"TEARS OF DECEIT" by Sarah Ryniker

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 09/04/2003

Tears of Deceit Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE: ME

One of the things my mother left behind when she died was the responsibility of my older sister. She always acted younger than she was. She was intelligent, yet so naïve that she appeared to stay at the tender age of five years old, never passing it. Doctors told my father that she was stuck at the stage when our mother died. That only made me hate her more for it.
    I blamed everything on her. If something went badly, or didn't go the way I'd planned or wanted, I would go to the room my father had made into a shrine for her, and vent out all of my anger. Eventually, my anger would turn into sadness, and I would burst into tears. I started doing this when I was only six years old, and I realised that I was very different from other children.
    At that age I was already taking care of, and defending, my older sister, Kassy. She'd been really young, only about three, when our mother had died. Ever since then, as the doctors said, she acted immature and much too young for her age. She was nine to my six years, and yet I felt much older. I would follow her around like a little mother hen, forever fearful of her harming herself.
    Eventually as I got older, the responsibility of my older sister began to take its toll on me. I had already turned into a highly moralistic child and teenager, acting more like a woman in her thirties of forties, rather than my actual age. I would sneak away to be alone, not wanting Kassy to find me. She always wanted to play, always wanted to be by my side. I knew that it was because she loved me so much, but my father and Kassy didn't seem to understand that I needed my alone time, or else I was going to be the crazy one in the family.
    I found a friend in my twin. Eddie and I talked about most everything. When we were children, he was always the rambunctious one. He was the reason I got into trouble so often. He was so different before the accident. But part of me didn't feel bad for him. After all, I did warn him to stay away from that horse.
    It was a stormy afternoon. The horses were already on edge, but Eddie had to go about teasing them.
    "Eddie! Leave those horses alone and come in. Susie has already called us five times. It won't be long before she finds us!" I yelled above the wind with my hands on my hips, stomping a single foot to show that I meant business.
    Susie was our hired nanny. She'd been there since birth, and had known our mother before she died when were no more than two months old. And she wasn't a very motherly figure. She was cruel, and we all feared her something awful.
    "Alright, fine," he said, giving in. He walked back around our horse, Ranger, who he always teased endlessly. The wrong thing to do. I saw it before it happened. I covered my eyes as I saw the horse's legs go up. I covered my eyes, but I heard my brother scream. And then all was silent, except the sound of the wind blowing around us.
    I stood there frozen, unable to move. I had dropped my hands to the side, and looked in the direction of where my brother lay. He was so still. I could see blood, though I had no idea where it was coming from. I was so scared that he was dead, but I couldn't run to tell anyone.
    I didn't have to. Susie came around the corner, and when she saw him lying there, she threw her fat arms up into the air, yelled something in Italian that I couldn't understand and went to his side. She smacked his face a few times after taking his pulse. When he didn't move or open his eyes, she hollered over to me to go get my father.
    I took off before I even heard her words. I ran up the hill, against the wind. I couldn't hear the thunder, wind and the sound of the pounding ocean, and I couldn't see the lightning shooting from the sky in angry blazes. My heart was in my throat. I could almost feel death wrapping itself around me. Darkness was coming quick. I was crying with fear. I did, however, manage to get into the house. I stood in the foyer thanking God my father was getting ready to leave for a business meeting.
    "Eddie's hurt. Get help," I breathed heavily. I could hardly breathe; it felt as if there was a brick in my chest. I was soaking wet, and crying so hard I wasn't sure they understood.
    "Where is he?" Father demanded. "You have to tell me where he is, Felicity, or I can't help him."
    "Stables," I mumbled, and then I felt my body go limp with emotional exhaustion before the darkness finally took me. And I remember thinking before it pulled all around me that I was surely going to die.
    Eddie was in a coma for four long days. I was with him every moment given to me. I fought with my own fears, but what was worse was I had to fight off Kassy's fears as well. Nobody could take care of Kassy the way I did. I seemed to be the only one she ever listened to or believed.
    The second afternoon after the accident, I walked by one of the upstairs hall closets and heard crying. I opened the door to see Kassy curled up in a ball, crying. I went inside of the closet, closed the door behind me and sat down beside her. I put my arms around her and held her tightly. "Don't worry, Kassy. Eddie will be fine."
