Birds in Flight

I was eleven and my sister Iris thirteen when we lived in a big stone house in Pennysylvania, USA. I knew life was strange, but it took me years to realise how strange it really was.

The curtains stayed drawn all day and we never had visitors. Our parents had glamorous date nights at home, but afterward the flowers Dad gave Mom would rot in their vases. The house always stunk of rotting flowers and pool chemicals. Dad had built Mom a pool in the basement because he didn’t allow her to be seen publicly in a swimsuit.

Mom would go away for days or weeks at a time. I hated it when Mom was gone. Iris said she liked it better.

That was life until the day Mom fled to Australia with Iris and me. We ended up in a tiny beach town. But it wasn’t long before our restless mother bought a camper trailer and announced we were going on the road. For me it was a new-found freedom. Iris resented every minute of it.

It was storming the night when our mother vanished and never returned. i was left alone and terrified in the trailer. Iris was gone for hours that night – even though she claimed she was only gone for mere minutes.

Iris has kept the secret of what she did that night for twenty-four years. It’s a secret that tore us apart for all those years. I’m now a travel writer with a young son, living in Pennysylvania. Iris is living in Australia with her husband and three children. We don’t even speak to each other.

The police have just found a new clue about our mother. But it’s not enough to find her. This time, I’m going to make Iris tell what she’s been holding back.

Is it true that our mother left us behind for a new life somewhere? Or did something terrible happen? Whatever the truth is, I need to know what Iris knows. But am I really prepared for that?