✅ My Sister's Problem

61. Ten Years Later

Then we were explorers in the jungle, making sure that everything was ready for the day ahead as we broke camp. We had camping stoves, backpacks, and tents aplenty, but Mum was worried that we might have forgotten to bring enough cat food for any lions we might encounter along the way.

"Lions don't grow in jungles, Mum," I said with a grin, although I wasn't so sure of that. I was sure that The Lion King had been set in a desert kingdom.

"They might be lost." Well, what could I say to that?

"Let's leave the lions to feed themselves," Lindy said. "I don't see how hungry lions is anybody else's problem. They should get a job. Then we'd have extra space in the bags for Sally's diapers. Baby needs her diapy, doesn't she?"

"Maybe occasionally," I said, and forced a smile. I could tell from the way she shifted in her seat that Mum was getting ready to yell. I didn't want Lindy teasing me now, after the way she had made me feel, but I also didn't want to ruin the trip. This was a special event, as sisters. I had to take the high road, at least until I could knock Lindy down a peg or two without spoiling Mum's day too.

We did a little role play for each new scene we heard the background noise of. It would start playing and we improvised, riffing off each other and running with whatever silly jokes the others came up with. It felt like we were a family again, and I could start to cheer up. But every time, Lindy found an excuse to slip in some barb about me being a baby, and that just reminded me of what she had said. It always lowered the mood, but I did my best just to laugh it off, so that we weren't all sitting in silence.

After a while, I was picking out a couple of scenes in advance. A choice of three or four that the app would choose from to play next, so it was never quite predictable. I could select how long I wanted them to last as well, from ten minutes to an hour, and it would attempt to make the sounds flow smoothly into each other. I was pretty impressed by how smooth the app was; especially when I found that it would let you use your own recordings and some AI to try and generate a loop of just the background noise from a place you'd been before.

It was a fun game, and I barely noticed the car eating up the miles until I noticed the sound of the road change from a smooth highway purr to the slightly uneven growl of a surface that hadn't been recently maintained; and then the clicks and pops of bark chips kicked up against the bottom of the car. Our first break of the day; Gresham Wold Woods had arrived.

This place was little more than a wide clearing in the woods; parking spaces weren't even marked out, and people squeezed in wherever they could between ruts in the dirt, stray branches, and a scattering of picnic tables that were assembled annually from fallen wood by the Gresham and Migeley Scout Troop. There were no permanent fixtures, but you could buy food from a trailer with a galley kitchen inside and a bunch of serving hatches.

"Short break," Mum announced. "We need to get back on the road quickly, so we're not getting lunch yet. This is a rest stop only. Got that?" We nodded, and then headed for the edge of the woodland. About three minutes walk later, we found a couple of sheds with toilets inside. Pretty much routine; we did this every year. This was the point where Dad would have said that he forgot to turn the TV off, or lock one of the windows, or say goodbye to his secretary. I sat on the toilet sobbing for a few moments, before I dried my eyes on my sleeve and forced myself to move on. Those memories would always be there, and we would always stop to remember; but they didn't rule our lives.

Lindy was standing outside. She was shaking, crying. And in that moment I just wanted her to feel better. I could understand how intense the feelings could be, coming back to a place that was familiar but with little things different to let you know that life would never be the same. She was staring at the door to the men's shed. A couple of years before Dad would have burst out with a snappy slogan like he was onstage, or feigning panic at the thought we might live without him. Now there was just a closed door, waiting for a group of people that included men to come past. A faded poster on the door flapped in the breeze, proclaiming "We are with you." It seemed like the ultimate irony.