One Day

A/N: I know authors' notes can be annoying, but, well, tough. I don't know what people will make of this story . . . I was actually searching for a different topic when I found a story on a news site, about a sister and a brother who wanted incest to be legal in their country. They'd had four kids, three taken away from them, and they wanted to be seen as an ordinary family. I was reading the arguments for their case - they hadn't known each other as children, and fell in love when meeting in later life. Old couples, or disabled ones, are allowed to have children, so why can't they? Either way the child has a high (or even - fifty percent, for a sister and a brother) chance of having a disorder or a disability.

I wrote this from the child's point of view, a teen or adult looking back at their eight-year-old self. I haven't added every issue possible, and neither of the children have a disability, but I hope you'll find it interesting. Please read, and tell me what you think!





‘Bread?’ I looked at Mummy, then at the pound coin in my hand. ‘What sort of bread?’

‘Kim will know which one.’

I looked up, as my brother, Kimberly, slouched into the living room. I smiled, automatically. Kim smiled back, and half picked me up, tickling me under my chin.

‘Kim!’ Mummy said, shaking her head at him, and I laughed, and squirmed away. ‘I need you to take your sister to the shop.’

‘Yeah? What you need?’

‘Bread. Milk. Biscuits.’ Mummy sighed, and took a slip of paper from the pocket of her cardigan. ‘Here, I wrote a list. I gave Sophie the money for the bread – you have enough for the rest, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, but that’s my pocket money. I owe Tom, remember, for that pack of cards he got me –’

I stopped listening, then, since it was turning into one of those family debates. That's what Mummy called them. Kim called them arguments. I didn’t call them anything – they were just a part of our conversations, as was Mummy’s offering of tea, for Daddy and Kim, or apple juice for me. Sometimes she’d offer us cakes we’d made. Sometimes she’d offer to make us cakes. It would change, depending on where we were and what we were doing. Kim went to school – he was thirteen, in year eight – but I was home-educated, so I spent a lot of time with Mummy, who didn’t work. I saw my friends after school, wandering around the park with Pam and Helena. I saw them at weekends, too, but we always spent a lot of time as the four of us, me, Mummy, Daddy and Kim.

That was how we liked it.

I was eight, and I remember being young for my age. Maybe I was young, full stop. Kim seemed much more mature than me, and held my hand as he strode towards the shop at the end of our street. It was a Spar, big, with cars parked around it, and lights showing a man and a dog walking towards us. I cowered from the dog, and the man – I was sure he was looking at us for longer than necessary – but Kim just laughed at me, and squeezed my hand.

The man and dog ignored us.

As we entered the shop, I thought it was surprisingly busy. ‘Lots of people,’ Kim murmured, as if I’d spoke out loud. I nodded, silently. ‘I suppose it’s nearing Christmas, now. They have toys, and stockings and stuff.’

It was certainly winter, I thought, nodding, since I’d felt a rush of warmth as we entered the Spar. I started to unwind my scarf, seeing Kim let go of my hand, and followed him until he stopped.

We were by the bread, so I grabbed a loaf, then turned to Kim to ask if that was our usual brand. ‘Is –’ I started, then stopped, seeing Kim glaring at a total stranger. ‘Kim, what are you doing?’ I hissed, nervously, glancing up at another man. This one was older, mid-thirties, maybe, and he had a disgusted look on his face. He seemed disgusted at me.

I frowned, confused, and looked at Kim.

‘Kim,’ I said, uselessly.

‘It’s okay, Sophie.’ Kim gave the man one last glance, then took the loaf of bread from me. ‘Soph, go grab the milk, will you? The small carton, the one with the red handle. I’ll be in the fruit aisle.’

‘Okay, Kim.’ I couldn’t help feeling scared, and scurried away from my brother and the other man. I could feel my heart thumping, faster, faster, and it almost exploded when a lady nudged me with her handbag.

‘Whoops,’ she said, giving me a kind, lipsticky smile. ‘Sorry, darling.’

‘’S all right,’ I mumbled. I felt like my breath had been knocked out of me.

I realised that Kim might be looking for me, now, so I scanned the milk section, grabbed the red-handled carton and ran to the next isle. The Spar was huge, like a miniature supermarket, isle after isle of goods. This one was full of freezers. Lasagne, ice cream . . . I sighed, hopelessly. The next isle was full of jars, and cereal boxes. I finally saw a sign saying “Fruit”, and followed it, utterly terrified.

‘Hey,’ my brother said, sounding shocked, as I hugged him, throwing my head into his chest. ‘Hey, Sophie. Sophie. Look, get off me, will you?’

I slowly untangled myself, feeling tears prick at my eyes. Kim looked distracted, his own eyes bright and furious, but he soon started to look concerned.

