“Connie,” I whined.

“Shh.” She pressed her lips just below my jaw before ducking her face back down. “Go back to sleep.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

I rolled my eyes but having Connie lie on top of me was oddly comforting, and her bed so soft, and I fell back asleep easily. I was floating somewhere between being asleep and awake when the unmistakable sound of feet stomping outside startled Connie into jumping up, pushing away from me in a rush.

“Put on a shirt!” she hissed, reaching down onto the floor for the first item of clothing she could reach. It was the top I had ripped off her last night but it would do. I scrambled to throw it on haphazardly and fumbled with the top few buttons as Connie seemed to do the same, before she pulled the duvet back over us just as the doorknob rattled.

For all intents and purposes Connie may as well have lived alone in that gaudy big house of hers. Alone, save for the occasional cleaner, gardener, repairman. I had never met Mrs. O’Reilly, my entire perception of her based on the handful of photos in the hallway downstairs and everything Connie told me previously. I hated her with a burning passion, one that I found difficult to direct in any particular direction. For a very long time, she felt scarcely real to me; always an ominous threat looming over my life but never a real, concrete figure. An idea more so than a woman made of flesh. It was a miracle, really, that I had gone so far without crossing her path before, but I knew she was a rare sight outside of her own bedroom, even when she was home. Her father, too, remained an elusive figure. The odd times that our path crossed he was never anything but distantly polite and verging on aloof, coolly civil even toward his own daughter. The only sincere smile he had ever granted in my presence was aimed at his other daughter, the day she received her Leaving Cert results. I couldn’t imagine how it must have felt for Connie growing up in such enormous, overbearing solitude. From what I had garnered it hadn’t always been that way. There was once a time Mr. O’Reilly hadn’t been a visitor in his own home. There was once a time, too, when Emily hadn’t thought of herself in competition with her younger sister. Those times must have felt a lifetime ago to those who lived them.

It was Mr. O’Reilly who stood in the doorway that morning, sharp eyes landing on us almost immediately. He was impeccably well-dressed as ever, cheeks clean-shaven, hair neatly combed. If not for the purple bags beneath his eyes he might well have made for a model. Connie sat up in the bed as if she’d just woken up, rubbing at her eyes and yawning.

“Dad?”

“Good morning, Connie,” he greeted, in the same tone I imagined one might greet an unfamiliar employee. “Emily said you had a guest over. I was almost concerned I might barge in on some unsuspecting boy.”