The Lost Sister: A gripping emotional page turner with a breathtaking twist

The doctor shakes it. ‘Doctor Panchal.’ She turns to her patient. ‘How are you today?’

‘Not dead yet,’ Becky’s mum replies.

Doctor Panchal gives her a stern look. She turns to Becky. ‘I’m pleased you’re here. Your mum may have explained that we’re making preparations to move her to a hospice, a very good one. They have an excellent reputation in palliative care.’

Becky blinks. Palliative care. End of life. End of her mum’s life.

‘My daughter’s one of you lot, you know,’ her mum says to the doctor.

‘You’re a doctor too?’ the doctor asks Becky.

‘No, a vet,’ Becky explains.

The doctor smiles. ‘Wonderful. I have two cats.’

‘What sort?’ Becky asks, clutching onto the familiar conversation to stop her whirling down a rabbit’s hole of grief.

‘Siamese.’

‘I had a Siamese cat in one of my novels,’ her mum says.

‘Oh yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘The Circle, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’ Becky’s mum sighs. ‘It’s actually my least favourite novel.’

‘Oh really?’ the doctor says. ‘I loved it!’

It still feels alien to Becky, hearing people fuss over her mum’s novels. She was used to those early years, when her mum was struggling to make a success of things. But now, her mum has several million book sales and awards under her belt. Of course, she’d watched it all happen from afar, reading articles in newspapers describing her mum as the ‘Sunday Times bestselling author’ and ‘book club favourite’, the publicity photo of her staring out to sea, trademark sunglasses on, all Greta Garbo-esque. Then she’d won a major book award a few months later, and foreign deals meant she made it big in the States too.

At first, she gave interviews that Becky would read and throw away in frustration when she saw the little white lies littered throughout them: ‘My divorce was amicable; I still see my husband.’ Or: ‘I see my daughter as much as I can.’

But the articles petered out after her mum started withdrawing from the public eye – no more inviting journalists into her home to chat. Becky had been surprised at how much she’d resented that. She was hungry for more details of her mum’s life outside the brief visits they had before they became estranged, so her mum’s new solitude made her angry.

And then her mum had moved to the vast house above the cave. Becky had found out about it a few years ago after reading a feature in one of the glossy Sunday magazines, a photo of the ‘reclusive author’ outside her new home, the cave sprawled out below it. Becky wanted to call the journalist who’d written the piece and scream: ‘That cave was where she ran away to! That was what she abandoned me for.’

But she hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t. Instead, she tried to ignore any mention of her mum, of her growing book sales and accolades, glamour and enigma.

‘I think Becky could have been a good writer actually,’ her mum says now.

Becky laughs. ‘Seriously?’

‘You won that short story competition once, remember?’

Becky knows what she’s referring to. And she hadn’t won it, she’d got third place. She was still proud though, and had even brought it to one of the monthly meet-ups she’d had with her mum in those initial years after she’d left. Her mum had read the story, then peered up at her. ‘You’ll improve, with time.’ And that was it, nothing else.

‘I came third, Mum,’ Becky says now.

‘Oh, first or third, it doesn’t matter. It was a wonderful story.’

Becky frowned. ‘You didn’t give that impression when you read it!’

‘Probably because I was trying to hide the fact I was about to start crying.’ She looks at the doctor. ‘I get teary when I’m proud. What about art?’ she continues. ‘You were always so good at drawing, Becky. Remember that painting you did of the horse for my fortieth birthday?’

‘Dog.’

‘Ah yes, dog. Such a fabulous painting. If you’d just put your mind to—’

‘I did put my mind to something!’ Becky exclaims, her patience running out. ‘I’m a vet!’

The doctor raises an eyebrow. ‘Okay, I’ll leave you both to catch up.’ She backs out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

‘You’re a bit tetchy this evening,’ her mum says when the doctor leaves.

‘Discovering your mother’s dying kind of does that to a girl.’

Her mum smiles and Becky can’t help but smile back. She knows how spiky her mum can be. Why get upset about it now, when they have so little time left?

‘So the hospice your doctor mentioned sounds nice,’ she says, sitting down again.

Her mum makes a face. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘It’ll be the best place for you, really.’

She crosses her thin arms. ‘Nope. Not happening.’

‘But you can’t stay here,’ Becky counters as gently as she can. ‘Hospices like the one your doctor mentioned are there for a very specific reason. And many of them have lovely, beautiful grounds. They’re peaceful places, and more spacious.’

Her mum pulls at her sheets, biting her lip. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’d still feel trapped.’

Trapped.

Becky has a memory then, of her mum standing in front of the mirror at home. ‘Trapped, I feel trapped,’ she remembers her saying.

She pushes the memory away. ‘Look Mum,’ Becky says gently. ‘I think it’s important you—’

‘I said no!’ her mum shouts. Her voice bounces off the walls. She leans forward, grasping Becky’s hands. ‘I know where I want to die and I need your help to do it.’

‘Where?’

‘The cave. I want to die in the cave.’

Becky moves back. ‘It’s out of the question.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t understand the care involved. Your priority soon will be comfort. Rest and comfort. And being in a cave will not provide that.’

‘It did once,’ her mum counters.