Secrets, Sibling Bonds, and the Scars of Loss

Author Louise Ells shares the story behind her new novel, Lies I Told My Sister. Taking place over just 17 hours and alternating between past and present, the novel follows the strained relationship of estranged sisters Rose and Lily, as issues of their childhood, the death of their older sister, and the inevitable truth of past lies and secrets surface. The novel explores the cost of secrets, the depth of the bond between sisters, and just how far we will go to protect the ones we love — and ourselves.

A Fear Like No Other

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

I started writing this novel in response to a challenge set by my friend and fellow writer, Tiffani Angus. “What truly scares you the most?” she asked me. “And when are you going to write about that?”

My answer, the core of the first draft of my novel, was that I was terrified of losing my sister. I know about sister-shaped holes in a family; one of my sisters died suddenly and unexpectedly as a child, the other chose to leave. What if I lost my last remaining sister, my best friend, to an accident or an illness? How would I survive without her? 

I gave this fear to my protagonist, Lily, along with a history that explained her lack of coping mechanisms, and her inability to be fully honest with herself about her failures, her disappointments, and her grief. I then placed her in a situation where she felt she had to choose between withholding life-changing information from her sister, or giving her sister that information at the risk of damaging their friendship forever. After years of shielding her sister from painful truths in what Lily thought was an act of love, she has to divulge more than the one life-changing secret. She has woven a tapestry of half-truths and secrets, which she now has to unpick, one thread at a time, before she can start to reweave it. 

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

“On what occasion do you lie?” asks the Proust questionnaire, suggesting that no one is ever 100% honest 100% of the time. (It was interesting — and scary — to explore degrees of truth through my characters, as AI ChatBots became more prevalent and “fake news” ceased to be a joke.) Lily justifies the little white lies she tells, and rationalizes that lies of omission can be kinder and less damaging than the truth. She blurs the line between silence and lies, especially when she thinks concealing the truth will protect a loved one. She understands that there is a difference between a story and a lie, and she creates meaning and connection in her life by telling stories, but when her own truth becomes too painful to face, she grows to believe all the stories she tells herself about herself. 

Life can change in a single moment, for better or worse: an act of terrorism, a lottery win, a miscarriage. But more subtle changes, wrought over time, can have just as devastating an effect. In my short story collection, Notes Towards Recovery, I explored loss in a multitude of ways; as I wrote my way into the truth of this novel, I realized I was adding layers of loss to Lily’s life in an effort to explore one woman’s experience of a multitude of losses.

Ghosts of the Past

At some point during a week-long consultation with writer and editor Pamela Mulloy, I wrote myself a note: is this book really about Lily’s fear of losing all mirrors – so there is no one left with whom she can share the reflection a lifetime’s memories? Or is it about many of Lily’s life’s decisions being shaped by her ghost sister? I was at a writing retreat, which I attended with my friend, Margaret Watson, who was generous enough to listen to me muse about Lily as we walked from lake to lake along forest trails. What if —? I kept thinking aloud. What if Lily’s childhood had been different? What if Tansy had —? What if Bobby hadn’t —? What if, as an adult, Lily had chosen to —?

I have always been fascinated in liminal spaces, and it’s no coincidence that my novel features such transitory places as a hospital waiting room, hiking trails, and military bases, or in-between times like dawn, dusk, and the threshold of a northeastern Ontario winter-to-spring. Lily lives a peripatetic life, and when she finally settles down it is at the edge of an ever-changing lake. 

Originally I thought that I was going to write about Lily’s fear of memory loss, but it became apparent that I was writing about her fear of losing memories, and the importance she places on shared memories. My ‘dementia novel’ became my ‘sisters novel’ and then my ‘family trauma novel.’ It’s Lily’s father who teaches her how to stretch the truth, and the power that can come with that. From her mother, she learns the necessity of letting go. From her sister, Rose, Lily learns what unconditional love looks and feels like. 

Learning to Let Go

Lily believes that she’s been keeping a single big secret from Rose for over a decade; during the course of the novel she’s forced to admit that she’s shared very little of the truth of her own life with her sister. Her lifetime of sisterly communication has included far too much miscommunication. She has to be honest with herself before she can be honest with anyone else, and if she continues to hide the important details of her life from her sister, their relationship will never be the one she wants. If she’s willing to face the discomfort of fighting for a more honest relationship, perhaps the act of divulging the painful truths of her life will help her to let go of them.

As the novel opens, Lily could list all the people in her life she has loved and lost. If she loses her sister, she’ll be fully alone, and that is what scares her the most.