Mourn Me with a Long Song, Grieve Me with Your Life

After my sister ran from her wedding and died at sea, my parents were terrified the Barnes family would blame them, so they pushed me, the girl who looked seventy percent like her, into the wedding car.

On the wedding night, Mortimer Barnes lifted the veil full of anticipation, and the second he saw my face, his expression changed.

When he demanded to know what was going on, my parents wept and shoved the whole thing onto me.

"It was Kate Sullivan's vanity that got her sister killed!"

"Poor Tilly. Right up to the end she kept sending messages saying Kate was her only sister, begging us never to blame her!"

Because of my sister's dying words, Mortimer accepted the marriage, and then spent the next seven years forcing me to live as her shadow.

If I couldn't master her way of dressing, he made me kneel on broken porcelain all night.

If I couldn't do her favorite hairstyle right, he refused to let me eat for three days.

My sister loved spice like her life depended on it, so Mortimer forced me, with my bad stomach, to eat down an entire plate of ghost peppers.

A week before my thirtieth birthday, I bought my own favorite perfume, secretly dabbed a little on my wrist, then threw it away, guilt-stricken.

Even so, Mortimer found out, and he dragged me into the bathroom and scrubbed me down three times with a steel-wool pad.

"You're really that vicious. It wasn't enough to get Tilly killed. Now you want to erase the only trace of her that's left?"

Mortimer made me kneel in the snow before my sister's portrait and recite her list of likes and dislikes over and over.

My knees went numb with cold, and looking at that face in the photo, the one that was seventy percent mine, I suddenly smiled.

I wanted to be myself again.

Before I died.

...

The second before the cold knocked me out, Mortimer had someone carry me back to the room.

Even indoors at seventy-eight degrees, buried under a dozen layers of down, I still shook with cold.

My mother came to see me and caught the wrongness in one look. She stepped over and threw back the blanket.

The moment she saw my legs, already frozen purple, she slapped me hard across the face.

"Useless! We married you into the Barnes family so you'd win Mortimer over, not so you could play the martyr!"

"Look at the state of you. How is this worth all the trouble we went to?"

Win him over? I laughed out loud.

Seven years ago, on the wedding night, the moment Mortimer discovered the bride had been switched, he took me straight to the Sullivan house to demand an explanation.

But my parents didn't so much as flinch. They laid all the blame on me.

They even produced forged text messages, lying that my sister's dying wish was for them to spare me.

For her sake, Mortimer choked down the marriage to me, and he loathed me for it.

He forced me to mimic every move my sister made.

The slightest deviation, and the punishment was hell.

Seven years. Not one day of it out of the nightmare.

Even in my sleep I fought down my own restless nature and held her poised stillness.

And still Mortimer looked at me like a plague, and every year, before her memorial, he found some new way to humiliate and torment me.

That bottle of perfume that never should have existed, I'd already dumped it at least thirty miles from the Barnes house.

Even the scent on my skin I'd scrubbed off at least ten times, then covered with the perfume my sister liked.

But Mortimer still smelled it on me.

He forced me to scour my own body with a steel-wool pad until the skin all over me was rubbed raw and broken.

He hadn't smelled some scent that shouldn't have been there.

He was blaming me for killing the woman he loved.

And my mother actually still hoped Mortimer would come to cherish me?

She must have seen the mockery on my face, because her brow drew tighter and she stood.

"If you can't hold on to Mortimer's heart, then don't blame me for finding another way."

The mockery at the corner of my mouth only deepened.

"What way? Like seven years ago, when you forced me into the Barnes family? Are you going to shove another person in here?"

My mother's face changed all at once, and she raised her hand to teach me a lesson, but Mortimer pushed the door open.

He felt the wrongness in the room right away and frowned. "What's going on?"

My mother smoothed the disgust off her face and smiled.

"Kate says she fell and hurt herself. I'm afraid she can't handle Tilly's memorial."

"She and I talked it over. We were thinking of sending her cousin to help..."

Mortimer cut her off, cold. "No need. She's the one who got Tilly killed, so she's the one who atones for it herself. No one takes her place."

With Mortimer that firm, my mother had nothing more to say and got up to leave.

Before she went, she didn't forget to warn me with a look, to remind me why I'd been married into the Barnes family.

I couldn't be bothered to think about it. Seven more days, and I'd be dead.

Whoever she wanted to shove in here, it had nothing to do with me.

Mortimer tossed a jar of frostbite ointment down in front of me.

I knew this product. It was the flagship item Barnes Group had just developed, the one that could heal even old, stubborn frostbite.

Which meant the price was absurd.

I had no idea why Mortimer, who had always taken pleasure in tormenting and humiliating me, would suddenly turn kind, and I looked up at him before I could stop myself.

Something uneasy crossed his face.

"Don't get the wrong idea. I just don't want you limping around and botching Tilda's memorial service and making her a laughingstock."

The hope that had risen in me sank back down.

Of course. Mortimer hated me to the core, wished I would hurry up and die. Why would he ever care that I'd gotten frostbite?

I handed the ointment back to him. "Don't worry. My life is cheap. I won't die that easily."

