My sister and I haven’t spoken in over twenty years. Now she’s asking to move in with me… I’m torn.
My name is Emily. I’m forty, with a family—two sons, a loving husband, a cosy flat in Manchester, and a cottage in the Lake District where we spend every summer. By all accounts, life should feel settled. But now I’m facing a decision that haunts me. Because it involves my sister—a woman separated from me not just by distance, but by years of silence, resentment, and pain.
When I was five, our father passed away. Ten years later, cancer took our mother. I was left alone. My older sister, Charlotte, was twenty-three and already an adult. Before Mum died, she begged Charlotte not to abandon me. Charlotte became my legal guardian, and we stayed in our parents’ house. But calling it a home would be a stretch.
I was a difficult teenager—angry, rebellious, lost. Charlotte was strict, distant, unemotional. She never hugged me, never said a kind. She didn’t scold—she just looked at me with indifference. I remember crying into my pillow at night, dreaming of nothing but escape.
At seventeen, I fell in love. I brought my boyfriend home, but Charlotte’s husband, Richard, harshly kicked him out. Later, Charlotte calmly told me, “If you don’t like it, you can leave.” I packed my things and walked out. No one stopped me. No one called. No one came looking.
My relationship with James didn’t last—he wasn’t who he claimed to be. We lived in his parents’ cramped flat, barely scraping by, until we drifted apart. I refused to go back to Charlotte. She was expecting a baby by then, and after everything, I knew I didn’t belong there.
I moved to Leeds, worked as a shop assistant, lived in a tiny bedsit. It was hard, terrifying, but I clung to every opportunity. Then I met Daniel—steady, kind, dependable. We married. Had two sons. Over time, we bought our house, a car, then the cottage—small but cosy, nestled in the countryside.
Charlotte? I barely heard from her. Rumours said she and Richard were doing well—he’d started a business, they had a big house, financial security. Then suddenly, everything fell apart. Richard turned to drink, they divorced, sold the house, split the money. She and her daughter moved to a cramped flat.
I didn’t interfere. Everyone has their own path. But months ago, a mutual friend reached out: Charlotte’s daughter got married. And then—she kicked her mother out. Just like that. No right to return.
Then the calls started. The messages. The letters. Charlotte. The sister I hadn’t spoken to in two decades. “Forgive me…” “I’m ill…” “I’ve nowhere to go…” “Let me stay in the cottage, just for a while…” I read them, unsure what I feel. Pity? Anger? Heartache? Or just numbness?
Daniel says, “Let her stay. We’re only there in summer. And she is family, after all.” I stay silent. I think. I remember myself—seventeen, standing on the doorstep of the house that no longer cared if I lived or disappeared.
I’ve forgiven her. Truly. Without bitterness. But letting her back in means reopening my life to someone who once erased me from hers. What if she leaves again? Vanishes? I don’t want to carry her burdens. But I can’t turn her away.
I’m standing at the edge, unsure which path to take. And my heart aches more now than ever before.
