table between us, hammering her point home. “I chose to go through with the wedding, even knowing that he’d slept with my sister just two days before, because I loved him. I still love him. I knew he truly regretted what he’d done, and I knew that together, we’d be able to move past it.” She leant back, her gaze fixed on mine. “It’s taken a lot of work, a lot of talking, a lot of love, but we have. We’ve moved on, and our marriage is stronger than ever.”
“I’m glad,” I said, softly. “I’m so glad that you’re happy together.”
“We are.” Ellie gave a firm nod. “And we will be when you leave again.”
And that, I supposed, was my answer. As far as Ellie was concerned, there was no place for me at Rosewood.
“Who else knows?” I asked, looking down at my hands. “When… two years ago, you said you didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I was ashamed.” Ellie gave a short, sharp laugh. The sort that isn’t funny at all. “Me. I was ashamed of what you two did.”
“You shouldn’t have been. I should. I am.”
“I know I shouldn’t have been,” Ellie replied sharply. “And when I realised that… I was able to talk about it, a little.”
“Who did you tell?” I asked, desperation leaking out in my voice. I needed to know who already knew my secrets, and who didn’t. Who I needed to explain myself to, who I needed to convince I wasn’t here to cause trouble. Mum and Dad had both said they didn’t know, and I suspected that was more because Ellie had wanted to spare them
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