Clopwyck River - revised version

Chapter Twenty-three

"Where's Daria!?"
I sprinted to the house like the devil was chasing after me, slamming the front door open like I was arriving to collect a debt. Panting and dizzy from the run, I storm into the living room and find Andrew sitting in an armchair.
"Demi, keep it down! Elliot's in-" He stops mid-sentence as soon as he sees me.
​"Where's Daria?"
​"Demi, are you-"
​"I said where is she, Andrew! Tell me! ANSWER ME!"
He holds his shaking hands up in front of his chest in an attempt to either calm me down or to defend himself. I'm terrifying him but I don't care. He can't be as scared as I am. I hear the living room door click shut and turn around to see Daria standing in front of it, her wide eyes betraying the confidence of her straight back and shoulders.
"Are you okay, Demi?"
Her voice, free from shock but drenched with fear, is just a whisper. Her quiet words set off an explosive mist of anger that descends over my eyes. Striding towards her I push her into the door, pressing one hand on her chest so she can't escape my questions.
"What do you think, Daria? Do you think I'm okay? Is there anything you want to tell me?"
I punctuate each question by smacking the door, her eyes squeezing shut each time, fighting to force out the reality of my words. I feel Andrew suddenly behind me, his hands grasping at my wrists, repeating my name calmly as he pulls me off of his wife. I shove him backwards, then I let go of her, looking her up and down like a rabid dog about to attack.
"Have I been here before, Daria? Did I used to live here?"
​I'm breathing in her face like a wild stallion, close enough that I can see blood vessels in her eyeballs and tears starting to pool in her tear ducts. Broken glass tinkles from behind me and I feel a hint of shame as I realise I must have pushed Andrew into the coffee table. He picks himself up and attempts to remove glass from his clothes. I take a step back and Daria moves from the door, anger flashing in her eyes as she pushes past me to get to Andrew.
​"Are you okay?" She asks him.
She checks Andrew for injuries, her hands searching his limbs, his chest, and finally resting on his face as they stand together. She looks into his eyes, love tinged with fear.
​"I'm ok." He pulls her into him, and looks at me over her shoulder. "It's ok, I'm ok. I'll check on Elliot."
Andrew breaks away from her and walks to the door, leaving us together in silence. Daria walks towards me, but I don't give her the chance to speak first. I speak slowly, anger rippling my voice.
"Just tell me. I swear, I need some answers, Daria. Why did Leo's Dad tell me that I was here when I was little?"
​"Sit down."
​"I don't want to sit down! I just want you to tell me the truth!" She slumps into a chair, rubbing her temple with a shaking hand. "Just tell me! Was I born in Cambridge?"
​She looks at her hands, twisting them in her lap. Her chest rises and falls a few times before she answers.
"No. You weren't."
​"Where was I born?"
​"You were born here. In Clopwyck."
The truth materialises in the room, and confusion and anger swirls in my stomach. I sit down in the chair opposite her.
​"I don't....Why? Why would you lie about something like that? I don't understand. Why would Mum lie?"
​Daria looks at me, and the tears spilling down her cheeks are a total shock to me, even in the middle of this bombshell. The tears cleanse her skin, revealing a truth underneath the ground in layer of deceit.
​"She wasn't your Mum, Demi."
"She....what? What are you talking about?"
​"And I'm not your sister."
​"W-w-what?"
​"I'm not your sister."
​"Wh-who are you?"
​I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. Everything in the room blurs and drops away into a swirling chasm at my feet. One more step and I will go too. All I can see is my mirror image sitting across from me, and I know what's coming before the arcane words leave her lips.
​"I'm your Mother."
***
I feel like I'm on one of those fairground rides, the ones that spin around and then the floor drops away. Only the floor is never coming back up, and I'm going to keep whirling round and round for eternity. I stand up slowly and try to walk to the door, out of this room, away from her, but I slump to the floor. Daria starts to get up, and horrified that she might be trying to help me, I shoot a hateful look at this stranger.
"You're lying."
My voice is barely a whisper. Tears drop from my cheeks onto the carpet. I've never cried these kinds of tears before; tears of hatred.
​She calmly shakes her head. "I'm not lying, Demi."
​"Don't say my name!
​She shrugs her shoulders against my voice. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry? That's not a word you can understand, ever! It's small! It's VOID coming out of your lying mouth! How dare you say that to me!?"
​"What do you want me to say?"
​"Nothing! I don't want you to say anything!"
