half of what I say is meaningless [ Phoebus : important ]

How did this happen? She was gone and then she was back, now she's gone again. I'm standing in the front doorway of my apartment and there's a crying child in my arms and I don't know what to do. She's gone, and she's never coming back, and she's left me with this child. What do I do? I look down at the baby and my mind goes blank. It's not happy. It wants its mother, but she's gone. She's not coming back, kid. I still hope that she will, but at the same time I know it's pointless. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone.

It's been raining since last night. My sister was a mess when she came to the door. There was no warning, nothing to prepare me for it. She knocked and I answered, wondering who could be at my door at this time. For a split second I expected the police. I didn't expect it to be her. I'd slowly come to accept that I'd probably never see her again.

Taliene's clothes were worn, creased, as if she'd been wearing them for a long while. I stared at her face, tear-stained and exhausted, heavy bags underneath dull eyes that had once been a sweet green. Then I stared at the bundle she cradled in her arms and I just didn't know what to say. A strangled 'how...?' escaped me and I lifted my eyes again.

She begged me to invite her in, insisting she wouldn't be long. I wanted to reach out and embrace her, I wanted to cry and I wanted to laugh and I wanted to kill her. I stepped back without saying a word and shut the rain out, shut the world out. It was me, and her, and...this child.

"Everyone thought you were dead."
"I-I'm--I'm sorry."

My sister stared down at the child in her arms and I saw tears streak down her face. Her lips parted as if to speak, but trembled and closed again. I retreated into the kitchen and boiled the kettle. A cup of tea solves everything, our mum used to say. It doesn't, of course, but it gives us an interlude. Something to break the cycle of misery.

"Rut, I'm sorry.
"Alri'."

She didn't speak again until I came back through with a mug of tea for her. I set it on the coffee table and sat opposite her, hands clasped infront of my mouth, elbows on my knees. I stared at the child. There was a feeling of dread in my stomach.

"Is it yours?"

Taliene choked back a sob at that and nodded, shaking as she adjusted the blankets wrapped around her -- her -- child. I could see her brain working, I could tell she was trying to decide on something.

"Julia."
"Sorry?"
"Her--her name. Her name's Julia."

Not a Latin name. It figured, though; mum and Tal don't have Latin names, but dad and I do. Even Caedo, my stepfather, that's Latin as well. Granted, it means 'kill', but that's not the point.

Julia. A little girl. Taliene's little girl. That was what she'd always wanted, wasn't it? I wasn't getting any answers. Nothing was making sense. Nothing at all.

I should probably shut the door. Back in the present, I mean. The rain's getting in and I'm still holding little Julia, and she's still crying. I want to cry too but I can't. I just can't. I'm not one for crying, and I never have been. I don't think I've cried in about two years. Even when Tal first disappeared, and now even when she's gone again...

I don't want to relive further memories of tonight in detail. She told me how Julia was concieved; a one night stand, in early July. Classy, I'd tried to joke. She told me that for the past six months, while Jared, and me, and everyone else had been worrying about her, she'd been perfectly fine. She'd left because she was going to abort the baby. Then she'd decided she couldn't do it, and she decided to stay elsewhere until it was born, until she could give it to...me.

That was the point where my temper snapped. I started to shout and I remember standing up, glaring down at my sister, furious that she would even consider doing this to me. You disappear for six months, before that you didn't talk to us for almost a fucking year, now you want to drop a kid off on me?! I screamed at her, all kinds of other shit too. The baby started to scream, too.

At some point she broke down and started sobbing and I had to stop. My throat was hoarse and I'd broken her, I'd torn her down, but all the wrongdoings I'd pointed out? She knew already. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn't have a choice. She wasn't cut out to raise a child now. The dream was gone, she said. It was over.

I didn't know what to do when she stood up and held little Julia out to me. She pleaded. She begged. She said Julia was born in April, on the 3rd. She asked me to take her to the forest and raise her there, until she was at least sixteen here. It would be easier that way, she said. She said she'd pulled strings. She said she knew people that would help me with pretending that I'd legally adopted the kid. She said it'd work out. She said.

I'm standing here in my livingroom with my sister's bastard child in my arms and I realise that this is how it's going to be. I'm not Taliene, I can't run away from it. My sister's gone, vanishing into nowhere just like her father before her, and I hate her for it, because she's left me just like everyone else I ever loved. All but one.

I look down at Julia and I see my sister's eyes.

This is how it's going to be.