My sister and I haven’t spoken in over twenty years. And now she’s asking to come live with me… I’m at a loss.
My name is Emily. I’m forty, with a family—two sons, a loving husband, a cozy flat in Manchester, and a cottage we escape to every summer. By all accounts, life’s worked out. But now I’m facing a choice that’s keeping me up at night. Because it’s about my sister—a woman separated from me not just by distance, but by years of silence, hurt, and pain.
When I was five, my dad passed away. Ten years later, cancer took Mum too. I was alone. My older sister, Lucy, was already grown—twenty-three. Before Mum died, she begged Lucy not to leave me. Lucy became my guardian, and we stayed together in our parents’ house. But calling it a home would be a stretch.
I was a difficult teen—angry, sharp-tongued, lost. Lucy was strict, cold, distant. 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 of nothing but escaping that suffocating place.
When I turned seventeen, I fell in love. Brought my boyfriend round to the house. But Lucy’s husband—she was already married to James—kicked him out rudely. Then Lucy calmly said, *”If you don’t like it, you can leave.”* I packed my things and left. No one stopped me. No one called. No one came looking.
Things with Mark didn’t last—he wasn’t who I thought he was. We lived in his parents’ flat, scraping by. Eventually, we just went our separate ways. I didn’t want to go back to Lucy. She was expecting a baby by then, and after everything, I knew there was no place for me there.
I moved to Liverpool, got a job as a shop assistant, lived in a tiny bedsit. It was hard, scary, but I clung to every chance I got. Then I met David. Steady, kind, reliable. We married. Had two sons. In time, we got a mortgage on a flat, bought a car, then that cottage—small but snug, just outside York.
Lucy? I hadn’t heard from her in years. Just scraps of gossip: her and James were doing well, he’d started a business, they had a big house, money. Then, suddenly—it all fell apart. James took to drinking, Lucy divorced him, they sold the house, split the cash. She and her daughter moved into a cramped little flat.
I stayed out of it. Everyone’s got their own life, their own path. But a few months ago, a mutual friend messaged me: Lucy’s daughter had gotten married. And… kicked her mum out. Just like that. No turning back.
Then the calls started. The texts. The letters. Lucy. My sister, who I hadn’t spoken to in twenty years. *”Forgive me…”*, *”I’m ill…”*, *”I’ve got nowhere to go…”*, *”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?
David says, *”Let her stay. We’re only there in summer. And she’s family, after all.”* I stay quiet. I think. I remember myself—seventeen, standing on the doorstep with a suitcase, walking away from the house that couldn’t care less if I survived or vanished.
I’ve forgiven her. Truly. No bitterness left. But taking her back means letting her into my life again—someone who once wrote me out of hers. What if she leaves again? Disappears? I don’t want to carry someone else’s fate. But I can’t turn her away either.
I’m standing at a door. And I don’t know whether to open it or walk away. And that hurts more than anything ever has.
