Echo of a Bird's Cry

THE SURVIVOR EMILY OCTOBER 2

I'm the youngest Willmore girl and my parents' only biological daughter. I have two other siblings. My eldest sister is Ella. My parents adopted her from Japan thirty years ago. She'll be thirty-three in July. Ella is the rational one. She's the rock to our foundation. She's a psychologist. A great one. The shiny awards and certificates in her office says so. I love Ella but she never understood me and she never took the time to. The second eldest is Eden. My sweet dear Eden. My parents adopted her from North Carolina twenty-eight years ago. In fact, her birth mother gave up her rights when Eden was still in her womb. Today is Eden's birthday. She's twenty-eight. She's calm and loyal to the bone. She's my best friend, my protector, my cheerleader, and my number one supporter since we were kids. We were always attached at the hip but things changed when my mother and father decided that Ella and Eden needed to get real exposure to their cultures. A genuine taste of ethnic authenticity. My parents wanted Ella and Eden to be well rounded in their own skin and identity. My parents sent Ella to live with a Japanese American family for a summer and they sent Eden to live with an African-American family. Nothing changed about Ella when she came back but Eden came back a little resentful. I asked her what was wrong. She mentioned that I wouldn't understand the challenges she would face because her skin is darker than mine. I never noticed the color of her skin before. I just knew she was the most beautiful girl in the world and the best big sister I had. But when she came back, the color of her skin was all she seemed to focus on. She obsessed over it when none of us never did. It eventually got better. I learned to love all parts of Eden, even the bitter angry parts. We grew close again. I got bullied a lot a few years back when I was in high school. There were a group of mean girls that used to physically assault me on a daily basis. They constantly had me on the verge of suicide. I cried to Eden once and showed her the bruises I kept hidden. Eden didn't take that well. I will never forget her driving up to my private school. Some of the girls that were a part of the bully clique stayed after school for tennis practice. She told me to point out the ones that assaulted me. I pointed at the leader first, Ashely Baker, and Eden instantly made a beeline and kicked her ass in front of everyone. Eden did get arrested for fighting on campus but the charges were dropped with the help of our parents' influence. What's the point of having fame and fortune if you couldn't bribe people with it? Things changed for the worse when I slept with Angel. I don't think Eden will ever forgive me. Angel grew up with us. Our father wanted to mentor a troubled boy. Our father wanted a male protégé. A son. He picked the worst behaved kid from a juvenile detention center in Los Angeles and took mentoring to another level. He moved Angel in with us. Angel was twelve at the time. Our father was very present in our lives but especially in Angel's. He slowly transformed Angel from a rough delinquent to an intelligent suave alpha male that housewives would pay bucket loads of money to see unleash. He transformed Angel into a dark charming prince. As we got older it seemed like everyone lost their minds and went deliriously happy if Angel smiled at them or noticed them in any capacity. He made women faint with a single smile but he wasn't a player. He didn't date anyone. He only had eyes for Eden. When we were kids he used to spend hours staring at her. He told me he knew he was in love with Eden right away. He even gave up adoption for her. When Angel turned fourteen my parents wanted to officially adopt him but Angel didn't approve. He told them he was going to marry Eden one day and he doubted Eden wanted to marry her brother. But my father persisted that Angel take my father's last name. Angel did out of respect and love. Angel's full legal name is Angel Chávez Willmore. I didn't mean to ruin Eden and Angel's relationship. I was young and insecure. Angel and Eden were going through a rough patch because Eden was spending time with John. She was helping John with his quest to build wells and provide clean drinking water in Africa. They had a disagreement over the phone and Angel was really upset. I was scared he was going to do something to jeopardize himself. He was so angry. I came to him when he was drunk and unable to put up a fight. If I'm being a hundred percent honest with myself, I slept with Angel because I knew it would push Eden away. I've always been paranoid about her leaving and abandoning me until one day I took fate into my hands and made my worst nightmare come true. I also went to him because I was curious. Out of all the men open and available, she