Youre not my family anymore
Mum, Ive brought Maisie, Alices voice floated in from the hallway, and Jane tore herself away from her revision notes. Ill pick her up this evening, right, Im off.
The front door slammed. Jane leant back in the hard wooden chair and rubbed the bridge of her nose. A moment later, her mother entered the room carrying her little niece. Three-year-old Maisie blinked up at Jane, heavy-lidded with sleep.
Again? Jane asked.
Her mother, Margaret, only nodded and set the child on the floor. Maisie instantly tottered over to the bed, climbed up with practiced agility, and rummaged through the bedside cabinet, fishing out a battered colouring book and half-empty packet of crayons. She folded her legs up beneath her, perfectly at home. All of this happened without a word, as if performed in some strange, well-worn ritual.
Jane rose and followed Margaret into the sitting room. Her mother was at the cabinet, sorting through her work satchel and checking she had everything.
Mum, Jane started. Im in my final year. My dissertations due in three months. I need time to study, not to
We have to support Alice, Margaret interrupted. You know her marriage went wrong. She needs to get her life together again. You must understand that.
She can get her life together, thats fine! Jane hissed, keeping her voice low so Maisie wouldnt overhear. But why does she get to put all her responsibility onto us? Shes Maisies mother, not me. Her mother!
At last Margaret looked up, her jaw set.
Thats enough. I must get to work, she said, zipping up her bag. Maisies your responsibility for now.
Jane wanted to argue further, to object to the unfairness, to say she had a macroeconomics final in two days and a half-written project still on her desk. But she saw her mothers face and knew it was useless. She just nodded.
Margaret slammed out the door, leaving Jane in the hushed flat. She returned to her room. Maisie was fiercely focused on turning a unicorn purple, her tongue poking from the corner of her mouth.
Auntie Jane, look, Maisie said, brandishing the book. Is it pretty?
Its beautiful, love, Jane replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pushing the revision sheets aside.
The day stretched like toffee, thick and endless. They drew pictures, then watched cartoons on Janes battered old laptop. Later, Maisie grew hungry, and Jane boiled up some pasta, balancing her textbook on the kitchen table as she read. The words refused to settle into meaning. Maisie spilt juice over the tablecloth. Then she grew tired and cranky wouldnt sleep, but wouldnt play either. Jane paced the flat, carrying her, softly singing nonsense songs, until finally Maisie nodded off against her shoulder.
By evening Jane felt wrung out, hollowed to the bones. The textbook sat open, accusing, untouched.
Alice appeared just before seven. Jane greeted her, still cradling a drowsy Maisie.
Time to go, pet, Alice said, scooping up her daughter. Right, off we dash.
And she left. No thank you, no Was she good?. Just the slam of a door. Jane sighed.
Two months passed in a surreally repetitive loop: Maisie arrived without warning, Alice disappeared for the day, and Jane scrambled to juggle her degree and being an emergency nanny. She still managed to defend her dissertation, even though most nights she was up with gritty eyes finishing it off while Maisie slept in the next room.
Then Alice met Peter. Suddenly, a whirlwind. Within three months, Jane found herself at the registry office, watching her sister beam in a white dress beside a square-jawed man who gazed at her with wonder. Margaret sobbed into a tissue. Maisie spun in circles underfoot in her pink dress. Jane clapped with the rest, thinking maybe this time it would all sort itself out; maybe now Alice would settle, take care of her own family.
Soon after, Alice had a boy. He was named Oliver. Jane visited the maternity ward with flowers and a balloon, cradled the tiny bundle, and tried to believe Alice had finally found happiness. Peter strutted with pride, Maisie informed every nurse that she was Big Sister now. It all seemed so curved and perfectfor eight months.
One day, Janes phone went off during a quarterly report at work. Margaret was half-crying, half-ranting. Peter had taken up with another woman. Alice found the messages. Drama. Divorce.
Jane massaged her temples at her cluttered desk as the tale unfurlednow there were two children. Alice was coping worse than ever. Shed appear at Margarets, mascara streaked down her cheeks, drop the kids and disappear to gather herself. Sometimes she didnt come back even by the next day.
Jane felt her agency slipping away, as if she herself was disappearing into her sisters mess.
A year ticked past. Jane was promoted, barely time to register the fact. Alice met another man, Thomas this time, waves of flowers and love-drunk tales about how different he was from the others. The third wedding was quiet, just close family. Jane sipped champagne and knewby now with grim certaintythat things would only get worse.
Margaret phoned Jane during her lunch break. Jane, alone in a café opposite her office, prodded a wilted salad, thinking vaguely about the groceries shed need later.
Jane, Margarets voice buzzed strange, half-excited, half-anxious. Are you sitting down?
I am. Whats happened?
Alice is pregnant.
The word clung in the air, thick as the scent of coffee and chatter.
Twins, Margaret added, tremulously. Shes expecting twins.
Jane looked at her salad until it turned into a pointless blur of green. Four children. Alice would have four children, with three different men. And when that marriage inevitably wobbledand of course it wouldshe and Margaret would be landed with them all again.
