My little sister got pregnant just weeks after being turfed out of the family home when my mum moved to Spain

WHEN Lisa Hall heard her mum was emigrating to Spain with her new husband, her first thought was to panic about herself – and who would help with her kids.

But the author, now 40, was in for another shock when her younger sister Amy, then 21, announced an unplanned pregnancy just months later, having just been turfed out of the family home.

Writing exclusively for Fabulous Digital, Have You Seen Her author Lisa tells her story…

“I’m moving to Spain.” These were the last words I or my two younger sisters were expecting to hear from our mum, but she had just said them. And with a straight face.

She was packing up and moving to Spain with her new husband. My first reaction was panic – what was I going to do?

I might have been 25 with two small children but who was going to look after me?

Then my attention turned to Amy, my youngest sister – she was only just 21. How was she going to cope?

She was still living at home at the time, now Amy needed to find somewhere else to live.

Luckily, her boyfriend, who she had only been with for a few months at the time, said she could move in with him (and 15 years later they’re still together).

A few months after our mum left, Amy dropped another bombshell when she found out she was pregnant with her first child.

She was still living at home at the time, now Amy needed to find somewhere else to live

Lisa Hall, 40

There is a four-year age gap between myself and Amy – that doesn’t seem a lot now, but growing up it did.

Once my mum left though, the age gap seemed to shrink to nothing.

We were finally in the same situation – both of us stay-at-home mums with small children.

But I also felt like I had to step into my mum’s shoes and become her support system.

When we both went back to work, we found ourselves trying to juggle looking after tiny children, and work, and keep on top of everything else that comes with being an adult.

It became easier to call each other, than to try and call our mum.

We’d call each other when we needed someone to listen, as we offloaded all the frustration that comes with trying to do a good job of raising a family, and we started to become closer than we ever had before.

When my third child was born four months after Amy’s first daughter, Amy was the one I texted at 4am to say he had arrived, knowing that she would be up feeding my niece.

We might live a hundred miles apart – I’m in Kent, while Amy still lives just outside of our home town of Eastleigh, Hampshire – but Amy is the one who has to listen to my rambling plot lines when I’m starting to brew up ideas for a new book.

She reads a lot, and I know I can rely on her to be brutally honest with me if something isn’t going to work.

We text everyday, even if it’s just a quick “are you OK?” and speak on the phone at least once a week.

I felt like I had to step into my mum’s shoes and become her support system

Lisa Hall, 40

When I’m writing she’ll message every day to ask “what are you having for tea?” – not because she wants to know, but because she knows when I’m writing I don’t even think about things like that.

If I know she’s having a hard time, or she’s exhausted from working and juggling all the things she has to do (which is a lot, she is incredible) I’ll send her a bunch of flowers, or even drive down there to take her out for lunch and treat her for a couple of hours.

Between her husband working long hours, running her own cleaning business and having three small children, sometimes things just get overwhelming and I want to remind her that she is still Amy, not only a mum/business owner/wife.

I feel like it’s my role to make sure she gets that bit of breathing space.

Luckily for us both, our husbands and all the children – six between us – get on like a house on fire.

We’ve been on holiday together several times to Cyprus and to France, and while it could have been a disaster, spending huge chunks of time together has just strengthened the bond between us.

Our mum leaving for Spain was the catalyst that brought us closer together, but it’s the little, everyday things that strengthen our relationship.

The way she writes lovely notes in every birthday card she sends me, the way I’ll be travelling and see something so perfect I have to buy it for her.

The way she knows immediately from a text containing one or two words that I’m not OK.

The way I send her little recipes with hidden vegetables in them, because I know my nephew hates to eat veggies.

Our mother is back from Spain now, living in the UK.

We see her, and we both speak to her regularly, but Amy will always be the one I go to first.

She’s gone from that annoying little kid who cried a lot and hogged the TV to my secret keeper, my partner in crime, my best friend.

We recently revealed how a two-year-old boy, who’s one of Britain’s youngest influencers, has bagged his mum a brand new Porsche.

Lisa’s latest book, psychological thriller Have You Seen Her, is available now on Amazon for £6.19.