    She shook her head. "You don't know that! If the doctors don't know, then you don't know!" she cried.
    I was shocked. She had always believed every word I'd ever said in the past. Suddenly she doubted me. It scared me that she would suddenly doubt what I had to say. Was that a sign that Eddie wasn't going to make it?
    "You're right, I don't know. But I can pray, and so can you. Let's not give up yet." I took one of her hands in mine, and we began to softly utter words of prayer.
    "Do you think that if we'd been old enough to pray when Mother died, that God would have let us keep her?" Kassy whispered in mid-prayer.
    My eyes welled up with tears. I couldn't forgive our mother for leaving, and leaving me with so much responsibility. Yet Kassy, who couldn't even remember the funeral, could forgive her so easily and wish that she were still here. But then again, didn't I, in some way, wish that she was still here?
    "God only does what he wishes and thinks is best, Kassy." It was all that I could think to say.
    She looked down sadly, and nodded. "I know. Susie is always yelling at me for thinking that God should do whatever I want. But I don't think that! I don't!"
    "I know," I said. "But Susie is a big, mean ole brute. Don't you worry about her. She doesn't know how to do anything but be mean to us."
    "Why won't Daddy make her leave?" she asked. She always asked me everything, as if I knew the answers to everything.
    I shrugged. "Maybe he's got a crush on her!" I whispered enthusiastically, trying to make her smile. It worked, and she giggled.
    I was guessing that Susie was listening at the door, because just seconds later we were pulled out of the closet by our ears. "Little girls don't play in dark closets. It is bad," she said, and we were punished to our rooms until dinner.
    Father spent every waking minute along Eddie's bedside. He would come pick Kassy and me up to visit for a few hours each day, though Kassy would leave before me, becoming extremely bored with watching our brother lay as still as death. I, however, would stay there until Father insisted that it wasn't good for me to be there, and made me leave.
    When Eddie finally came out of it, Father came home excited. It was earlier morning in the summer, so, without school, we slept in. We hadn't even risen from our beds yet when he came rushing into our rooms to gather us up. Without explanation, or a chance to let us get dressed, he rushed us to the hospital.
    Celebration and happiness was short-lived, however, when the doctors realised that Eddie had gone blind. He couldn't see anything, and he was so frightened. He could hear us and would turn in that direction, but when asked, he told the doctors that he could only see faint shapes of people. After they released him, telling us that he would probably never see again, Eddie would often cry out in the middle of the night. He was so frightened that first year that he was blind. But eventually, it seemed as if he'd always been blind.
    Eddie grew up a lot after the accident. He no longer acted like the wild child that I'd always known my brother to be. He was depressed and moody most of the time. Just like Kassy, however, he used me as his crutch, as his eyes. He would tell me how he felt, he would cry to me. I became a parent to both of my siblings.
    They needed me so much that I was convinced that I would never be able to move away from them, or get married. I feared that they would never grow up, and would always lean on me for support. I already felt the weight of responsibility on my small shoulders. And they say rich kids have all the fun.
    When summer ended, Father made the decision to send only me back to school. He got a tutor for Kassy and Eddie. Eddie, because he refused to go back to school the way he was now, and Kassy, because she needed special attention. It was difficult, but he did find someone that could give them each individual attention.
    School became my reprieve. I loved my brother and sister so much. But they were becoming too much for such a young child to handle. I was so much older than my nine years. And I had just turned nine in early August! I was still a child. But I had been made to grow up fast because of an older sister that needed a mother's guidance, and she didn't have that. But she had a younger sister that she could hang onto.
    And now I was Eddie's guidance as well. I didn't know how to act about that. Eddie had always been a stronger child himself. Nothing ever seemed to faze him. Now he was nothing. I didn't show him how I truly felt, but it seemed to me that ever since the accident Eddie became weak and whiney. He was suddenly sensitive where he hadn't been sensitive. He was suddenly always crying for no reason. I hated seeing him that way, so I promised to do everything that I could to help him be himself again. I just didn't know if it would work.
