22. Suddenly Sisters

Kathy blinked at the carpet and followed Madeline’s nod toward a plump green armchair. Before she could speak, the other woman began.

“I want to apologize for sounding rude on the phone. I’d just walked in the door. I’m a surgical nurse and I’d just finished my shift when an auto accident victim came in.” She drew breath. “A young girl. We worked six hours on her, but in the end, we lost her. I was very tired.” Her eyes flashed, “Some stupid kid racing his father’s car. He had only minor scrapes.”

That explained the coldness on the phone, exhaustion that sounded like hostility.

“I completely understand, and I’m sorry if I sounded vague when we spoke, but your sister’s death is proving to be a real mystery and I’m absorbed by it.”

Madeline’s gaze was steady. “It’s all very unsettling. Murder is awful, senseless. Why would anyone take a life? I see a lot of death, unnecessary death. It happens.” She tipped her head back and studied the ceiling, then patted her knees as she let out a sigh. “Never mind, how can I help.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Shaye.”

Madeline nodded and sat back, hands folded in her lap.

“It’s complicated. If you’ve done your homework you know we only just discovered each other. You see, I was the product of a four-day conference.” She paused and made a face. “This is not coming out well, bear with me. My mom was a single mother and I never knew my dad. She never talked about him, just told me he was dead,” she gave a hard little laugh, “and I was expected not to think about it, just get on with life like she did. I grew up here in Kingston, went to University in Toronto, lived and worked there for a while. I got married to a wonderful man and when he got a job in Kingston, I found a position at the hospital here, so we moved back. Then just over two years ago my mom got sick. Cancer,” she sighed.

“She was stage four when they diagnosed it. She used to joke she’d worked all her life for it, lung cancer,” she tapped her chest. “Mom was a big-time smoker and she went downhill fast. When she learned she had just a few weeks to live she said she had something to tell me.”

She stopped again and stared at nothing over Kathy’s shoulder. Kathy wondered if she was playing for time. Madeline came back to the present and continued.

“She told me about the time she went away with two friends to a resort in Huntsville. They were nurses, worked long hours and had no money, no boyfriends, so when one of them won a weekend away, they all went and squeezed into one room, probably their idea of luxury. There was a sales conference at the hotel, lots of handsome, smart young men and,” she spread her hands and smiled, “she fell for one. I guess they had their stolen moments and I was the result.

“He was married so she must have been pretty dumb, and he wasn’t very responsible, but she didn’t sound bitter when she told me.” She looked squarely at Kathy. “In fact, she sounded happy. Me? I felt pissed off, to be honest. Cheated. I’d never had any dad stories growing up, not even about my supposedly dead dad.”

The coldness had crept back. She squared her shoulders and carried on. “Mom never told him about me, and she never saw him again. He had a wife and family, it would cause them pain. She figured we could survive without him and we did.

“But she came clean before she died, told me she wanted me to find him, but,” she closed her eyes for a long moment, “she’d left it too late.”

Kathy sat back. This woman was being honest. It was a simple story, told with a rawness that touched her heart.

“I tried to find him and discovered he and his wife had been killed in a car accident. It could have stopped there, but then I discovered Shaye. She was 19 when they died. and she was my sister, okay half sister, but my only blood relative. I had nothing to lose by reaching out. She might be interested in talking to me. Maybe she felt alone, too. I didn’t stop to think that it might rock her world.” She flicked tears away. “We hit it off right away, she was excited to meet, and so was I. After that first time, we really felt like sisters and did stuff together, lunch and shopping.” She tapped the rug with her bare foot. “We bought the same rug one day because it was on sale and we thought it would be fun to have the same carpet.”

Her cell phone buzzed, startling them both. “Excuse me please, I have to attend to my husband.”