book review: "Sister"...

... picked at random from the library book sale rack for $1, when I dashed in looking for a paperback I could take along, read, and toss. Written by:Rosamund Lupton, who lives in the UK. pPblicized by Target Corp as a Club Pick. Copyright 2010 by Crown, a division of Random House.

Thus far, a sister (Tess) has disappeared, days later discovered dead in a defunct men's washroom in a public park in icy cold winter weather in London. I am thinking there is no way there can be a happy ending, for any good to come of the time the surviving Beatrice has spent living in Tess' hole-in-the-wall apartment trying to come to grips with circumstances surrounding the death. The deceased sister had just been through the misery of childbirth, only to have her newborn die, and she was struggling with both grief and post-partum depression. During the pregnancy, she was being treated with an experimental drug designed to replace a faulty gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a hereditary disease that caused the  of death of their brother at a young age.

I've been reading the book since I left home last Saturday to go to Richmond on Sunday for a memorial service, so naturally I've been dwelling far too much on death and dying, grief and loss. A quote in the book really caught my attention. The book is written in the first person, so this is Beatrice talking, referring to her deceased sister Tess:

"I don't know what time it was," I reply.... "Time didn't mean anything to me anymore. Usually  time alters and affects  everything, but when someone you love dies, time cannot  change that - no amount of time will ever change that - so time stops having any meaning."
When I saw your strand of hair, I knew that grief is love turned into an eternal missing." (pg. 55)

I'm not finished, and keep reading, hoping for a fact to be revealed that might alter circumstances. Create a change that will bring Beatrice some sense of peace, as well as understanding about the disturbing facts surrounding the death of Tess. She is just now trying to make arrangements for the infant to be buried with his mother, while the mother of Tess and Beatrice finds this ghoulish and completely inappropriate. It is both hard to read and difficult to put down, impossible to walk away, just close the book and quit.