Salt Sisters

our worst. I just hoped he wasn’t about to see us sink to a new level of despair.
Back at the village, I called in on Mum and Auntie Sue. Auntie Sue answered the door in an apron and I followed her back into the kitchen. There was a strong smell of incense coming from the living room.
‘Does she ever stop burning the herbs?’ I asked.
‘Hush now, you know that’s just how she’s dealing with Amy,’ she said, whispering over the washing up.
I went to join Mum in the living room. She had laid a circle of candles around a yoga mat in the middle of the floor and was burning joss sticks, while soft bongo music pitter-pattered from an ancient CD player.
‘Izzy – come and meditate with me.’
For once, I didn’t feel the normal surge of anger that rose like a wave whenever Mum was doing her hippy thing. I simply didn’t have the energy to fight her on it anymore.
‘Fine. Where do you want me to sit?’
Mum positioned me sitting cross-legged at the centre of the mat and arranged my hands on my knees so that my palms were facing up. She told me to close my eyes, and then re-positioned my head, first turning it gently to the left and right, then forwards and backwards, then released me so slowly that it was hard to tell how high my head was lifted.
‘Just breathe,’ she said in a weird, soft voice. ‘Feel your breath. Feel your body. Just focus on you, and nothing but breathing.’
I took a deep inhale and let it out slowly. How far away were those candles? Burning the place down would be such a Mum thing to do. With my eyes closed, I could hear the bongo music more clearly, and noticed a new noise – the gentle tinkling of running water. Where was that coming from?
‘Mum, do you have a leak or something? Why can I hear water?’
‘Ssshhh, don’t break your focus!’
I ignored her and looked in the direction of the noise. ‘Is that a fountain?’ My attention was drawn to a bubbling rock decoration on the TV stand.
‘Izzy! I told you to concentrate!’
I snapped my head forward again, eyes closed, trying not to giggle.
Mum took a deep breath. ‘It’s a miniature indoor fountain. Having water in a room is essential for a good balance of elements, and if you must know, that one has a peace crystal at the centre to promote the well-being of everyone who comes in this house. It’s all about the feng shui.’
OK, now I really was going to get the giggles. If only Amy had been here to see this.
But she must have seen it. Surely that would have been worth a quick text to her sister? I tried to imagine a scenario in which Amy would have discovered that our mother had installed a universal-healing indoor water feature in her living room and not thought it merited sending a laughing emoji my way. How had we grown so far apart that she wouldn’t have shared this with me, the person she once shared a whole world with?
‘Now, the only important thing is your breathing. All of these other thoughts, competing for your attention – they’re the distractions you face, every hour, every day. Meditation is rising above the distractions and empowering yourself to focus on what really matters.’
Mum was doing her stupid yogi voice again, but what she was saying actually made sense. I did have a lot of distractions right now and needed to remember what was important.
‘Channel the energy from the elements, from the earth, from inside your body. You have everything you need to overcome any challenge; it’s already within you. You are stronger than you ever knew. You just need to get past the distractions and rise above the noise…’
I felt stupid, but also strangely serene. Just sitting still and doing some deep breathing was making me feel more relaxed than I had been in weeks – yet, at the same time, strong.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said, reluctant to break the spell. ‘But that water thing – it’s really making me need the loo.’
Meditation session and toilet break over, Mum cleared away the candles and yoga mat while Auntie Sue prepared a pot of tea and biscuits. Auntie Sue switched off the water feature at the socket and I caught her eye briefly before she looked away, hiding a smirk. She dragged the coffee table back into the middle of the room and I began to pour.
I took a deep breath. ‘While I’ve got you both here, I need to ask: was everything OK with Amy? Did she and Mike have problems?’ I glanced up from the teapot. Auntie Sue frowned anxiously at Mum, who was facing the window and had become captivated by something outside. ‘It’s just… Mike’s acting a bit weird about the life insurance thing,’ I continued. ‘Probably nothing to worry about…’
Neither of them was giving me anything.
‘But it would raise eyebrows, don’t you think?’ I persevered. ‘A woman is killed in an unfortunate accident and the husband thinks he is going to get a pay day from the insurance…’
‘Enough, Izzy!’ Mum snapped, glaring at me with wide eyes. ‘Don’t say things like that unless you mean them.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, realising I’d pushed it too far. ‘It’s just that I have a few questions about what was going on with Amy before she died, and we need to answer them – for all our sakes.’
‘What questions? Sweetheart, I know it is hard to accept, and it makes no sense, but Amy is gone. The universe took her from us. There was no reason for it and there’s nothing we can do about it. We could ask our whys for a thousand years and drive ourselves mad in the process and still be none the wiser.’
I held my head in my hands. ‘Mum – you guys saw her every week. You spent time with her and Mike. All I’m saying