Page 67 of Insomnia

“You bastard.” I look up at Robert. “You’re doing this. You! I know it. You and Phoebe.” Will’s starting to sob now and I go to comfort him and Robert holds out one arm to stop me.

“Stay away from him, Emma. Or I swear to god, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

A door slams in the hallway and I turn to see Chloe storming toward me, face blotchy and nose running, a mess of emotions. “You bitch!” she says loudly. “You told. And now he’s staying with her and I hate you. I hate all of you!”

I take a step back, alarmed, and my arm touches the handle of the pan on the stove. I turn to try to grab it and accidentally knock it and find myself scrabbling at thin air. I see Caroline dart forward from her stool and Robert wrap himself around Will, as all the boiling water and potatoes launch into the air. I close my eyes in panic, and then Will is shrieking and Robert is swearing and the pan clatters to the floor. There’s a long moment.

Oh god, oh god, oh god.Please god.

“Get out, Emma.”

I open my eyes, my chest heaving. “Are you okay? Is Will? Did you—”

“I said get out.”

I see the damage now. Will is crying mostly from shock, I think just a few splashes of water on his thighs below his shorts, but Robert’s arm is red. It’s going to be a nasty burn.

“I’ll get my bag, it’s in the car,” Caroline says, already headed to the door.

“It was an accident,” I say, “I didn’t mean—”

“Just get the fuck out of here!” Robert shouts, on his feet and looming over me. “Or I will have you committed!” He lets out a long rattling breath as I retreat into the hall and he picks Will, sobbing now, up. “It’s okay, just a little burn. Let’s get it under some water,” he says to our son soothingly, before looking back my way. “Maybe I will anyway,” he adds quietly. “For your own good.”

As Caroline comes hurrying back inside, a stranger more welcome in my house than I am, I back away, defeated. Chloe looks down from the top of the stairs. “You’ve broken everything,” she says, her voice thick with heartache. “I hope you’re happy.”

I hold it together until I get to my car, and then I start sobbing. Even Caroline is against me. I’m all alone now.

53.

I stop at an ATM and take five hundred pounds out of the checking account and then from my credit card and don’t go back to the Radisson Blu. If Robert does try to track me down to commit me, I don’t intend to be easy to find. Instead, I choose a small hotel near the station, one that’s a step up from a B and B but definitely not branded, and the woman behind the narrow counter in the hallway doesn’t ask me for any ID before taking my cash and handing me a key attached to a big slab of wood.

It’s the kind of key that in some hotels is a “feature” but here is just old-fashioned and practical for stopping any guests from leaving with it. She tells me my room is on the top floor and there’s no lift, so I wearily trudge up the narrow staircase and musty smelling carpet until I find my haven, a room that just about fits the double bed and wardrobe, and there’s a small shower room attached. It’s stuffy, the heat apparently fixed in the on position, and I open the old sash window and let in a humid breeze and the traffic noise from below. At least there’s a kettle tray and it looks clean.

I’m so tired. Tomorrow is my birthday. Only just over a week ago my husband and daughter were planning a party for me and now here I am, alone, outcast, and still fizzing with worry. Atleast Phoebe is out of surgery, I think as I pull out the bottle of wine and packaged sandwich I picked up on the way after the hospital rang.Comfortable and in recovery.Still critical, but we’re cautiously optimistic.What will Phoebe have to say when she wakes up? Will she condemn Robert or put him in the clear—from pushing her anyway. I’ve wondered about them working together, and as I fill a mug with warm white wine, I realize that there are more options. Yes, maybe one or the other is out to get me. Maybe both together.

There is of course another possibility. Maybe it’s both of them, but separately. Unaware of the other. And Phoebe’s accident could be just that, an accident. Maybe she was distracted. Maybe Chloe warned her I was coming. Or Robert did. There are so manywhat ifs andmaybes,a person could go quite mad trying to figure out all the eventualities.

Quite, quite mad.

Which of course is yet another possibility, in a strand on its own.

That all of this persecution complex is simply a product of my own paranoia. No one is coming for me. I am the only danger with my second-child madness from dirty blood. I am turning forty. I am turning into my mother.

I lock the door and then stand on the chair to put the car keys and room key right at the back of the dusty top of the wardrobe. I don’t want it to be easy to leave the room tonight. I take two pills for my headache with a large swallow of wine and then sit on the side of the bed. I don’t unwrap the sandwich. It’s getting late and outside the heavy overcast sky is turning to night fast, the sun lost behind the thick clouds. I drink my wine and feel my head start to whirl, a crazed merry-go-round of numbers, music, and tics. I drink some more and hope I’ll pass out. I wish I had my sleeping pills toadd to the mix, but I’m not sure I could trust myself not to take too many. I’m so desperate to sleep.

Night falls.

I don’t sleep. And yet I’m not entirely awake. The night passes like a fever dream, my anxiety ratcheting up as the clock goes past midnight. I pace the room. I rattle the handle. I press myself against the window. I do these things and yet I’m not entirely sure Iamdoing them. I drink wine and my head buzzes and as I rattle the locked door, I’m sure my hand is not my hand.

I drink some more. At around two, I have a moment of clarity and realize I’m soaking wet all through my clothes. It feels right. It feels important. Why is it important that I’m drenched? I drink some more and then find myself standing, staring at the bed. I’m mumbling lyrics and clap my hand over my mouth to stop from screaming them. I stare at the pillow, full of fear, and then finally allow myself to tumble through the cracks in my mind. I can’t fight the night.

In the night I am mad.

54.

MY FORTIETH BIRTHDAY

It’s the phone ringing that brings me back to myself. It’s ten thirtya.m. The night has vanished and the morning is well and truly here. Forty. I’m forty.

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