Sisters and DAUGHTERS

Gemma’s life was complicated enough – and then an email arrived…

- Alison Carter

I was terrified of the whole thing. I couldn’t help thinking that this was the worst time to be meeting my sister, the only person (except for my kids) who shared my genes. Family life was hard enough without an addition to the dynamics and an injection of uncertainty. But Hilary had reached out to me and how could I say no?

‘OMG!’ my middle daughter, Alexis, said, a few mornings after the email arrived. ‘I can’t stop thinking about this, Mum. I had no idea you had a sister.’

‘Neither did I,’ I replied, still reeling from the news.

‘I was pretty jealous of you being an only child, and then she contacted you,’ Alexis said with a grin, ‘and I stopped being jealous.’

‘Charming,’ Kate said. She had just entered the kitchen in her work uniform.

‘How cool would it be,’ Alexis said, ‘not to have sisters older and younger than me, both idiots with a history of being lame and annoying?’

Alexis is the clever one. She is the star of classroom and music exams, the one with a shelf in her room laden with certificates and cups.

She dropped into a kitchen chair. ‘It’s so weird,’ she said, ‘Grandad having two families. Will this Hilary come for Christmas?’

‘Calm down, Ali,’ I said. ‘This is early days. Nothing may come of it.’

‘Let Mum take this at her own pace!’

‘Yeah, chill, Ali,’ said Kate in her serious voice. ‘You never think. Let Mum take this at her own pace.’

Ali rolled her eyes. ‘How come you always want to tell me what to do? And you think I don’t know that Mum needs time and space?’