Page 49 of Insomnia

I frown slightly. “But my mother was catatonic, wasn’t she? How could you tell if she liked someone?”

“Trust me, even very locked-in patients, like your mother sometimes was, have ways of showing if they like a nurse or not. It can make dressing and undressing them very difficult.”

“Like shesometimeswas?” What does that mean? “Did she have periods of lucidity?” My mother collapsed in front of me when I was five and as far as I was aware had been entirely noncommunicative since then. They’d thought she’d had a stroke at first, it was that bad. And Phoebe said she wasn’t talking when she visited too.

“Of sorts. Your mother’s issues were complex. She didn’t really fit into a defined bracket, but then people rarely do. There were long periods of time when she was definitely present. She just chose not to speak. But physically she was weak from so much inactivity and on the occasions, not so much recently, that she was out of her wheelchair, she would need a walker.”

My mother was active? Not almost brain-dead? The past is rewriting itself and making my head spin as we finally come to a stop at one room. My mother’s room. I’m hesitant at first to cross the threshold, but the bed is stripped and the desk and drawers are empty of any possessions.

“She didn’t have many things,” Julie says. “Just her clothes and toiletries. There used to be a radio, but it would upset her. Mainly she liked quiet.” Her voice is soft and as I peer into the bathroom, I see where a mirror over the sink has been removed.

“Is this where...” My throat is tight and dry. In my mind’s eye I see her standing here, but as she was when I was a child, bloodshot eyes and greasy hair, slamming her forehead angrily into the glass.

“Yes.” Julie looks pained and uncomfortable. “We all feel awful about it. There was no warning. She’d been more alert of late, but nothing to imply that she was going to hurt herself. She was such a placid soul, you see. You might not think of her that way, and that’s natural given your childhood, and yes, she was damaged, but she was gentle. She hadn’t done anything like that in twenty years.”

“She’d done it before?” It all feels surreal. The void of my mother’s life is filling up with these snippets of time.

“Not like that, no. But she did try to stab herself once. Long before my time, obviously. In fact, it was a whole different regime then, and this extension wasn’t even built, but it was a terrible thing. To this day no one knows how she got hold of the piece of glass. Thankfully the nurses got to her in time and the wound wasn’t deep.”

I look back at the mirrorless wall and although I’m a long way from feeling any pity for her, I wonder how desperate she must have been to smash her head so hard against it. And why the long gap. Why now? It gives me a shiver.Why at 1:13a.m.? And why did I wake up so full of fear and dread then?

“Let me show you the art therapy area. She spent a lot of time in there. I think she found it soothing.”

I’m happy to leave the empty room behind. I don’t want to think of her on that mattress, night after night, for all those years. I’d pictured her as totally lost to the world, basically having to be turned and washed, but now I know that wasn’t the case. Phoebe didn’t tell me about that. She came here a few times. Was our mother alert during any of those times? Why wouldn’t she say? Would I have wanted to know? Probably not, to be fair. But everything I’ve assumed to be the truth of her life is being rearranged and the world feels unsteady.

When we get to the large room where an art class is going on, it’s the first time I’ve seen any patients at all. There are maybe eight or ten women of various ages concentrating on their work, some light pop music playing in the background. A woman with long gray hair swept up in a chignon, a heavy bead necklace, and an ID around her neck looks over and smiles, and even without the badge I’d know she was an art therapist.

“Patricia liked it in here,” Julie says. “To be honest, we all like it in here. The calmest room in the building.”

Another nurse peers in. “Ah, Julie? Can I have a word? I’ve got a problem in room six. Two seconds.”

Julie looks at me apologetically. “Take a look at some of the art if you like. Some of it is quite impressive.” And then she’s gone.

Awkward, I stroll around the room, wondering whereshewould have sat and whether she ever painted anything and if she ever tried to draw her children. It makes me think of Will’s drawings on the walls. Is he now also doomed to be haunted by that night from long ago?DidPhoebe tell him? Could he have overheard? I glance at the people concentrating on their art. All with issues. All damaged. Am I like them?Those little slips of time. What do I do in them? Am I standing over my child’s bed? Am I the one fated to repeat the mistakes of the past?My birthday is so close now. I’m exhausted.Am I going to snap? Like her?

“You’re not the one who came before.”

The voice startles me and I find that a woman with a saggy face, heavy bags around her eyes, and dark hair shot through with steel gray has appeared beside me. There’s a hum of energy about her as she moves from foot to foot. Anxiety maybe. She’s got paint dried onto her fingers, and there’s a splash of white on her blue sweatshirt. No ID card. One of the patients. One of my mother’s peers.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“Pat’s daughters.” Her eyes search mine. “You look more like her than the other one. Got the same eyes. I’m Sandra.” She smiles. She has surprisingly great teeth. Maybe she’s not as old as she looks. “The other one was different.”

Julie hasn’t returned yet, but the other nurse in the room and the art teacher don’t seem at all concerned by this interaction, soI don’t see why I should be. I’ve spent all these years thinking of my mother locked in a facility for the criminally insane, it’s hard to adjust to the realization that these people are mainly just troubled.

“My sister, Phoebe? Yeah, we’re not really alike.”

Sandra’s face clouds over and then she looks up at me again. “Want to see my paintings?”

“Sure.”

She has a whole corner of the room to herself, away from the rest of the group.

“We always kept space for Pat next to me. Patsy, I used to call her sometimes. Like off ofAb Fab. Love that show. She used to watch me paint. Even when she wasn’t really here.” She taps the side of her head. “Off wherever she would go. Somewhere, that’s for fucking sure, but just not here. I don’t think she liked it there. Her face would go odd. Tight, you know? I was always glad when she came back.”

I know exactly what she means. I remember that “tight” face when Mum would be staring into the middle distance. She had it that night.“Ah, there you are.”When she opened the under-stairs cupboard door.

“Look.” Sandra pulls a few pictures out of one of the drawers. She’s painted on boards, no crisp warped paper covered in poster paint like Will brings home. As I look at them, I’m surprised. They are actually quite good. Bright flowers and abstract butterflies. “I love the summer,” she says. “I think my head would be all right if it was always summer. Know what I mean?”

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