Page 63 of The Good Sister

Rose blinks. For a moment I think she’s going to argue with me but instead she says, ‘So she’s repeating things?’

‘Yes and she can ask for a drink, say she’s hot, that kind of thing.’

‘Oh.’ Rose turns her back to me, slicing the top of a zucchini.

‘Teresa also said she mentioned Billy, Rose. And murder.’

Rose keeps her back to me, but she becomes still.

‘I’m worried, Rose. What if someone suspects something?’

Now Rose turns. ‘Well, what did Teresa say? Did she seem concerned?’

I shrug. ‘She says confabulation is common among patients with acquired brain injuries.’

‘Confabulation?’ Rose’s bracelet falls off her wrist and clatters against the floor. She swears under her breath.

‘She thinks Mum’s brain created a story. She says it’s common for people with acquired brain injuries.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

Rose exhales. ‘Of all the things Mum could talk about with her new-found speech. She really does have a gift for ruining our lives.’ Rose bends over and picks up the bracelet.

I hesitate. ‘Rose?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Was shereallya bad mum?’

Rose looks at me. ‘Youknowshe was.’

When I don’t respond, she looks aghast.

‘Fern, she neglected us terribly. She dragged awful boyfriends in and out of our lives. For god’s sake, she overdosed on pills leaving us without even one parent who could care for us!’

‘You’re right.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘But . . .’

‘But nothing.’ Rose groans.

‘I get the sense that she’s sorry for what she did. I think she loves us, Rose.’

Rose throws up her hands. ‘Agree to disagree, then. I know that you want to have a relationship with her, Fern, but trust me, she’s not a good person. There are things you don’t understand.’

Rose waits for a response from me, so after a few seconds, I nod. After all, theremustbe things I don’t understand. Because as I look back over my memories of Mum, at least ninety per cent of them are good.

JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE

As I’ve been reliving my childhood in excruciating detail for this damn journal, walking down Memory Lane – or Nightmare Avenue – has brought back all kinds of details, in vivid technicolour. But my therapist doesn’t want me to skip over anything – not asinglething – including the night that everything changed, and the hours leading up to it. So . . .

Fern didn’t talk to me the day after she saw Billy and me kissing . . . She made basic conversation (‘Pass the tomato sauce’, ‘No thanks, I don’t want to go to the river’), but things were frosty enough that even Mum and Daniel noticed something was up.

‘What’s going on with you kids?’ Daniel asked over lunch.