Page 73 of Insomnia

I watch as she presses herself up against the glass as if she can somehow get out that way.

60.

Emma

A stone. A stone from the rockery. That’s what I need. Something, anything I can smash glass with. The wind whips hard lashes of rain at my skin as I run down to the end of the garden, feet slipping on the muddy grass, until I’m on my knees and tugging at the heavy rocks, cursing us for being the kind of couple who “get people in” and don’t have odd bricks lying around from a half-finished job.

I’m breathless and sobbing with impotent rage as I realize that they’ve been cemented together to create their pattern. I can’t pull one free. I look at my watch. It’s 1:54. What happens at 1:55? Focus, Emma, focus on getting inside. Think. My heart leaps. The pond. Our forgotten pond in which all the fish died and we haven’t bothered to get filled in yet. There are big pebbles in the pond. I’m slipping across to the other side of the garden, trying to make out the water in the darkness and downpour when a flash of lightning illuminates the night. It’s followed by a second and I glance up at the house, half expecting Caroline to be charging out toward me. But that’s not what I see.

Chloe.

It’s 1:55a.m. Perfectly lit in lightning, Chloe is pressed up against the cathedral window, her hands up by her face, with fingers spread, as if shoved up by a policeman while being arrested, and her mouth open in a wide O.

Time collides. I can feel the glass under my own fingers. Feel the carpet under my toes. I’ve stared out that window sure there was someone below looking up, someone out there trying to get in. Can Chloe see me? Has it always been me down here looking up and trying to get in?

What was my mother seeing when Nina found her pressed up against a window exactly like Chloe is now, muttering her numbers, exactly like I have? Even so long ago, was she here, inthis1:55a.m.? As I was tugging at her legs and screaming at her, was she seeing me,now,in the garden too?

I slide into the pond, the slimy cold water reaching my thighs, and I crouch, scrabbling at the smooth rocks at the bottom.I’m coming, Chloe,I think, as I watch my precious girl slide down the window,Mummy’s coming.Please hold on. Please hold on, baby. 2:22. I have to get in by 2:22. Every fiber of my being is screaming the truth of that to me. I think of my own mother. I feel her strong hand gripping my wrist in the hospital. I channel her strength now and tug a stone free.

61.

Caroline

I lower Chloe to the floor and leave her sleeping, propped up against the wall, head forward and legs splayed, like the drunk slut she is. Maybe I’ll finish her like that too. I’m not sure she deserves any dignity. Her mother’s daughter, that’s for sure. Want, want, want. Take, take, take.

A dead weight is heavy, and I stretch my back. In a flash of lightning something catches my eye through the window. A figure stumbling across the lawn.Emma. Well, well, well. She’s carrying something. What is that? A rock? “Mummy’s home,” I whisper to a finally unconscious Chloe, and then turn to go back downstairs to greet my guest.

The storm is raging and as lightning flashes again and I come toward the kitchen, I see her face, full of rage and fear, soaking-wet hair a mess, on the other side of the glass. She doesn’t see me, but turns toward the back door. As I get closer, I hear her exertions as she heaves the stone. She couldn’t do my job. She wouldn’t last aday. The rock thuds against the thick glass, but nothing happens. She tries it again, harder this time, grunting like a Wimbledon champion.

The glass will break. And when it does, I’ll be ready.

62.

Emma

I launch the stone over and over at the door and finally, finally, the glass in the back door smashes. I punch at the broken edges and reach through. The key isn’t there. I stretch my fingers, scrabbling for the kitchen counter, maybe the key is there, but it’s too far. There’s no time. I launch myself in through the broken panel, edges of the glass slashing at my torso and tearing through my jeans and into my thighs but I push through, collapsing in a soaking heap on the kitchen floor. I scramble to my feet, the floor slippery—eggs, there are broken eggs on the floor, crack, crack, crack—and I’m stumbling forward when I hear—

“Hello, Emma.”

I turn, shocked, to find her there behind me. Caroline. Grinning. Her long hair hanging loose, long and straggly, hanging over her face.

“What the hell are you doing, Caroline?” I ask.

“This.” She suddenly steps forward and before I can recoil, she punches me hard in my side. I stagger backward, clutching whereshe hit me. I’m surprised to find the liquid I touch there so warm. How can it be hot? And sticky? As my legs give out under me, I raise my hand in the gloom. My fingers are dark. Blood. It’s blood. Oh god.

I crumple to the floor and as I grab for her legs, she kicks my flailing arm away. I lean back up against the kitchen cupboard, and press my hand against the stab wound in my side.She’s stabbed me.Blood pulses out between my fingers and I bite back a sob. As the shock fades, the pain comes. This isn’t good. Not good at all.

“What have you done to my family?” I ask.Keep her talking. Where are the police?I press harder, trying to hold the cut closed. Caroline puts the weapon down on the island. It’s a thick shard of glass, only a few inches long. Maybe I’ll be okay. Maybe.

“Nothing yet. But I’m just balancing the books, Emma.” She opens the fridge and pulls out an open wine bottle, taking a long sip of wine as she sits at the breakfast bar. “You did it to my family first.”

“I didn’t do anything.” My stomach feels cold. Like there is ice melting in my insides. “I was five years old.”

“Mum always talked about fate after the accident,” she says. “Don’t be bitter. We have to deal with what Fate gives us. You can’t change it.She’d say that shit so many times that as much as I adored her, I wanted to throttle her for it. Always so cheery.That’s what Dad would have wanted,she’d say. She was wrong, of course. I think what he’d have wanted would be not to have died in agony with his lungs crushed by a steering wheel before he was forty-five.” She laughs a little and sips more wine.

“It wasn’t fate that caused any of that, though, was it? It was me and Mumnot beingenough for my sainted father. He wanted to share our home with another child. He thought Mum had spoiled me. He thought I was cold. Lacked empathy. Needed someoneto look after. My mother obviously didn’t agree. She loved me as much as I loved her. But she loved him too, and he wormed his ideas of a cuckoo in our nest into her and she went along with it. And then suddenly everything was “Emma, Emma, Emma.” She glances at me then, face filled with sudden rage.

“And look where that got them. A coffin and a wheelchair. I was so angry, strapped in that back seat. I remember it so well. The bright sunshine. All Dad’s excited chatter while I nursed my rage. I’d thrown a tantrum before we left. I’d screamed and I’d broken things, but for once none of it had gone my way.She’s so sweet. Emma.A pretty name for such a pretty little thing.They were in love with you—even my mother—and expected me to love you too. Like I cared about your tragic life? They weremyparents. There was no space for you.”

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