This is a short story I wrote at a writer’s retreat last summer.
Kelly Henderson gazed absentmindedly out of the window, ignoring the beauty before her while exerting pent-up energy to kneed yet another batch of bread dough. Focusing on her work, she willed anger and frustration away. She couldn’t afford to question the daily grind of her drab existence.
Kelly’s life had revolved around her family’s bakery for as long as she could remember. As the eldest child, her career-path was set. Kelly would continue the long-held Henderson tradition of supplying their village with quality bread and cakes.
“It will be yours one day,” her father loved to say, and she always pasted on a smile of gratitude. Kelly sensed his longing for closeness. He still visited the bakery every day, even though he had retired after her mother’s death. He asked probing questions designed to draw her out, but she always cut him off, declaring herself too busy for chatter.
The clock struck three, and Kelly let out an involuntary sigh. If she stepped outside, she would find her father sitting at the shelter, where he waited every day for the bus from the nearest town, hoping against hope for a glimpse of a familiar blonde head. But would he even recognise Cynthia after a ten-year absence? Surely time had changed her, too.
The very thought of Cynthia made Kelly clench her teeth and pound the dough even harder. Cynthia–the family’s blonde beauty, the petted, long-awaited second child, who went outside to romp with her friends while Kelly learned to bake alongside their mother. Cynthia held her responsibilities loosely. She had proven that when their father sold the family home soon after their mother’s death. Rather than staying to support him in his move to the retirement village, the younger daughter requested her share of the family inheritance, then promptly disappeared without a trace.
It was Kelly who cared for their dad, cleaning his home and supplying him with healthy meals whilst slaving away at the bakery. Her father praised his responsible eldest child, but all Kelly thought about was the way he sat at the bus stop, believing that surely, one day, Cynthia would return. So his words of affirmation sailed over her head as she gritted her teeth, doing her duty.
Kelly was suddenly alerted by sounds from outside. The bus had arrived with an extra buzz of excitement. She heard her father’s raised voice, and she realised he was weeping.
Instantly, she burst out onto the street. Had someone attacked him? Had he fallen? The sight that greeted her rooted Kelly to the spot. She stared open-mouthed at her generally calm and collected father clinging to a bedraggled-looking blonde woman in a shabby coat with ripped and faded jeans. The newcomer cried too, her sobs outdoing those of the man who held her.
“It can’t be!” Kelly didn’t want to believe what she saw, but a triumphant cry from her father confirmed the impossible.
“Cynthia! Oh, Cynthia! You’ve come home at last!”
Cynthia was speaking, but their father kept silencing her with outbursts of love and joy while Kelly’s insides seethed. The golden girl was back, and she had been forgotten. After ten years without a letter or card, ten years during which they didn’t know whether she was dead or alive, Cynthia had waltzed back into their lives, and their father was welcoming her with open arms. Had he forgotten his anguished tears the day she left, or the money he’d squandered trying to find her?
Kelly longed to hide, but there was nowhere to run. Her father led Cynthia into the bakery, enthusing that her sister would be so happy to see her, and Kelly nodded in the right places.
Kelly greeted Cynthia with all the cordiality she could muster, then listened as her sister poured out her sob story. She had squandered her inheritance, only coming to her senses when it was too late and she was left mucking out pigs on a farm. Kelly gave a sly smile of satisfaction over that because Cynthia detested anything dirty or smelly.
Cynthia begged their father for the most menial task. She had given up her right to inherit, but she would scrub and clean, or even work the night shift. Yet their father heard none of it, such was his joy over the return of his youngest daughter. He talked of throwing a party, of calling the whole family to a celebration, but the bitterness, anger and resentment inside Kelly grew until it threatened to burst out of her chest.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She slammed her way into the storeroom, convinced he wouldn’t even notice she was gone. But moments later, her father joined her. He switched on the light, exposing her bitter tears.
“Are you okay, Kelly?”
That was all the opening she needed for her angry words to spew out. A lifetime of bitterness and frustration could no longer be contained, so she let him have it.
“All these years, I’ve looked after you, running this bakery without a word of complaint, but you’ve never even thrown me a birthday party. And now, my sister, who squandered everything you gave her, is being celebrated because she finally realised she can’t live without us! It’s not fair!” She knew she sounded like a petulant two-year-old, but Kelly was past caring. She huddled against the back wall of the storeroom, crying bitter tears.
Slowly, her father walked towards her, put his hands on either side of her face, and tilted her chin until she had no choice but to look at him. His words were firm, but there was no hiding the love in his eyes.
“My darling Kelly, you have always been my comfort and joy. You’ve been a faithful and dutiful daughter, and one day, everything that’s left will belong to you. But we need to celebrate. We didn’t even know whether Cynthia was still alive, but now she’s back where she belongs. She was lost, but she’s been found. Surely that’s worth a party.”