I run my finger along the top of the picture of Helen beside my own wedding photo on the wall and my pinkie gathers up the line of dust. For what? For ever imagining it might be easy for you to not follow your heart. For wanting you to stay here with us, no matter what it cost you. Oh, I know I’ve always toed the line; I’ve said I understood why it was you felt so compelled to go off travelling, leaving us with Flo. But I didn’t, not really. Richard saw that. I’ve never understood it deep inside. How could you just leave us? How could you have let something be so important in your life that it mattered more than us, your own children, your two little girls? I vowed I’d be different to you. I’d be the loyal one, the one who cared enough to stay behind to sacrifice it all for love and now…Oh, but now, I trace the face which looks so much like that of an old-fashioned movie star, so very like my sister’s – now I see I’ve not turned out so different from you after all… The legacy you left has caught up with me.