Those were the words Mortimer had said when I first came to the Barnes house, after his first punishment left me feverish and unconscious and the servants suggested taking me to a hospital.

That was when I first understood how much deeper his hatred ran than I'd ever imagined.

Sure enough, hearing that, Mortimer cursed at me.

"You don't know what's good for you!"

"Fine. Then stay here and wait until they amputate your legs!"

"But don't think I'll soften. Even crippled, you'll crawl to Tilda's grave and beg her forgiveness!"

He slammed the door on his way out.

I dragged myself down off the bed and went to find the family physician.

Once I'd put on the frostbite ointment he mixed, the numbness in my legs eased quite a bit.

I asked him for a sleeping pill. Dr. Kim, who apart from fetching and applying medicine for me had never once had anything to say to me, spoke up this time.

"Miss Sullivan, this is the third month running that you've come to me for sleeping pills. Is something wrong with your health?"

"Should I tell Mr. Barnes"

"No need." I refused fast.

"It's just the same old thing. There's no reason to trouble him."

But before I left, he still called after me.

"Miss Sullivan, you don't have to hold it together like this."

"Mr. Barnes... he cares about you far more than you think."

I smiled.

It was true.

After all, I had a face that was seventy percent my sister's.

And after all these years of Mortimer forcing me to mimic everything about her, even my own parents sometimes couldn't tell us apart, and in a daze they'd call me Tilly.

I remembered clearly that it was Thanksgiving, a day that was supposed to be for family, and Mortimer had flown into a rage.

He'd flipped the table, then shut himself alone in the wedding suite he and my sister were meant to share, drinking.

The servants, afraid of being caught in it, sent me in with hangover soup.

I never expected the drunk Mortimer to mistake me for my sister, and consummate the marriage.

Afterward he plunged himself into disinfectant, scrubbing over and over until his skin broke.

And he gripped my chin and poured a whole bowl of abortion drug down my throat.

The drug wrecked my body. It didn't just leave me unable to ever have children, it took the little life not yet formed inside me away from me too.

My hand drifted to my stomach without meaning to. It was strangely cold there, a place where even having a normal woman's period had become something I couldn't have.

Still, it was almost over.

I already had ninety-four sleeping pills.

Six more, and I'd have a hundred.

Just enough to leave, quietly, in my sleep.

Back in my room, the ache in my belly hit hard.

Ever since I lost the baby, seven years in, my periods have never come on schedule.

And when they do come, the cramps are unbearable.

I reached for the painkillers on instinct, but somehow Mortimer had come in without my noticing.

He'd picked up the sleeping pills I kept by the bed, his brow furrowed deep.

"You can't sleep?"

My heart lodged in my throat. I forced my voice steady. "Sometimes."

The corner of Mortimer's mouth curled into a sneer.

"I would've thought a murderer like you never lost a night's sleep over what she'd done."

"Don't take these anymore. You don't deserve them."

He threw my pills out the window. I lunged to stop him, but I was a beat too late.

Watching the white tablets scatter into the grass below, I wanted so badly to tell him my sister's death wasn't my doing.

She was the one who couldn't let go of that broke boyfriend of hers, the one who ran off with him and died in the accident.

But the words reached my lips, and I swallowed them back down.

What would be the point?

Mortimer loved her that much. He would never believe me.

He'd only hate me more for smearing the dead girl he'd enshrined in his heart.

Forget it.

Downstairs, I picked the pills up one by one.

Some had gotten damp, but they should still work.

I tucked them into the pocket against my body, then got up to go help set up the seventh-year memorial for my sister in the front hall.

And instead I found an uninvited guest.

My mother had brought my cousin, Amber Harding, dressed in the white dress my sister had loved most while she was alive, reaching out to greet Mortimer of her own accord.

"Mr. Barnes."

I caught the daze in Mortimer's eyes.

The next second, a man who was always cold spoke to my mother first.

"And this is"

"Mr. Barnes, my name is Amber TildaHarding for my surname, Tilda after my cousin Tilda. I'm cousin Tilda's cousin."

Amber Tilda

She'd actually changed her name to get close to Mortimer.

The pity was that this place wasn't the treasure vault she imagined. It was the den of a demon who'd lost his mind.

On instinct, I stepped forward to drive them out.

"Mom, what is this supposed to be?"

"Mortimer already said last time that he doesn't want any outsiders meddling with my sister's memorial"

Amber's eyes suddenly went red.

"Kate, I know you don't like me. You've kept me from coming to her memorials these past few years."

"But she and I were closest of all while she was alive. I only want to come see her. Is that so wrong?"

I looked at the tears at the corners of her eyes and could hardly believe my ears.

Everyone knew my sister got along with her worst of anyone.

Back in their school days, the two of them had scratched at each other for over a decade, all because the boy Amber had a crush on confessed to my sister instead.

The day my sister died, Amber was so happy she set off fireworks at home for three days straight, until my parents were too furious to eat.

And now, to hook Mortimer, she could bring herself to say something this shameless.

I was about to expose the lie when Mortimer spoke.

"Let her stay."

Amber shot me a smug look, and while she was busy talking to Mortimer, my mother pulled me aside.

