Devlin's Secret

A Suspicion

Our Auntie Kay was something slightly indescribable. Hugo and I had different opinions of her. I remembered her being strict and controlling throughout my life, whereas Hugo talked about her fondly as a favourite relative. God knows why. I would have thought that if he'd been the most suspicious of anyone, it would have been her. I certainly was.

Something about her appearance six weeks after Mum's funeral put me on edge. She only ever stayed over when something important to her was happening. She didn't even go to the funeral.

She had only been in the house a few days and I already wanted her gone. If she wasn't ordering me around or putting ideas in Hugo's head, she was starting arguments with Mama and causing an amount of stress that nobody needed.

I was simultaneously glad and angry that I was sacrificing my bedroom for her. I could hear her going through my stuff at night. When I confronted her about it, she told me I was being paranoid and told me that if it bothered me that much, she'd leave the door open. I told her it was unnecessary but she did it anyway. Hugo argued that this was a gesture of goodwill, but I knew her better than that.

Mama spent a lot of time crying or napping. She would call me into the office and I would hold her until she fell asleep on the chaise lounge. Kay told me I needed to stop mollycoddling her otherwise she'd never recover. I told her I'd comfort my mother for as long as she wanted me to.

After about a fortnight of this, Kay saw me leaving the office and said "Andie needs to get over it now."

I shut the door. "Her wife has just died."

"It's been five months." She stepped closer to me.

"It's been three months," I replied without moving an inch from where I was. "And regardless, it takes longer than a few months to get over the loss of someone close to you. My parents were each other's lives, don't you think this might have affected her mentally?"

"Well if that's the case," said Kay in a raised voice. "She should go to a doctor instead of spending all day feeling sorry for herself."

At times it astounded me that Kay, a woman in her mid forties, still had the maturity levels of a teenager in secondary school.

"And that was how you decided to suggest the idea to her?" I raised an eyebrow.

The door opened behind me. "I've been," said Mama to Kay. "And how dare you speak to my daughter in that tone of voice? Just remember Becky lives in this house and she's got more right to be here than you have."

Kay looked at me sideways and tutted. "You actually trust someone as soft as her?"

"She's not soft. She's just an adult. And I trust her more than I trust you. Me and Devlin raised her perfectly."

Kay didn't say a word in response. Instead, she gave me a steely glare and shoved past, her hair brushing my arm as she turned to go downstairs.

Auntie Kay was elegant. Even walking around the house in jeans and no shoes, she managed to look like she was there on business. She always wore a full face of makeup and had her hair tied into a high ponytail. For a very long time, I had thought she was younger than my parents because she looked like someone at least ten years younger than herself. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed she was in her mid to late twenties, or her early thirties at the oldest.

She was the headmistress at her local school, and she suited it well. Although I often wondered what the students thought of her. If she had been my headmistress, I wouldn't have liked her at all. But she had pretty much brought that school up from the ground, and even saved it from becoming an academy a few times. She liked to brag about how it was now considered one of the most successful feeder schools for theatre, music and art courses at specialist colleges and universities. The irony of it was that she hadn't studies any of the arts herself.

Hugo told me later that day of his suspicion that she had an ulterior motive for being here.

"Ulterior to what?" I questioned. "We weren't given a reason she's here in the first place. Mama just lets her do whatever she wants."

He shrugged and replied. "Well it's not as if I'm always right, is it? And anyway, I don't think it's anything malicious. Just secret, same as everything else. I just want to know, y'know?"

I, too, was eager to know. The first of Mama's secrets had not yet been revealed and I was becoming anxious as to what it could possibly be. She had seemed so serious about it.

Things were no closer to making sense, and I had a feeling that these secrets would only create more confusion.