The Silent Sister

Three

"Edith Rose!" 

I jerked awake the next morning as our parents' shouts filtered up to my room. I've always been a light sleeper-- you know that better than anyone-- but the voices of our mother and father never fail to instill just a little bit of a fight-or-flight reaction in me that does a good job of giving me a nice dose of morning adrenaline (you described it that way; I've always marveled at your aptitude for sarcasm). Even you, the braver one, always tensed up when your name was mentioned. 

Our parents weren't necessarily bad people, I think... I think they just didn't know how they got two children like us. We were so different from them. You and your adventures; me and my silence. They were the model of what a middle-class business couple should be. She, though she worked in an office, was the epitome of the whole women-are-inferior-to-men ideals-- she wanted nothing more than to get two healthy children just like her. He, in his stupid, high-up position in the same office, was the height of the same ideals, and I'm 97% sure he wanted sons, instead of daughters. 

Instead, they got us.

Sitting up in bed, my movements barely rustling the blankets, I turned my head, searching for you. 

"Cas?" I whispered into the semi-dark. No answer. After I stood up, I saw your sleeping bag and pillow neatly folded in one corner. A melancholy sigh escaped my lips. I had hoped you would stay, but evidently my hopes were futile.

"Edith Rose, come down here!" the voice of our mother shouted again.

As I padded out of my room and down the wooden-floored, modern-bannistered stairs I hated so much, a frown of worry tugged down the corners of my lips. Something felt off. Our conversation from the previous night, your disappearance before I awoke (whenever you left in the mornings, it was always after I woke up. Or you would wake me to say goodbye with your usual farewell of "goodbye, Edie-roo. I'll see you in a bit."). No such thing had happened that morning. 

I sat down between our parents at the breakfast table. Our father looked over his black-framed glasses at me, his coffee cup raised halfway to his lips and his newspaper held steadily in the other hand. 

"Where's your sister?" He asked. I shrugged, barely glancing up at him as I picked at my food.

Our mother scoffed, flipping her perfectly straight hair with one heavily manicured hand. Where you and I got our wavy locks from, I'll never know. Certainly not from either of our parents.

"Don't mind her, Mitch. She'll turn up in a few days," she replied in her irritating, honeyed, penetrating voice, "And use your words, Edith, you know how to speak." A slight scowl crosses my features at her condescending tone. Had you been here, you would've told her off. "Now apologize to your father for being rude," she hissed at me like an oversized snake in a pantsuit.

Beneath the table, my hands clenched and unclenched angrily. But I managed to keep a straight face as I turned to the man and said quietly,

"I'm sorry. She's not here." Though my voice was soft, I was careful to articulate so I wouldn't have to repeat it. Our father nods curtly.

"I accept your apology, Edith." He never said much to me, 10 words being his usual maximum communication directed at me. I think he preferred to ignore my existence— to him, I had achieved my ultimate goal of becoming invisible.

He nodded, glancing at his watch as he did so.

"Well, I'm off," came his usual farewell. Without further ado, he pecked a terse kiss on our mother's cheek (I'm pretty sure they only ever had sex twice, and you and I were the results) and picked up his briefcase. Our mother grabbed her coat and hat and he led her out the door.

And then I was alone in the silence.

As soon as I was sure I could hear their car tires in the driveway, I bolted up the stairs and into my room.

•-•-•

That's how I ended up sprawled on my bed at 3:34, just finishing replaying the events in my mind while waiting for you to come home. A huge sigh pushed its way from my lungs. What if our parents were right, and I was just being paranoid?

The thought was just beginning to sink in when it hit me.

"Do you know my laptop password?" You had asked. What if it wasn't just a random question, what if it was instructions?