She told me to give it everything I had, to cooperate with Amber, to make sure Amber landed Mortimer in the shortest time possible.

When I stayed silent, she produced the acceptance letterthe one from seven years ago, the one I'd searched for and never found after I fled home, unable to bear Mortimer's torment.

"Didn't you always want to be with Doctors Without Borders?"

"I promise you. The moment Amber secures her place in the Barnes family and is carrying Mortimer's child, your father and I will send you abroad."

I looked at that yellowed acceptance letter, and all I felt was something bitter.

My mother didn't know I could never be a surgeon.

Mortimer broke the bones in my hand in my first year in the Barnes house.

He said if I couldn't even learn the piano piece my sister had loved best, the hand was no use to me.

Right in front of her, I tore up that expired offer.

I told her, "The Barnes family isn't as good as you all imagine, and Mortimer isn't as easy to fool."

"If you want Amber to die here, then by all means, let her stay."

Even so, I still felt a pang of pity for Tilda.

That night, passing the guest room, I saw her fiddling with the expensive gifts Mortimer had given her, and I stepped inside.

Tilda held the most valuable piece, the ocean-sapphire necklace, against her own throat and flaunted it at me.

"And here I thought, being Kate Sullivan's sister, you'd have the inside track and win him over first. Seven years in this house and Mr. Barnes still doesn't care for you. What a useless thing you are!"

I looked at the necklace at her throat, silent a moment, then asked her.

"Do you know where these things came from?"

"They were Kate's. Mortimer prepared them as their wedding gifts. Pity she died before he ever gave them to her."

Tilda's hand froze, but her chin stayed just as high.

"So what if they were hers? Mr. Barnes gave them to me, which means in his heart I stand higher than Kate ever did!"

"Soon I'll take your place, marry into the Barnes family, become the new Mrs. Barnes, and have everything money can buy!"

I only shook my head. "No. You'll die."

"Something worse than dying, even."

In Mortimer's heart, no one could ever replace my sister.

The only reason he treated Tilda any differently was that she resembled my sister more than I did.

Once that illusion shattered, Tilda would end up in a worse place than I had.

But Tilda was certain I was just jealous of her, and she shoved me hard.

The sleeping pills spilled from my arms and scattered across the floor.

Looking at the pills on the floor, Tilda's expression turned strange.

Mortimer pushed the door open and came in too.

At the white pills all over the floor, his brow drew faintly together.

Tilda, still fretting over how to be rid of me, saw her chance and threw herself into his arms, sobbing.

"Mr. Barnes, does Kate really hate me that much?"

"She said I'm not worthy of wearing these, and that if I ever dared come near you again, she'd kill me the way she killed her sister Kate!"

Mortimer said nothing, but the look he gave me was cold as ice.

He drove me to the stretch of shore where my sister had died, and pushed my head down into the seawater.

Salt and bitterness flooded my nose and mouth. Choking, I couldn't get out a word, and could only fight to break free.

But the harder I struggled, the harder his hand bore down on my head.

Slowly the strength drained out of me, and my whole body sank on its own.

Tilda was terrified too. She lunged forward to stop him, and he flung her off with one hand.

He gripped my chin and forced me to look at him.

"Kate, are you really this vicious? Killing your own sister wasn't enough, and now you want to destroy someone else?"

"Tilda is your cousin! I'd like to cut open your heart and see if it's black inside!"

I wanted to tell Mortimer it wasn't that I was vicious.

It was that I had never once had a choice.

Not back then, when I took the blame for my sister's death.

And not now, with Tilda's lie.

But before I could open my mouth, Mortimer took a call.

His eyes lit with a startled joy, and he told the person on the line.

"I'm on my way!"

He turned and hurried to the car, and Tilda went with him.

Only, before she left, she took off that costly necklace and pressed it into my hand.

"Don't go back to the Barnes house. I know these seven years have been hard on you."

"From now on, go live the life you want."

I did not climb back to shore.

Seven years of grinding down had taken my dream, my child, my dignity, and my right to be a mother.

I had nothing left worth holding on to.

I turned and walked, step by step, into the sea behind me, and let the water swallow me whole.

Elsewhere, Mortimer got a call from customs. An unidentified woman had come through the border who looked very like Kate Sullivan, the one lost in the shipwreck seven years ago. They wanted him to come confirm it.

He rushed to the appointed place. Before he could catch sight of the figure he had longed for day and night, his eye caught the news scrolling across the big screen.

"Breaking news. A pregnant woman has died after taking her own life in the coastal shallows."

"The victim's identity is not yet confirmed. Anyone with information, please contact us at once"

Mortimer thought the shallows in the report looked oddly familiar, very like the one he had taken me to that afternoon to frighten me.

Wanting to confirm it again, the phone in his pocket rang. It was the family doctor.

"Mr. Barnes, do you know where Miss Sullivan went? Her latest checkup shows she's already three months pregnant"

Kate was pregnant?

A flicker of joy crossed the depths of Mortimer's eyes, one even he didn't notice.

Before he could say a word, the news cut to my face, swollen and bloated from the sea.