Paper Cranes

Part Sixteen

I was back on the beach and fell back to reality with a bang. My heart was determined to break out of my chest and I could barely distinguish the three faces leaning over me. I was dizzy and confused. Before, my father had no face. I didn’t know him, I realised. There was this huge chunk of my childhood missing. And now it was filled. And I almost wished it hadn’t been.

“Moira…” I slurred. “Tell me what happened to my parents.”

 #

Moira decided we couldn’t leave in that state. She drove Casper, Soph and I back home and gave each of us a hot drink before she took a seat opposite me.

“You can speak.” she said. She sounded amazed, like she’d witnessed a miracle.

“I can. Now tell me about Dad. And Mum.”

“Look, the reason I didn’t tell you before,” she said, clearly picking her words carefully, “is because I didn’t want to bring up painful memories. I didn’t know what effect it would have had.”

I nodded. Finally finding my voice had cast back my mind to the moment it was taken from me. That was a pretty strong effect. But for now, I just needed to know what happened to my parents.

“I… I’m not your step-mother.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m your aunt. My sister… she was your real mother.”

Sophie was staring wide-eyed. “But… you’re my mum!”

Moira nodded, “Yes, Soph, I am. You were born to me and my husband, Jason, after we’d taken Isabelle in.”

“Taken me in? Where’s my dad?”

“Isabelle, you really don’t want to hear this,”

“I know he killed my Mum. Where is he?”

“He did some really bad things to your mum, Isabelle. And to you.” She turned to Casper and added, “That’s why I worried about you doing anything to her.”

Casper nodded and the only sound in the room was the clock ticking solemnly.

“He did some really, really horrible, and disgusting things, that man. But he is behind bars now, where he belongs, and he will be for the rest of his life.” Moira concluded.

It was a lot to take in. But I sure-as-hell was not going to get up and leave this time.

“And Jason is the one who is always at work? You’re carrying Jason’s baby? Not Dad’s?”

Moira nodded. She seemed surprised how well I was taking everything.

“Okay. I get it.”

I didn’t, really. My head was spinning and I was hurt. Why did Moira pretend to be my step-mother all this time? Why couldn’t she just tell me that I was adopted when she and Jason took me in? And I felt… betrayed that I thought Sophie was my sister; she was actually my cousin!

I was so mixed up inside. I made my way upstairs and into my room. As I lay in bed all these pieces of my life began to put themselves together. It explained why I had self-confidence issues, and why I was so fragile and skinny. I had always felt something had been haunting me, and now I knew what it was. As my memories gained clarity and the past became clear, I recalled what had happened to me in this very bed. I felt sick, and jolted up, looking desperately around my bedroom. All these things; my desk, my window, my wardrobe, they were all in that horrible vision of my father. He was alive in my memories of this house, and I couldn’t stay there a minute longer.

 #

“Casper, now that I have a voice, I could tell you everything.” I said thoughtfully, stood outside the car and ready to leave. “But the fact that I wanted to say your name so much it gave me a voice? That says it all.”

He leaned in and kissed me for the last time.

Moira looked up and smiled at me, raising her eyebrows.

I squeezed his hands and then dropped them, turning to open the car door.

“I love you, Casper Ardvan.”

“And I love you too, Isabella Oakley.”

I sat down in the car and strapped my seatbelt in. He closed the car door then waved as we pulled out of the driveway. We’ll see each other again, I decided, I promise.