JOELLE

“What have I done?”

“You didn’t. He was already dead.”

That held some truth, although it wasn’t. My father was dead. I had killed him. Not the accident like everyone else believed. Like he’ve made them believe. And I’ve made myself, because I couldn’t face the truth. As Freud suggested, people often find defence mechanisms to cope with severe traumas of the soul. And mine was called “repression”, the unconscious blocking of unpleasant emotions, impulses, memories, and thoughts from your conscious mind. I’ve made the woods evil and the foxes too, when I was trying to repress the memory of my father smiling at me like saying, “I killed them. For us…” But the memories I really had repressed were those of my dad when my mother was picking my sister from her ballet class late in the evening and he was just returning from work, leaving the two of us alone…

But the point I was wrong, was that he did want my little sister alive. I just dreaded to imagine why. I hoped he would first have waited for her to grow. And that’s something I also dreaded to ever discuss with my sister. Because the truth is, I didn’t wanna know, I thought I’d gone crazy trying to repress that new traumatic information once more.

The next morning I got a call from the police that they checked our summerhouse and found no-one inside. I thanked the officer and he said he was sorry about my sister and recommended me some people I could refer to for coping with the loss psychologically. I felt bad for hiding the truth from a kind person who believed me for once and offered to help and it’s not because I thought I’d go for jail regarding the circumstances, my aunt would take my side and had connections with some very powerful people in New York, but I couldn’t bear to go to court and having to talk in front of everyone about what my father did to me, and more importantly in front of my little sister, who as far as I knew hopefully didn’t yet have a clue about this side of his. So, we got rid of him. In fact, Miss Saigon did. I don’t know how. We never talked about it again. It was our secret.

To my sister we told that he had died that night in the summerhouse from the shovel hits. Miss Saigon would find him and inform us later and somehow my sister knew that she could never talk about this with my aunt or anyone else again. “I won’t say anything to auntie. It would hurt too much. She already thought she lost her brother once.” I hugged her tearing up for the lies I’d told her, but I knew it was for the best. “Was last night’s deadly women episode cool?”

“Yeah, it was morbid little sis. You shouldn’t be watching that show though.”

“It was dad’s favourite!”

“It should have been mum’s favourite…”, mumbled I behind my teeth.

“You did and with your teacher, nonetheless…”

“Well, I had a strange feeling. It matched the ending of the night.”

“Please never leave me again, Joelle.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Pinky-promise?”

“Pinky-promise”, I say doing the pinky-swear with her.

“Can we play hide and seek?”

“Oh, I should have known that was you!”

“Yeah, you should. Who else would ask you to play that?”

“10,20,30…”, I start counting, covering my eyes with my palms and I hear the tiny footsteps of my sister running around the house. I couldn’t remember the last time I was as happy as that.

“Peek-a-boo!”. I laugh hearing Miss Saigon join the baby-games. “Shhh… Keep counting…”, she whispers softly to my ear. “50,60,70… Where did she go?”

“Oh, I’m not telling.”

“Good at keeping secrets, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I’m taking them to my grave!”

I smile softly looking through her beautiful green eyes. “90,100 and here I come!”

I slept with my sister in my nook once more. She managed to sleep though I couldn’t bear to close my eyes. She looked so peaceful for an orphan whose parents were brutally murdered from within their own family members. She was the reason I couldn’t sleep at night since then. I felt dread for what would become of her when she would get closer to my age. “I really hope you do better than me, sweet pumpkin.”

“Beep-beep!” The next morning held a pleasant surprise. The one kind and alive person of our family finally arrived.

“Auntie Carol!”, yelled the little girl and fell onto her aunt’s embrace.

“Oh, baby I cannot believe I am seeing you again. Where have you ever been?”

“She was placed in an orphanage. Huge misunderstanding with the police. We took care of it.”

“Oh, love, you’re here with us again now, that’s all that matters. Was it too bad?”

“Noo, I got to play some really fun game with the other kids…”

I smiled when my sister gave me the naughty look of enjoying harassing me for the last three years.

“Joelle, you’re the best girl ever, going through so much and manage to bring your sister home. I’m so sorry I wasn’t around more for you.”

“It’s okay, aunt Carol.”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not gonna leave you again. I’m here for good now.”

“What about New York?”

“I asked to be placed here in Ireland. We could go for Christmas there though, right?”

“Oh, we could go see Santa!”

“Santa lives in Finland Alyssa.”, chuckle I.

“Then why is he always on those American Christmas movies?”

“That’s a really good question…”, my aunt laughs.

Miss Saigon steps out of the house wearing a plain sleeveless dress, her hair down, freshly washed.

“Carol”, she pronounces softly.

My aunt lays eyes on her with warmth, tearfully. “Oh, look at you. It’s been too long.”

“Yeah…”

“Come here.”

As they embrace, I can see Miss Saigon shedding a tear on her left cheek which lands on my aunt’s shirt-collar.

“Whatever happened to your neck?”

She looks at her and then towards us as we slowly avert our gaze.

“Girls?” I felt like a 15year-old again when my aunt sounded like my mother every time she would realise we had been up to some mischief.

“I am sorry, Miss Saigon. I shouldn’t have scared you.”

“Why would you ever-“

“… or break your vase…”

“What?”

“Or tried to threaten you with the kitchen-knife when you were still unconscious…”

“Okay,… okay Alyssa…” I am grabbing her, pressing my palm to her tiny mouth, looking towards my aunt who’s frozen in place along with Miss Saigon who is looking at me quite puzzled and concerned.

“I am sorry”, I mumble to her without making any sound and she nods at me, trying a soft smile.

My sister bites my hand to let go of her. “Ouch!”

“What? You always say apologising is the responsible thing to do.”

“Yeah, yeah it is.” I say out loud. “For the things the other person already knows you’ve done”, I mumble to her behind my teeth.

“Oh. Okay, bye Miss Saigon!”

“Not so fast young lady.”, my aunt pulls her from one arm.

My sister tries her best smile to emit all her cuteness and my aunt sighs, smiling softly.

“We’ll talk about this at home. Take your things and get in the car.”

“That’s all I got!”, says holding her teddy bear.

“Didn’t you wear clothes at the orphanage? Or underwear at least?”

“They were all gross, we threw them away…”, I hurry to say.

“Yeah, they were nasty.”, Miss Saigon adds.

“Okay, looks like we’re doing some shopping later…”

“I hope you dear have some underwear with you…”

“I’ll just grab my backpack from the guest-room.”

As I reached the guest room I saw a book placed on the nightstand. It was my diary. Apparently my sister had returned it. I was ready to grab it when I had the weirdest thought of leaving it myself to Miss Saigon’s nightstand. “I am better at written words rather than spoken.”

I run down the stairs and hug Miss Saigon tightly before I hurry off to my aunt’s car.

My aunt slowly approaches Miss Saigon whose face seems to have a different spark.

“Janet, thank you so much for taking care of my girls.”

“Don’t even talk about it Carol! Anything for your family…”, says she, giving her a soft caress on her shoulder while my aunt takes hold of her hand that’s on her, squeezing it tightly.

And by the way those words came out of her mouth, I just knew. I knew Miss Saigon’s secret…