Shadow Sister. Литагент HarperCollins USD

M! My mother’s name is Johanna but her fourth middle name is Maria!’

      I can’t help but laugh.

      ‘It’s all guesswork,’ Thomas says in his normal voice.

      ‘Yep.’ I survey the last piece of steak on my plate. After a long pause, I look up and say, ‘But I still believe in it.’

      Thomas looks at me, his expression troubled again. ‘Well,’ he says at last, ‘it might be good for you to believe in that.’

14.

      Raoul is the only person I feel comfortable with at the moment. He’s the only one who knows how it feels. And my parents, of course, but their grief is too large to leave room for me.

      We go for a walk in the Bergse woods and end up having coffee on the outdoor terrace of a restaurant. Valerie’s spending the day with Raoul’s parents.

      ‘How are you getting on now?’ I say. ‘Are you coping?’

      I’m asked that question so often myself that it makes me feel ill. How do people expect you to be getting on? And of course you’re coping, you have to, you can hardly give up breathing. But my own grief gives me the right to ask such a clichéd question and I have to because Raoul looks dreadful. So dreadful my stomach bunches up.

      Raoul stares at the black liquid in his mug as if he’s wondering why he would have any need for it now. Why carry on eating, drinking, and all those other trivial acts when so much emotion and pain is racing through your body?

      ‘Do you know what kills me?’ he says. ‘All those people who say “time heals” or that I should be “grateful” for all the lovely memories I have of Lydia. That she’s gone to a “better place”. She’s lying under the cold ground!’

      I remain silent, not at all taken aback by his outburst.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I constantly get the feeling that Lydia is close by.’

      The very second I say that there’s a gust of wind. We should be sheltered by the restaurant building.

      ‘I keep dreaming about her,’ I continue. ‘About earlier, when we were little, and our childhood. We had so many rows.’

      Raoul looks up from his coffee. ‘I always argued with my sister too.’

      ‘I know it’s normal, but I regret it now. Every nasty word I said to her, every mean thought.’ My voice quavers.