The Pack That Buried Me

The client had named the folder FINAL, which usually meant I needed to ask for three more folders. I opened it anyway. Six invoices, two bank statements, and a photograph of a receipt somebody had apparently taken while falling down. I turned the image sideways. It remained unhelpful. Outside my office, the printer started chewing paper. Someone told it to behave. I added a request for a legible receipt to my email and reached for the sandwich beside my keyboard. My desk phone rang before I could unwrap it. “Mara Ellis.” “Hi. Sorry. Is this—” A woman stopped speaking. I could hear her breathing close to the microphone. “Is Ellis your married name?” I put the sandwich down. “Who’s calling?” “Lena.” There were other Lenas. Clients, certainly. People who had every reason to call an accounting firm at lunchtime. “Lena who?” “Don’t do that. Please.” My fingers tightened around the receiver. The last time I’d heard my sister speak, she’d been fourteen and furious because I’d borrowed her charger. She’d followed me down the hall demanding it back, wearing one sock, threatening to charge interest. This woman sounded older. Of course she did. “Voss,” she said. “Lena Voss. I’m looking for my sister.” I stood and closed my office door. The latch clicked too loudly. “It’s me.” She made a small, awkward sound, almost a laugh. “You sound the same.” “You don’t.” “Yeah. Well.” I sat down because my knees had begun to feel unreliable. I’d spent eight years outside pack territory. Hearing her voice made the distance feel much smaller. “How did you get this number?” “Your work website.” “How did you know my name?” “It took a bit.” Her voice shifted away from the phone. When she came back, she spoke more quietly. “Can you give me your mobile number?” “Lena, what’s happened?” “Please. I can’t stay on this line.” I read out the number. She repeated the last four digits, getting one wrong, and I corrected her. Such a stupid, ordinary thing to have to do when I wanted to ask whether she still hated tomatoes, whether she’d been happy, whether she’d ever needed me. “Don’t call the house,” she said. “Are you there now?” “No. Just don’t.” Then she hung up. I kept the receiver against my ear until the tone changed. My mobile lay beneath a yellow pad. I moved the pad, then moved it again because I’d put it over my mouse. Across the room, the framed certificate on my shelf sat slightly crooked. I’d been meaning to fix it for weeks. A message appeared from an unfamiliar number. It’s Lena. Can you talk here? Yes. Where are you? Three dots appeared, vanished, appeared again. They told me you were dead. I read it twice, then checked the message above it, as though I’d missed something between asking where she was and learning that. Who told you? The phone offered a video call before she answered. I accepted. For a moment I saw a ceiling panel and the corner of a fluorescent light. Then her face filled the screen, too close, and she drew the phone back. There she was. I’d seen photographs online. Smiling at foundation events, standing beside people whose names I didn’t know. I’d enlarged those pictures until her face blurred. None had prepared me for her moving, looking at me, lifting a hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “Hi, bug.” The old nickname escaped before I could stop it. She pressed her lips together. I wished I hadn’t said it. I wanted to say it again. “You cut your hair,” she said. “A few times.” That almost got a smile. She wore a blue blouse with the sleeves pushed up. When she adjusted the phone, a silver chain bracelet slipped toward her hand. A little flat disc hung beside the clasp. She caught it with her thumb and rubbed it while she looked at me. I’d bought it with money from a summer job. She’d insisted on the plain one because the hearts were “embarrassing, Mara.” “You still have that.” She glanced at her wrist, then lowered it out of view. “Why wouldn’t I?” I had no answer that didn’t make things worse. Behind her was a pale wall and the edge of a noticeboard. Nothing told me where she was. “Lena. Who said I was dead?” “Everyone.” She looked irritated that I needed it explained. “At home. They said you died after you left.” “I’m here.” “I can see that.” “No, I mean—I’ve been here. I’ve been working. I changed my surname, but I didn’t—” Disappear, I nearly said. I’d done exactly that. “Did you think I knew?” she asked. “Dad said you were safe. He said if I stayed away—” I stopped. Her expression had changed. “He said coming back could make things worse for you.” “So you stayed away.” “Yes.” “For eight years?” A knock sounded at my office door. I ignored it. “I emailed you,” I said. “Your old address. It bounced. And I sent a message to your account—” “When?” The question was quick and fair. “Years ago.” She stared at me. I could see her doing the arithmetic. “I thought you didn’t want to answer.” Even as I said it, I heard how little that explained. “I should have tried again.” “Yes,” she said. I wanted her to give me something I could fix immediately. An address. A ticket to buy. Instead she was sitting somewhere I couldn’t identify, wearing a bracelet she’d kept while believing I was dead. “I’m sorry.” She looked down. For several seconds neither of us spoke. “Ellis isn’t a married name,” I said eventually. “You asked. I changed it legally.” “Okay.” “I’m not married.” “Okay, Mara.” She wiped beneath one eye with the side of her finger, impatient with it. “Are you all right?” I asked. “I don’t know yet.” “Tell me where you are.” Her attention moved beyond the screen. I heard something indistinct, possibly a door closing. “I need to go.” “Wait. Give me five minutes.” “I’ll message you.” “When?” “Soon.” “Lena—” “I have something to send you. Just let me get off this call.” The image vanished. I tapped her number immediately. It rang until voicemail answered with an automated greeting. “It’s me. Call me back. Please.” I ended it before I could say anything else and sent a text. You don’t have to explain everything now. Just tell me you’re safe. The message showed as delivered. I opened the firm’s website on my computer. My photograph loaded beside my name and qualifications. Mara Ellis, forensic accountant. There was the office number, an email link, a short paragraph about financial investigations. Anyone who found that page could have called me. Lena had. I looked at the contact form, absurdly angry with its tidy little boxes. Name. Email. How can we help? Eight years, and I’d been waiting for my sister to put herself into one of those boxes. The knock came again. “Give me a minute,” I called. “Your lunch meeting got moved to two.” “All right. Thanks.” Footsteps retreated. I checked the time. Seven minutes since the video call ended. I’m still here, I typed. That one stayed undelivered. I tried calling again. This time the automated greeting answered without a ring. I put the phone flat on the desk and kept my hand beside it. The sandwich wrapper crackled under my wrist. I pushed it away. When the phone lit up, I grabbed it hard enough to knock my pen to the floor. A photograph had arrived from Lena’s number. I opened it. A low gray stone stood in close-cut grass. There were dried leaves caught along its base, and a pot of white flowers to one side. I enlarged the lettering with two fingers. MARA VOSS. Beneath my name was a death date eight years earlier, from the month I’d left my sister behind.