‘What’s wrong, Sophie?’ he said, quietly.

‘Who was that man?’ I said, trying not to cry. ‘Who was he?’

‘Him?’ I saw that the man was dawdling in our direction, then, seeing us, immediately turned away.

‘Yes, him,’ I said, furiously.

‘He’s scum,’ Kim replied. His voice was calm, a monotone, but his eyes were dangerous.

‘All right. Why was he looking at us like that?’

Kim stared at me, his gaze a long one. Then, finally, he opened his mouth.

‘You don’t go to school, do you, Sophie?’

‘No,’ I said, thinking this was obvious. ‘You know I don’t. I never wanted to, right from the start.’

‘And Mum teaches you.’

‘Yeah.’

What kind of questions were these?

‘She doesn’t show you newspapers, does she?’

‘No.’ I was getting impatient, now. ‘For goodness’ sake, Kim, what does it matter?’

‘I don’t know if you’ll understand, Sophie. You’re only eight.’

When I didn’t answer, but stared, defiantly, Kim just sighed.

‘Mum teaches you every day,’ he said, tiredly. ‘She cooks for us, buys us toys, games, televisions. She tries to make us happy.’

‘Daddy does that, too.’

‘I know. Daddy pays for those things. He works every day, sometimes nights, so we can be happy and comfortable.’

I waited, silently.

‘Soph, usually when people meet – two people, like Mum and Dad – they’re strangers. They fall in love, get married . . . whatever. Sometimes they’re two women, sometimes men, sometimes a woman and a man. Sometimes one is British, one's American. They can be as different as different gets.

‘Sometimes . . . well, Mum and Dad didn’t know each other before they fell in love. But they should’ve done.’

‘Why?’

Kim looked pale and miserable, and looked around us before he spoke.

‘They’re related,’ he said, quietly.



Mummy never told me. Daddy never told me. Kim never told me, though he hadn’t known for a very long time.

‘We didn’t want you to grow up with secrets, Sophie,’ Mummy said. ‘Not like we did. Both your dad and I were adopted into separate families, and it took us years to discover who we were. By that time, we’d already fallen in love.’

‘You’ve never been in love, Sophie,’ Daddy said, taking hold of my hand. ‘Neither has Kim. That’s why we wanted you to be older when we told you, so you could hopefully understand.’

‘And if you couldn’t,’ Mummy continued, her lip shaking, ‘at least you’d have been raised in a happy family, without the problems we faced every day. We know it’s a shock, finding out after all these years – but we didn’t know how else to do it.’

‘We’ve had to hide it, anyway,’ Daddy mumbled. ‘The authorities found out that we were together – it made an interesting news story, though it’s happened before – but we didn’t have children then. Having children, well, that’s against the law in this country.’

The explanations went on and on, until I started to forget what was trying to be explained. Kim helped, making it seem more simple. It didn’t seem so strange. At first I couldn’t understand it – brother and sister? Kim and me? I was close to my brother, but I couldn’t understand how anyone would fall in love with theirs.

Then I remembered. They were strangers. They didn’t know each other . . . they just happened to be related.

I mentioned the man with the disgusted look. ‘He must’ve known,’ I said, uncomfortably. Kim nodded, grave. Another neighbour had recognised Mummy and Daddy from papers long ago, over thirteen years ago. He knew we were their children. Mummy and Daddy had been in court, trying to argue our case – to stay a family of four.

The case was told on every newspaper, especially local ones, and the locals knew who we were.

‘Kim’s been getting a lot of grief at school,’ Mummy said, quietly. ‘We were thinking of transferring him, but we’d have to move away from here, where everybody knows us. Besides, we still don’t know if we’ll be allowed to keep you.’

I remember tears, more arguments, debates, whatever you wanted to call them. I remember writing letters to Mummy and Daddy. Most of all I remember being forced away from them, away from my parents, and I felt like I was being torn apart.

I got to stay with Kim, at least. We shared a room at the nearest children’s home, keeping a distance from the other kids. Emilie, who was like a mum to us all, kept telling us to go outside and play with the other children, but Kim and I refused. We sat, instead, listening to the cries outside.

‘How can they do this?’ I murmured, lying down on my bed. ‘How can they take us away from our family?’

Kim waited a second, before replying in a flat, bitter tone.

‘We were never meant to be a family.’

That night was the first I’d seen Kim cry in a very long time, and for once I felt like the older one, the oldest. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. Kim and I were brother and sister, and we had a mum and dad, even if we couldn’t see them then. One day, though we didn’t know it then, we’d all be together again. One day, we’d go back to the way we were before, a family, healing from the rip we’d had to endure.

One day . . .