Free A Sister's Promise by Anne Bennett Page B

me a link with my mother when she was younger. But when I asked her, she said horrible things about her, hateful things. I can’t think of my mother like that anyway, and I told her that. I know Mom would have done anything for me and I really can’t think of any time when I might do something she disapproved of so much that she would never, ever forgive me.’
    ‘No, of course not,’ Hilda said. ‘It isn’t normal to do that either. I mean, children have to go their own way in the world. It is what it is all about. You might not like the decisions they make and the people they take up with, and yes, if you are concerned enough you might say something, but if they take no notice, you don’t cast them out like some sort of avenging God.
    ‘What you have got to realise, Molly,’ she continued, ‘is that your grandmother is a very unhappy woman, because no one could be happy with all that bitterness inside them.You have got to develop the strength to rise above that. Don’t let it bog you down and destroy you too.’
    ‘I’ll try,’ Molly promised. ‘I really will try hard ’cos I’d hate to turn out like her anyway. Now I’d better go back.’
    ‘Yes,’ Hilda agreed. ‘Wouldn’t do to give that old besom reason to berate you again.’
    ‘She doesn’t need a reason.’ Molly said glumly. ‘Honest to God, she doesn’t.’
    ‘I know, lass,’ Hilda said. ‘And this isn’t goodbye, it’s just farewell for now.’ She enfolded Molly in her arms as she spoke and then pushed her away gently and said in a voice thick with unshed tears, ‘Don’t you go round forgetting us now. I’ll want to know how you are getting on.’
    ‘I will write to you,’ Molly promised. ‘I’d like to. Granddad has packed a paper, envelopes and stamps in my case already. He said rural Ireland is not like Birmingham, with a shop on every corner.’
    ‘Dare say he is right there,’ Hilda said with a slight smile.
    Her hand suddenly shot into the biscuit tin and came out with a handful. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing them at Molly. ‘Take these, and just for you, mind. Don’t you go sharing them. You are far too thin.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Course I’m sure, positive sure,’ Hilda said with a sniff. ‘Now get going before I end up blarting my eyes out.’
    Everything stood ready, bags and boxes packed, for they were leaving early in the morning.
    Molly and her grandfather went to the hospital to say goodbye to Kevin. As the day grew nearer to his grandmother’s departure, and with his grandfather’s continual assurance that he was going home with him, the child had improved dramatically. Stan had hoped the hospital might have allowed him to go with him to see Molly and Biddy off at the station.
    ‘He may have a very bad reaction to seeing his sister go off like that,’ the doctor said. ‘Have they ever been apart before?’
    ‘Not that I know of.’
    ‘Well, from what I have seen, they seem remarkably fond of one another,’ the doctor commented. ‘I would rather they said goodbye here, where we are all on hand if we are needed.’
    Stan could see the doctor’s point of view, and Kevin was upset when it dawned on him that he probably wouldn’t see Molly for a long, long time. Molly also cried bitterly. She had been eight when he was born and she had helped her mother bring him up. Though he was a nuisance at times, as little brothers go he wasn’t bad, and she loved him to bits and really thought she should be there for him with both their parents dead.
    However, for Kevin’s sake, she tried to get a grip on herself. ‘I will be working next year, Kevin,’ she told the child. ‘I will come back when I am sixteen and we will be together again, you’ll see.’
    ‘Do you promise?’ Kevin said.
    Molly looked at Kevin’s eyes, sparkling with tears, and said firmly, ‘Course I do.’
    ‘What if our grandmother don’t let you?’
    ‘She won’t be able to stop me when I am sixteen,’ Molly declared.