    Students at school often made fun of me. I had no friends. They all had something to say about me. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I acted so much older. They called me Old Lady Felicity. I was immune to their teasing, though, and simply went about school as if it didn't exist at all. I didn't care what the other children had to say. I only cared about other children that had something good to say, and wanted to be my friend. I wouldn't lie; I was extremely lonely. But I never confessed that to anyone. Not even my brother and sister, though I believe that Eddie could feel it, especially when we got older.
    Seeing that I went to a private school where I came home only on the weekends, I was even lonelier at school. But I liked the silence and getting lost in my schoolwork. I found myself in the library more often than not. Another thing I was made fun of endlessly for. But their silly, childish teasing couldn't get me to stop doing something that I loved. And I loved to read and write. Many teachers told me that I was an exceptional writer, even when I was a young child.
    On the weekends, Susie would pick me up. It was very rare that Susie ever took a day off, or didn't show up on time. But there is an exception to every rule. Every now and then our driver, and butler, Kingsman, would pick us up.
    He was a young butler. He was only about twenty-four, and Father had hired him six years earlier. I could hardly remember him not being there. But here he was, and I enjoyed his accent. It was something new. But he didn't involve himself in the family very often, so I didn't see much of him, unless he was serving. He was an intensely private man.
    The weekend that was the beginning of Christmas break, Kingsman came to pick me up. He had news that I hadn't expected. "Susie went to visit family for Christmas," he announced as I crawled into the car.
    My eyes widened. "I didn't even know the old hag had a family!" I shut my mouth quickly, and covered it. I hardly ever showed my feelings towards Susie.
    He laughed. "She isn't exactly the nicest woman is she?" I shook my head, and he laughed again.
    The rest of the ride home was silent. But I was excited inside. No Susie the entire Christmas break? I'd never had that much of a break from her! She'd always been in my life, bossing me about and making living even more difficult.
    When I got home, Kassy was waiting on the porch for me. No matter what the weather, she usually was waiting for me lately. And with the cold ocean breeze I couldn't believe that she could sit out there and wait so long. Kingsman told me that she usually went out there and sat when Susie or he would leave to come get me. And the school was an hour away!
    She ran down the front steps as I got out of the car. She wasn't a very big twelve-year-old. She had just begun puberty, but height had yet to get a hold of her, where as puberty didn't.
    She threw her arms around me when she got to me. She wasn't much taller than me, thank goodness. If she had been she would have knocked me to the ground. I hugged her back tightly. It was nice to have somebody so excited and thrilled to see you.
    Eddie was slightly laid back when he saw me, but I could tell that he was happy. He hugged me and smiled, and said so. I always wondered why they were so happy to see me home. Of course, Eddie couldn't really see, but he could see in his own way.
    Father acted indifferent about my being home. I was used to that. Most of the time he sat in the shrine room, talking to the ghost of our mother. She seemed to always be around us, even though she was gone. It gave me a creepy feeling down my spine. He actually spoke to her as if she was there. The only problem was he ignored everything else, including his children.
    Even without Susie there, that Christmas was no different than any other. We got a tone of gifts, such as clothes and games. Most of the games I gave to Kassy or Eddie. I only wore some of the clothes, and gave those to Kassy, too. My father seemed to forget that not only was I nine years old rather than five, but I was also mentally older than that. But he never did take much notice.
    That Christmas, however, did have a slight twist. I learned about the womanly monthly that every woman I'd ever known had spoken of, but never explained to me. I wasn't expecting anything bad to happen. And I supposed that it wasn't bad what happened, but Kassy's reaction was terrifying.
    I was sitting in my room when I heard the earth-shattering scream. I rushed to Kassy's bedroom and into her bathroom, where she was screaming over and over. Blood filled her panties, and my screams joined hers. It was a time when both of us ended up wishing Susie were there in the end.
    When my father saw what was going on, he actually sent one of the maids in. Joyce, who was one of the younger maids, sat us both down and began to tell us all about sex, and the reproductive system. I took it well, but Kassy was in a state of shock. It was almost as if she hadn't heard a word Joyce had said. We ended up having to take Kassy to a doctor because she was in such a daze.
    It led me into deep thought. Women had to go through all of that in their lifetime? What did men have to go through? We bled monthly, we carried babies for months on end, we gave birth. We did so much, and what did they have to do? It was really then that I realised just how very different men and women are. And that day I grew even older, not realising that I could mentally get any older than I already was.

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