My sister and I hadn’t spoken in over twenty years. And now she’s asking to come live with me… I’m torn.
My name’s Natalie. I’m forty, with a family of my own—two sons, a husband I adore, a cosy flat in Manchester, and a countryside cottage we escape to every summer. By all accounts, life’s been good. But now I’m staring down a decision that won’t let me rest. Because it’s about my sister—the woman who isn’t just miles away, but separated from me by years of silence, hurt, and pain.
When I was five, my dad passed away. Ten years later, cancer took my mum too. I was alone. Kate—my older sister—was twenty-three by then, already an adult. On her deathbed, Mum begged her not to leave me. Kate took custody, and we stayed together in our parents’ house. Though calling it a home would be a stretch.
I was a troubled teen—angry, defiant, lost. Kate was strict, distant, and cold. She never hugged me, never said a kind word. She didn’t yell—she just looked at me with indifference. I remember crying into my pillow at night, dreaming only of escaping that suffocating place.
At seventeen, I fell in love. I brought my boyfriend home, but Kate’s husband, Robert (they’d married by then), harshly threw him out. Later, Kate calmly said, *”If you don’t like it, you can leave.”* So I packed my things and walked out. No one stopped me. No one called. No one came looking.
Things with Alex didn’t last—he wasn’t the man I thought he was. We lived in his parents’ tiny flat, barely scraping by, and eventually went our separate ways. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to Kate. She was expecting a baby, and after everything, I knew I didn’t belong there anymore.
I moved to Liverpool, took a job as a shop assistant, and lived in a cramped bedsit. It was hard, scary, but I clung to every chance I got. Then I met Simon. Steady, kind, reliable. We married, had two boys, took out a mortgage on a proper home, then later bought a little cottage in the Cotswolds.
My sister? I didn’t hear from her for years. Just whispers—things were good for her and Robert. He started a business, they had a big house, money. Then, suddenly, it all fell apart. Robert started drinking, they divorced, sold the house, split what was left. Kate and her daughter moved into a tiny flat.
I stayed out of it. Everyone has their own life, their own path. But a few months ago, a mutual friend messaged me—Kate’s daughter had married and, just like that, kicked her mum out. No warning, no right to return.
Then the calls started. Messages. Emails. Kate. My sister, after twenty years of silence. *”Please forgive me…” “I’m unwell…” “I’ve got nowhere else…” “Let me stay at the cottage, even just for a while…”* I read them and don’t know what to feel. Pity? Anger? Pain? Or just… nothing?
Simon says, *”Let her stay. We’re only there in summer. And she is family, after all.”* I stay quiet. I think. I remember myself—seventeen, standing on the doorstep of the house that stopped caring whether I lived or disappeared.
I’ve forgiven her. Truly. Without bitterness. But letting her back in means opening my life to someone who once erased me from hers. What if she leaves again? Vanishes? I don’t want to carry someone else’s fate. But I can’t just turn my back, either.
I’m standing at a threshold. And I don’t know which side to choose. And that hurts more than anything ever has.
