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Chapter Forty-Six

Shantal

F amily dinner was everything I’d been missing and more.

I got to listen to all the embarrassing baby Darien stories, met two relatives over video call, heard how Darien got his start karting, and received multiple helpings of dinner while I was at it. They lavished affection and kindness like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. And it was truly beautiful; when it came time for us to leave with full bellies and hearts about to burst of happiness, I almost didn’t want to.

But that same little bit of something that had threatened to ruin my night wraps its claws around my heart early the next morning. It is the first thing on my mind when my eyes flutter open to the sun peeking through the slats of the blinds in the bedroom of Darien’s house in Santa Teresa.

I don’t expect the pain to hit me, and I think that’s why it hurts so badly.

I watch Darien’s back rise and fall with breaths, his hair tousled against the pillow beside me. After the dinner last night, we’d both returned in high spirits, wine-blush staining our cheeks as we laughed our way through the best of each family member’s quips. Now, that feels like a distant memory.

I can’t stop thinking about Darien’s cousin, Karolina, and her family.

I imagine Sonia playing with her son, holding him as he grabs her hand and she smiles down at him, brushing a hair from her face as she leans down to press her cheek to his. I imagine that he grows up, and she takes him back to 63 Beach, where his tiny feet make grubby footprints in the sand when he walks between his parents. He points to a fish in the water and Sonia laughs, hugging him tight.

My throat closes up. My breathing snags.

I can still see her decorating the nursery, a week before she died. She wore these overalls with plain-coloured shirts under them and made scarves into headbands. She hung blue bunting and whales and sailboats on the walls, compared photos to decide which ones should go on the dresser, folded clothes so small you could fit them in her husband’s hand. They’d laughed about that, both of them. Creating that room filled them both with joy.

‘Shantal.’ Darien’s voice, sleepy, sounding as if I am underwater and he’s on land. ‘Hey, Shanni?’

I swing myself out of the bed on unsteady legs, but I need this. I rush over to the sliding doors that open onto the balcony and push them so that I’m outside.

My shoulders heave as I struggle to breathe. Strangled cries escape me. I allow myself, for the first time, to replay what happened that night.

‘ Shanni! ’

Darien’s voice is panicked behind me. I hear the balcony door slide open and then feel his arms around me, the warmth of his bare torso against mine. He rubs my back and strokes my hair. His heart thuds in sync with mine as he whispers, ‘Breathe, Shanni, breathe. God …’

He doesn’t push me for answers, even though I can feel how badly he wants them. He exhales and rests his chin on top of my head. I don’t dare let go of him. Something about being in the midst of that family so full of warmth and love has suddenly sparked grief in me that I never got the chance to properly process. And for so many reasons, it throws up as much guilt as grief.

‘ I didn’t know,’ I cry into Darien’s shoulder. ‘That she was … dying.’

‘She was …’ Darien’s body goes still with shock for a moment, and then softens again when he holds me even tighter. ‘Don’t say anything. You don’t have to say anything.’

‘Darien, I watched my sister die.’ The once-unspoken words are poison, settling in my throat and shredding my vocal cords. ‘She was dying, and … we could have treated her, Darien, if we had known. But she did nothing, all so her baby could …’ I press a hand to my mouth. My fingers quiver, and I shake my head. ‘We lost them both.’

‘Oh, my god.’ The realization gradually enters his eyes as they widen with sympathy. ‘Shanni, I’m, I’m beyond sorry, I just …’

I know. He lacks the words, but so do I. In the depth of that terrible night, I had heard something crash in the kitchen. When I ran down the stairs, I had found Sonia unconscious on the ground. I was the one who called the ambulance.

We don’t want to remember people this way. We want to remember people the way they look in their best portraits: glowing, happy, warm … alive. She was already going cold when I found her. Dying. My sister, as always, had planned for everything, but as all of us except Rohit, her late husband, learned that night, the cancer had already decided her fate.

Sonia had been suffering from a grade-four glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer, for seven months. With treatment, it was possible, if not probable, that her unborn child would not survive. Rohit sobbed as he recounted trying to convince her that it wasn’t worth it, but Sonia wouldn’t be swayed. The rest of us were told what had happened by the doctor after they tried to revive her for nearly twenty minutes.

Seven months . My sister quietly endured that hell for seven months just so her child could live. I think that was the worst part about it, that everything she put herself through was in vain. Sonia’s son – my nephew – didn’t survive, either. We tried to stay in touch with Rohit for a time after, but eventually he slipped away, moving on to build a new life for himself. I didn’t entirely blame him.

‘The night before, Darien, she’d just been sitting with me, just talking and reading, and I remember her saying, “Don’t waste your time in making everyone else happy, Shanni. You’ll end up walking on hot coals for the rest of your life.’’’ I force the next sentence out, something I’ve never told anyone about my sister and her decision. ‘And that was the first time I heard anything from her, anything like a complaint. Then I found her and … and I realized that there was a slight chance that she … she didn’t do it for herself, that she was just … doing what everyone wanted. They wouldn’t shut up about kids. Get married, have kids. That’s how it goes.’

There’s so much I want to tell him. So much I want to come clean about. All those things I’ve ignored about my own future, about possibly following through on my plea to my parents after this season is over, that I’ve pushed aside to continue living in this world where none of it matters except the two of us. I am so selfish. It hurts both of us, and he doesn’t even know it.

So how do I tell him that? How do I tell him I’m scared I won’t be able to live again, that everything I promised I would do, just like Sonia, is to make everyone else happy? How do I tell him I’m scared I won’t get that happiness for myself? That as much as I’ve fallen for him so, so hard, I could possibly become my sister, and becoming my sister, of all things, is both my greatest duty and fear?