​Daria stays seated, looking down at her hands in her lap, and grants me the silence I demand. I pull myself up into a sitting a position, being careful not to move too quickly in case I vomit or faint. Or both. I bury my face into my knees, my tears soaking through my leggings. I never knew it was possible to cry with such fury in your heart. I stay in this position until my legs go as numb as I feel inside. A whisper escapes my mouth, but the voice sounds like a stranger's. I guess, in a way, it is.
"Why?" Daria doesn't respond, instead she stares right at me, like I'm the one who's been caught lying. "I said, WHY?"
I spit the word out like it's poison and she lifts her chin slightly, almost defiantly.
​"We had our reasons."
​"We?" Is she talking about my father?
​"Me and Mum."
​"Forgive me, Daria. When you say Mum-" My fingers accompany the word with angry air quotes. "Who exactly are you talking about?" As soon as the sarcasm laced words leave my mouth, I realise who she's referring to.
"Mum? My Mum? She was my Grandmother?"
​"Yes." She says the word like someone's asked her whether the next bus will be coming along soon, not like she's revealing hidden branches of my family tree.
​"She was your mother?"
​"Yes."
​"You're lying."
​"Why would I make this up? You wanted the truth. This is it."
​"How could she do this to me?" As well as anger, resentment is now starting to course through me, making my voice and body shake like I'm an addict detoxing from a class A drug.
​"Like I said, we had our reasons."
​"Well, spit them out then! It's been sixteen years! You must be aching to get it off your chest! You better start telling me Daria, I swear to you!"
​"Where has all this come from?"
​"Why does that matter? It shouldn't have come from anyone but you, or Mum, but it has. I need to know why you lied to me, why you and Mum lied to me."
​She shakes my words off. "Did Leo tell you this?"
​I glare at her. "It was his Dad."
​She balls her fist and thuds herself on the thigh. "I knew you getting involved with Leo was a mistake. First Ben, then Leo." She shakes her head. "What did their Dad tell you exactly?"
​"He told me....wait. Wait a minute." I stand up and pull one of the notes from my back pocket. "Was this you? Have you been sending me these notes?"
​I shove the note in her face but she won't even look at it, and I know it's her.
​"What the f....my own sister? Mother? Whatever?! Why the hell would you send me these notes? Do you know how scared I've been? What is wrong with you?!"
​She jumps up, ripping it from my hand. "I was trying to keep you away from Leo because I knew this would happen." She turns from me, rolling the note up in her hand as she paces the room. "What did Dan say to you, Demi? I need you to tell me."
​Her tone is scaring me but I reply. "He told me that Ben was attacked when he was little, and that I was there and saw the whole thing."
​"And do you remember being there? Do you remember what happened?"
​"No, I..." I frown and slump back down on the chair. "I don't remember what happened, but I....I wish I could remember, then maybe I could help Ben. I-"
​Daria whirls round. "No. No, Demi. You need to bury all of that. You can't help Ben now, not by digging up the past."
​"Don't you dare tell me what to do! You've got no right! Just tell me what happened? Why did I leave Clopwyck?"
​"I can't tell you, Demi."
​"Why not? What are you hiding from me?" I'm so worn out I can barely speak, only the adrenaline from the shock of the truth is keeping me going.
​"I'm sorry, but....look, I was your age when I got pregnant. Mum was supportive and tried to help me but it just didn't come naturally, I was a baby myself for God's sake. She was practically raising you anyway, so it just seemed like...an opportunity arose for a fresh start for all of us and..."
​"You couldn't wait to get rid of me."
​"No, I mean, it wasn't like that." Daria's shoulders slump and she looks ten years older. "You have no idea how hard it is, raising a child, and I wasn't doing a good job. I didn't want to be a Mum, I just wanted to be....I just wanted to be me."
​"So Mum, sorry, your Mum just decided to pack up and leave Clopwyck River and raise me as her own? Come on, Daria, you can do better than that. What are you not telling me?"
​She folds her arms. "Nothing. There's nothing more to say. That's all you need to know."
​I stare at her open mouthed. How can she can be so dismissive about my life?
​"You still haven't told me why you were sending me those notes, to keep away from Ben and Leo. What have they got to do with any of this?"
​"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now."
​I watch and wait as the clock on the mantelpiece ticks off each silent moment, the truth sinking deeper and deeper into the dead air around us. I study Daria's features as she stares at the wall. She's in a daze of memories and I'm thankful for the lack of eye contact.
"Is this seriously all you're giving me?"
​My voice jolts her back from the past. Folding her arms she is my sister Daria again, unapproving and inconvenienced, even more of a stranger to me than she was before.
