Left Behind

It's absolutely not essential, but I think you'll enjoy this more if you read the others that go with it😁 There are only three and they are all are fairly short. There isn't really an optimal order to read them in, and you should be able to enjoy them as stand-alone stories if you prefer.

1. Beep Beep!

2. A Strange Place

3. Thoughts of a Doomed Kidnapper

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Julie lives alone now, since Vinnie... you know. Darla is still there of course. Always there. But it still feels like living alone.

Julie can hardly bear to look at Darla, her surviving child. Not really a child anymore, at twenty, but Julie still sees her that way. Darla has some Additional Needs, see. Julie thinks (she will never be free of her, never) that Darla can't do things for herself, and can't ever move out and live alone. She tells her daughter as much several times a week.

Every time she does catch sight of her, it is a bitter reminder of what she lost, so she tries not to. They often live for days like this, carefully orbiting each other, the fragile bond between them eroding away with each avoided glance.

Vinnie was the absolute opposite of Darla. Alike enough around the chin and cheekbones that people knew they were siblings, and they shared plenty of similar mannerisms. Yet Vinnie, twelve years old when it happened, had been slight, where Darla was dumpy. He tanned easily, while she stayed pale. He was top of every class, athletic, outgoing and loved to dance. Darla had none of these qualities. Where Vinnie's eyes were clear, bright blue, and healthy, Darla's different coloured eyes peered at the world through thick glasses.

And, of course, Vinnie had been the longed-for son. Pete had been a sexist pig, really, he'd never wanted a girl. He'd not wanted the baby at all. Wrong time, he'd said. When is it ever the right time? she'd countered. He'd always wondered if Darla was really his. So much resentment. So many years of it.

Was it any wonder, then, that the vanishing of the golden child would break them apart?

On that evil day, Darla had been poorly. Feverish and sweating. Julie had still loved her, then. "Stay in bed, honey," she'd said. She'd given Vinnie his cereal, and nagged him to pack his books, Oh honey, why didn't you do it last night? and shooed him out of the front door.

The morning sun had glinted off his head like a crown. She should have drank in his appearance. Should have squinted to see his form through the bus windows. Stood stubbornly watching that huge yellow monster roll out of sight. But she hadn't! She'd hurried indoors to her other child (the wrong child) assuming she'd be seeing her Vinnie again in just a few short hours.

He'd forgotten his kit bag. She'd tutted to find it in the hallway, but when she jogged back outside, the bus was already speeding away.

Julie had huffed back inside. She couldn't go chasing after in the car, not with Darla ill in bed. Darla needed her. Darla was fragile. Maybe she could call the school. Make an excuse for him so he wouldn't get into trouble. What if she had gone after the bus? Would she have seen where it went? would she have been able to do anything?

More than four years later, and that bag was still there.

The load of his laundry that he'd carelessly dropped in the laundry room was still exactly where he'd left it beside the washer. The food wrappers in his room hadn't been touched. Hardly so much as the wrinkles in his bedsheets had been disturbed.

The only change, the only concession to his gone-ness, was the perfectly preserved wreaths from his memorial in a cabinet opposite the TV.

The Baxter family had put three kids on that damned bus, their whole brood. Never seen any of them again.

Is that worse, though? Julie wonders. Is it worse than just losing one... but the wrong one?

If she thought about it, she'd assume Darla wasn't picking up on any of this. She assumes Darla is not clever.

She goes into work each day for 8a.m. and stays there as long as possible. She can't bear to be in the house, yet she can't bear to leave it to even think about moving out. Moving on.

The only exception is Thursday, when she leaves at 4p.m. for her counselling session at 4.30.

Last week, Darla asked for counselling, too. Julie had looked away and muttered, "Why? You didn't lose a child."

Darla had blinked, and turned away, something else crumbling.

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Thank you for reading!

Edited to fix formatting.