Page 21 of The Library of Second Chances
It was a woman, slim with long hair, and Chloe’s reservation petered out in favour of surprise.
‘There you are!’ the woman exclaimed, marching right up to her. She was wearing a jacket that was much too thin for this cold weather, her blonde hair longer than when Chloe had last seen her. Her polished fingernails were clutched around her slender arms as she gave a cross sigh. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here for ages.’
Chloe recovered from her shock, and a profound sense of weariness washed over her as she pulled out her house keys from her bag. ‘Hello to you too, Gwen.’
CHAPTER TEN
THE KETTLE WAStaking forever to boil.
Chloe watched it as it steadily rattled louder as her younger sister pulled off her jacket. Gwen shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here. Is the central heating on?’
She didn’t wait for a response but switched it on herself then settled onto one of the dining room chairs, blowing air up to her forehead. Chloe tore her gaze away from the world’s slowest kettle to look at her. It was awkward, avoiding the topic of why they hadn’t seen each other in years, but Chloe was too shocked to want to bring it up already.
‘How’s it going with, erm . . .’ Gwen squinted at the ceiling. ‘That guy you were seeing? Simon?’
The guy from Sheffield?‘We actually broke up over a year ago.’
‘Oh, right. I’m sorry.’ Gwen looked pained, and Chloe almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
‘Er . . . what are you doing here?’ she asked her. Last she’d heard, Gwen had been sipping margaritas somewhere in Europe. Or maybe it was the Caribbean.
‘Hm, what?’ Gwen wrung her hands. ‘Oh, yeah. Well, I heard you’d come back to move into this place.’ She looked around, and at least had the decency to look wistful. ‘I, um, wanted to see it for myself.’
‘Did you?’ Chloe didn’t believe it. ‘Who did you hear that from?’
‘Auntie Paula.’
‘Right, right.’ Chloe nodded. She supposed word of their parents’ house and who it was going to must have reached the relatives. Initially, it was supposed to go to both of them but since Gwen hadn’t shown up for any of the meetings or responded to solicitors’ calls, only Chloe currently had a key. ‘And you came all the way from where? Spain? To see the house you grew up in?’
‘All right, look. I’m broke,’ said Gwen, looking annoyed. ‘My boyfriend broke up with me and my money’s run out. He . . . He did it on the plane ride back and then left me on my own at Heathrow Airport. I could barely afford the train ride over here.’
The kettle finished boiling. Chloe poured them both tea, glad to have something to do with her hands. ‘And you need somewhere to stay,’ Chloe finished the sentence for her. She supposed she should feel sorry for her sister, but Gwen didn’t tend to stay with the same man for long. She looked more annoyed about it than heartbroken.
‘Well, yes. I mean, it’s my house too,’ said Gwen stiffly. ‘Thanks,’ she added when Chloe set down the tea in front of her. Milky with one sugar, she remembered.
Mum and Dad hadn’t written an official will, as they had only been in their fifties when they’d died. But only Chloe had responded to enquiries about it, and been here to clean it up and eventually move in. Gwen hadn’t come to the house with Auntie Paula to help pack away Mum and Dad’s things, a painful process. A prickle of annoyance ran through Chloe at her sister’s audacity. ‘How long will you be staying?’ she asked carefully, fighting to keep her voice even. She noted Gwen hadn’t actually asked if she could stay, but that was typical of her sister.
Gwen wrapped her hands around her mug, and Chloe noticed the varnish on her nails was chipped, the skin around them nibbled and raw. ‘Well, I don’t know. As long as I need to, until Ifind somewhere else to go.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I should find a job.’
Chloe didn’t really want her sister here. There was a painful awkwardness between them, in the way Gwen’s eyes didn’t quite meet her own. But Chloe felt pity as she beheld her little sister. She couldn’t throw her out when she had no money. There was plenty of space here for them both.
‘Stay as long as you want,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Yay! Thank you.’ Gwen beamed at her and jumped from her chair to give her a hug. Chloe forced a smile as her sister’s slender arms wrapped around her. ‘You’re a lifesaver. You were always the more mature sister, Chloe.’
Chloe wasn’t in the mood for Gwen’s compliments. She could be sweet when she got what she wanted, then cold the next moment. ‘I have work tomorrow,’ she said after she’d gulped down her scalding tea. ‘You sleep in your old room, all right? I haven’t moved anything in there.’
‘Where is everything?’ Gwen asked as Chloe was straightening up the living room. Her sister glanced around. ‘There used to be a big bookcase here, and some framed photos. Right?’
Chloe straightened. She’d never had much of a filter when it came to her sister, and her shock was wearing off in place of annoyance. ‘If you had bothered to come to the house after the funeral, Gwen, you’d know that we spent hours – days – sorting out all the old stuff.’ It had been a slow, bitter few days, where Chloe had had to endure obscure relatives swapping memories about her parents, reminiscing about Chloe’s antics when she was a child, and remarking on the fact that Gwen hadn’t joined them. Packing stuff into boxes, nodding along when aunties and uncles and distant cousins lamented that they didn’t spend enough time together, then locking herself in the bathroom to cry when the pressure had become too much.
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was stuck in Fiji,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get a flight out in time, andsomeonewouldn’t push the funeral back to wait.’
‘Funerals aren’t something you can justpush back.’
‘You didn’t even try. It takes over a day to travel back from there. And I didn’t even hear about the accident until they were . . . and I was . . . in shock.’ Gwen blinked rapidly, her lips pressed hard together. Chloe looked away, not wanting to broach the subject of the car crash. Not yet.
‘And when I did get back to England, I . . . I couldn’t face it,’ Gwen added, folding her arms.