"You don't need to know any more than that, Demi. This, all of this, is what I've been trying to protect you from."
"Protect me? You mean by ignoring me and making feel like an intruder in your home?"
"How the hell am I supposed to act with you? Tell me? You arrive here and we're supposed to be all happy families? I thought that part of my life was over, but here it is, back in my house."
"So sorry for the inconvenience."
​I wait for an answer but she doesn't respond. She avoids my eyes again, her own thoughts rushing through her. I realise that she isn't going to volunteer any more information, and I don't really know what else I want to know. How am I supposed to ask about what I don't know? Where do I go from here when I've only just found out what the beginning is? How can I trust what comes out of her mouth? Out of Andrews's mouth? Anybody's? I'm alone with nothing but 16 years of lies. How can I start to balance that out with a truth that's out of my reach?
"Are you even sorry?" I ask.
​"I'm sorry that we lied to you and I'm sorry you found out this way, but I'd do the same again. I didn't have any other choice."
​I shake my head in disbelief, her lack of regret making me realise what I need to do. I take out my phone and dial Jackie's number, my heart sinking when the ringing clicks through to voicemail.
"I'll leave as soon as I can." I stand up and walk towards the door. Daria places a hand to her forehead, rubbing it hard as if it will erase the last hour.
​"Where are you going?"
​"I'm going back to Jackie's." I look at my phone, my heart leaping as it vibrates with a message before it sinks back down when I see it's Leo. "As soon as she calls back. For now, I just need to get out of your house. I feel sick being here."
​"Demi-"
I close my eyes, anticipating the concern and the apologies, not wanting any more revelations on board.
"Stop! I can't hear any more!"
​"I was going to say that Andrew could drive you to Jackie's."
I stare at her. "You're unbelievable! You can't wait to get me out of here, can you? Why didn't you tell me all of this earlier, and you could have got rid of me a week ago?"
​"It's not that I don't want you here, Demi. You need what's best, and I don't think that's Clopwyck, or me."
​"Are you kidding me? You don't care what's best for me. You don't want me here at all, you couldn't make that any more obvious. I've come to you, begging for the truth and you're only giving me what you feel like sharing. You just want to pretend I never happened."
​"Honestly? Fine. Yes. That too. It's difficult to explain, but trying to be your Mum was the most difficult thing I've ever done, you have no idea. I was just a child myself! Don't think that I'm punishing you. I'm not comfortable having you here because I don't want you to make the same mistakes as me."
​I shake my head, laughing at her. "I'm nothing like you! I would never make the same mistakes- I'm not stupid enough to get myself pregnant. You're scum, and as far as I'm concerned we're not related. Being your daughter disgusts me, and I never want to see you again."
​I look her up and down, not giving her the chance to share what she has on the tip of her tongue and storm out of the room slamming the door behind me. If only it were that easy to close the door on my life.
A floorboard creaks and I look up the stairs. Andrew is standing on the top step in the glow from the night light, holding a sleeping Elliot in his arms.
​"Demi," he whispers, his shoulders falling as he exhales. "I'm so sorry. I- I don't know what to say."
​I stare at him as he walks down the stairs. "You knew about all of this?" He solemnly nods his head, unable to look me in the eye. "Jesus, this just gets better, doesn't it? How could you keep that from me? I thought...I thought I could trust you, but you're just as bad as she is."
​"Please don't be like that." His eyebrows fold together in appeal. "This is hard for us too you know, but we are your family. That hasn't changed."
Elliot suddenly whimpers, a three year old's nightmare disturbing his peaceful slumber, and a tiny little crack forms in my steely resolve as I watch him rub his head against Andrew's shoulder. Andrew shushes him and strokes his back then looks from his little face back to me, and realisation suddenly cements over that crack as I know what Andrew is going to say before he even says it.
"Elliot's still your family. He's your brother. You've gained a brother here, Demi. Don't turn your back on that."
Angry that Andrew is using Elliot as a tool in winning back my trust, I ball my fists and glare at Andrew.
"He's not my brother." The low light hides my tears. "He's a lie."
​"God, Demi! Don't say that. You'll come to terms with all of this. You need to give Daria a chance."
​"You mean like she gave me a chance?" The question hangs in the air, and Andrew can't answer it as there is nothing to say. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I never wanted this life anyway. I'll be out of here as soon as I can."
​Tears heat my cheeks and I turn from Andrew and Elliot, open the front door and run into the cold embrace of the night.