The Prodigal Sister: An emotional drama of family secrets by Laura Elliot

Author:Laura Elliot [Elliot, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781910751015
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2015-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-nine

Havenswalk

Conor lands the first trout and quickly dispatches it with the cosh. The proper term for the cosh is a ‘priest’ but ever since the time Conor landed a massive blue fish and yelled, ‘Where did I leave that fucking priest?’ and Lyle doubled-over laughing before admitting he used to be a priest, Conor leaves the word out of his fishing vocabulary. Another trout hits the deck, then another. Once the catch is sufficient for tonight’s menu–Ruthie plans to serve stuffed trout–he is content to let the boat drift. The afternoon stretches before him.

His aunts have done the fjords and are heading back to Queenstown. Mel Barnes arrives this evening. She plans a week of yoga and meditation with the other guests before chilling out for the wedding.

The first time Mel visited Havenswalk, Conor, who was nine at the time, thought she had stepped straight from a vampire’s coffin. He is older now. Last year she stayed for a month. By the time she left, he was in love with her. Just looking at her sent electric shocks through him. Ridiculous, considering she was even older than his mother. But age made no difference to his feelings. All that black lace, skinny leather boots and eyeliner, her coal-black hair with the fringe hiding the dark mystery of her eyes. It’s impossible to imagine his mother looking like a Goth, whereas Mel looks as if she started playing with bats in her carry-cot.

Mel used to be called Melancholia. In bed, in secret, he whispers, ‘Melancholia…Melancholia…Melancholia…his hand moving faster and faster until he gasps into his pillow and becomes calm again. If anyone knew…just thinking about being discovered brings him out in goose bumps. His father might understand, man-to-man talk, except that Conor finds it impossible to talk to anyone, even Lyle, about his feelings for Mel.

‘When did my mother become a Goth?’ he asked her when she stayed with them last year.

‘She was never really into the scene,’ Mel replied. ‘Behind all the drama, Cathy was a sweet young girl whom everybody loved.’

Everybody still loves her. All the guests and staff, and her friends who come to visit, tell him he is lucky to have such a thoughtful, understanding mother. Yet she wanted nothing to do with her family for more than fifteen years. He knows she was up the duff but that was the nineties, not the Dark Ages. Had she considered aborting him? His expression hardens as he squints into the sun. Birds glide over the lake, claws for surf boards and giddy from the morning heat. To have missed all this. He toes a dead trout out of his way, suddenly unnerved by the frozen eyes staring at him.

Born into the lives of two women and living in the relative isolation of Havenswalk, it had taken time to sort out the difference between his own life and that of his friend Oliver, whose father trained the youth rugby team. On Saturdays he took Oliver and Conor to

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