chose him. Eden chose Angel. That meant everything. That meant Angel was special. That meant Angel was worthy and I've never once felt worthy a day in my life. I had sex with my sister's fiancé. I wanted to experience that potent love he has for my sister. I wanted to experience what it was like to be cherished. I wanted to experience worthiness. I broke my sister's heart for a fleeting experience of bliss. It was impulsive. It was wrong. Angel was the one to confess. He told her when she came home. Eden didn't say a word to us afterward. She cut off all contact cold turkey. One day we had her in our lives. The next we didn't. She moved and changed her number. She went off grid. Eden shunned us for five years. We didn't see her anymore. She ran from us and she stayed hidden until now. We knew where she was. Angel and I loved her enough to respect her wishes. She didn't want to see us. We stayed away. I guess she watched the news or read the reports and felt sorry for me. Either way I have her back. She called me two days ago and gave me the address to her home in Ravenwood. She built a home in North Carolina, in the same small town she was born in. This remote four bedroom house in the forest has been her sanctuary. She came back to her roots. Eden has always been curious about her birth mother and her blood relations. Eden's adoption was a closed one but our parents gave her all the information they had. Her birth mother was Marilyn Bell. She was born here in Ravenwood. She was the town's beauty that everyone was enthralled over. Her birth mother was an actual beauty queen. Marilyn was a pageant girl and won every contest she entered. From what I've heard, the entire town was obsessed with her. Marilyn got involved in an abusive relationship. She was eighteen when she fell in love with a local bad boy. The documents state Marilyn was concerned about the safety of her unborn child. She looked into adoption and by some miracle my parents were the couple she chose. Our parents moved to Ravenwood and Marilyn moved in with them. My mother said they provided the best care and support for Marilyn throughout her pregnancy but Eden's biological father Curtis was persistent in his pursuit. Marilyn fell victim to Curtis and his charms. They were together once again. My parents banned Curtis from the hospital when Marilyn gave birth. The story goes, as soon as Marilyn pushed Eden into this world, she begged my parents to take Eden and leave Ravenwood. Marilyn kissed her newborn baby once and handed her over to my parents. They thanked her for their daughter and wrapped Eden in a blanket and took her to their California mansion. Her mother was murdered a year later on Eden's first birthday. Eden's farther stabbed Marilyn to death in the kitchen at the home they shared. Curtis proceeded to put a pistol to his head and squeezed the trigger. Eden's biological parents were dead before the meatloaf on the table cooled. It was overwhelming to learn all of this but this is what Eden wanted. Our parents wanted to throw Eden a sweet sixteen birthday party but the only gift she wanted was the details of her adoption. She wanted to know everything and that's what my parents gave her. Instead of having an elaborate party, Eden spent her sixteenth birthday at the abandoned house her parents died in. We flew to Ravenwood together as a family. Marilyn and Curtis lived in a little three bedroom blue house. The aged yellow police tape was still fenced around the entire perimeter of the property. No one had touched that house. The locals told my parents that stepping foot on the cursed grounds would bring nothing but bad luck. But Eden insisted. I didn't want to go inside. I didn't want Eden to go either. I was terrified of that little blue house. I'm still scared to death of it today. It was something about the windows. They looked too large and blocky for the structure. Whatever horror was inside stared out at us. Eden was the first to go inside. We followed her, ducking under the yellow caution tape. The odor inside was musty and moldy. The house itself had a sour stench to it that turned my stomach. There was an icy draft inside that sucked the warmth from my bones. Eden didn't want to explore the house. She went straight to the crime scene. The kitchen was small. A square wooden table and four wooden chairs dominated the center. Eden stood near the stove and stared down at the tiled floor that was once white. The floor was dingy and dirty like everything in that house. I didn't want to notice anything else but Eden pointed out large amounts of dried blood smeared and streaked across the floor. Eden also pointed at the splatter of dried blood against the walls and near the corners of the ceiling. The blood was dark like crusted mud. I was only ten at the time but I remember another piece of my sister chipped away.