Jane, are you there? Margaret sounded urgent.
Im here, mum, Jane pressed thumb and finger to her forehead, eyes squeezed tight. Congratulate Alice for me.
She hung up before Margaret could say more and sat frozen, staring into the dimmed reflection of her phone, her appetite gone as if it had never existed.
Jane got home late, weary and emptied. Margaret sat at the kitchen table, cradling her tea, and soon poured out her words, hurried and stumbling, as if afraid Jane would cut in.
Jane, Im at my wits end. Twinshow can it be? Thats four children now. And if this marriage goes sour tooyou know how she is! Men come before her kids every time. What then? We wont manage, love, Im not getting younger and my blood pressures through the roof. You workhow will we cope?
In silence, Jane hung her bag by the door and stood by the table, not sitting. She gazed down at her mothers greying, frizzing hair, the purple smudges under her eyes, her hands clenched tight round the mug.
Mum, Jane said, quietly, and Margaret stopped mid-sentence. I want to leave. Go to another city.
Margaret froze, staring at Jane as if shed started speaking in Icelandic. Jane went on, voice tired but relentless.
I cant do this anymore. Cant keep living my life on pause, always cleaning up after Alices chaos. Ive given enough, mum. Years of my time, my studies, relationships, my career. Im done.
Margaret reached to speak but Jane held up a hand to stop her.
You can come with me, if you want a way out. Well make a fresh starttogether. If not, Ill go by myself. But I wont raise my sisters children anymore. Yes, theyre my nieces and nephews. I love them, but theyre not mine. Not my responsibility.
She exhaled, a long held-in breath as if dropping a sack of bricks shed carried for years. Margaret fell silent, her gaze drifting past Janes shoulder to a chink in the wall. It was impossible to guess what she was thinking.
Jane lingered a moment, but her mother didnt speak. So Jane retreated to her bedroom, collapsed onto the covers fully dressed, and stared up at the ceiling where the paint peeled into strange faces. Her heart galloped somewhere in her throat, palms clammy. But shed said it. At last, shed said it aloud.
She slept only towards dawn.
When she rose, she found a folder on the kitchen table. Jane recognised the worn plastic sleeves immediatelyMargaret kept deed papers for the old flat, an inheritance from Janes grandmother. She opened it, leafing through without understanding.
Well sell, came Margarets voice from the doorway. Jane flinched.
Margarets face was pale and creased from a sleepless night, but she radiated an odd, determined calm, the kind of steadiness that comes after youve made a difficult choice.
One-third goes to Alicethats her legal share, Margaret said, coming to the table. The rest we use to buy somewhere new. We dont need much.
Jane stared at her, hardly daring to believe, but Margaret met her look with the same exhaustion Jane felt gnawing at her for yearsonly better hidden, or maybe Jane had just refused to see it. She hugged her mother tightly, eyes shut, face buried in shoulder. Margaret squeezed back, stroking her hair as she once did when Jane was small.
Well go, darling, Margaret whispered. Enoughs enough.
They carried it all out within two months, calm and efficient. Found a buyer for the flat, picked out a plain two-bed in a small city four hundred miles away. Not much, but enough. Jane arranged a transfer to the companys branch down there. All this time, not a word to Alice.
They broke the news on the very last day. The boxes were taped, train tickets waiting in a zipped bag. Alice burst into the half-empty flat half an hour after Janes call, heavily pregnant, her face swollen and rage twisting her mouth.
What the hell are you doing? she screamed, not bothering to wipe her muddy shoes off. Abandoning me? Now? When the twins are nearly here?
Jane handed her an envelopeher share from the flat sale. Alice yanked it open, peered inside, and her face crumpled even more.
And what am I supposed to do with this? she cried, flinging the envelope to the linoleum, money scattering like startled moths. I need help, not a hand-out! This is the worst time! Dont you get it?
Youve been in a crisis for five years, Alice, Jane replied. Were tired.
Tired? Oh, youre tired? What about me, eh? Swanning off while I cope with two kids and twins on the way?
Your life is your own, Alice, Jane said quietly. Its time for ours.
Alice swung accusing eyes on Margaret, searching for support, but Margaret turned away, pretending to check a zip.
Youre not my family anymore, Alice hissed, scooping the envelope from the floor with shaking hands. Neither of you.
She stormed out. Jane and Margaret exchanged a glance. Neither said anything. Jane slung her bag over her shoulder. Margaret gathered her suitcase. They closed the door, locked it for the last time, and went down the communal stairs together.
Their train left in an hour. Jane sat by the window and watched the greasy platform slip away, the streetlights trailing out like spindly sentinels, terrace houses sinking under the grey haze. Margaret drifted off beside her, head heavy on Janes arm, exhausted by packing and the final fight.
The city shrugged away behind them, taking arguments and strangers children and years of duty with it. Jane leaned back, inhaled deeply for the first time in years, and let the world blur into the night as the train pulled them towards some strange, glimmering future.
