Identity [ON HIATUS]

21. Family Meeting

"Right, family meeting. Now."

My dad liked to fancy himself the head of the household, but really, none of us were anymore. We were ghosts that loomed the halls of a long forgotten house at the end of the street that nobody came near.

No, that was wrong; my parent's friends became even more of friends if that was possible. The first few weeks they brought meals in glass bowls wrapped in cling film, never asking for the pots cleaned or returned. They helped, offered to clean, to take them out to dinner, to drive them to work, to call into work for them.

I watched as two grown man and woman became the children of the neighbourhood's care. But I only saw it in fleeting moments when I was there and whole and not traipsing around, Rose inhabiting my body and brain.

I'd stepped one foot into the hall when my dad had cornered me and steered me into the living room where mom sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes on my eyes. I sat on the couch opposite as they both bored into me with concern and anger and frustration like I'd never seen it.

"We know something is wrong, Daisy." Mom spoke softly, as if one wrong word or sound might make me explode. My stress levels were rising just being there, and I knew that soon, I wouldn't be alone. "You just need to talk to us, we can't do anything if you don't talk to us."

"Why are you speaking to Charlie Merchant?"

"Stewart." Mom eyed him; apparently the topic of Charlie Merchant was supposed to be for later, but Dad ignored her and pushed on.

"I don't understand, Daisy. He's part of the reason your sister isn't here anymore and I've seen you go to his apartment, I even saw you have coffee with him! Are you two dating?" I understood how stalked celebrities felt, suddenly.

"No, we're not dating! It's just...it's just..."

"Support." We both looked at Mom, who gave me a warm smile, and I felt my heart grow. I nodded. "Let's not forget; Charlie Merchant is grieving too."

I'd never heard it said that way before; with those exact words and that tone and that feeling that we both knew was true. No one had ever said it out loud, and though I'd seen Charlie on the floor of his apartment, drunk and weeping and holding onto me like I might bring Rose back to life, I'd never thought of him as grieving.

How he must feel when Rose in my body barges through his doors and demands love and warmth and shelter, but he can't give it to her because his mind tells him that she's not here anymore, and then his eyes betray him. I betray him.

"This is not what we're supposed to be talking about." Mom glared at Dad one more time before turning back to me and clutching her hands together as if they were mine. "Sweetie, can you honestly tell us that you're here all the time?"

My eyes widened. "Here? As in home?"

"Not exactly. Sometimes, you talk like Rose, and wear her clothes. And, me and your father think that maybe that isn't you..."

I wanted to crawl into the cushions of the couch, wanted the ground to swallow me up, but deep inside I knew that this was the right thing to do. My heart pounded within my chest, the locked door's hinges breaking.

"I can't control it, it just happens." I whispered to the point that my parents had to lean in to hear me, to hear every bone cracking and muscle tensing. "She protects me." And that's when my mother held my hand, and my father held the other, and we all, in unison breathed a sigh of relief. But it wasn't just relief, because this was nowhere near over.