Page 37 of One Step Behind
‘Because when we got to the trampoline park this afternoon I was convinced someone was watching us. I didn’t know if I was losing my mind or if he was still out there and I was terrified he’d do something to the kids. You know the emails he sends are always about them. I had to make sure he was still in hospital and the kids were safe.’
‘And is he?’ Stuart’s tone softens.
I nod.
‘Was he awake? Did you talk to him?’
The question turns my stomach with a sickening unease. ‘Of course not. I’d never … I … I couldn’t do that. He was still in a coma.’
‘He can’t get to you or us any more, Jenna. You realize that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course, but—’ I hesitate. How can I explain how I feel when I don’t even understand it myself? ‘I can’t switch it off. I can’t wrap my head around why he was doing this to me. Why me? Why him?’
‘What about going to see someone?’ Stuart asks softly.
‘Like who? A therapist?’
‘I was thinking a GP to start with, but yes, a therapist too. You’ve been through a lot.’
‘I don’t need medication. I need answers.’ The moment the words leave my mouth, I realize they’re true. The anxiety, the panic, the fear that you’ve pumped into my body day after day, week after week, isn’t going anywhere. Instead, it’s morphing into something else – a burning desire to understand why this has happened to me, to understand you and what I did to make you feel so much hate towards me.
‘I wasn’t suggesting you do,’ he says, taking my hand. ‘Of course it’s going to take some time. But you have to find a way to deal with it for Beth and Archie as well as yourself. There was no one there today. You’re safe and so are the kids. It’s just like we talked about the other night. We don’t have to run away. We can stay in our beautiful home and get back to normal.’
Normal? I don’t know what normal looks like any more.
‘I’ll run the kids a bath,’ I say after a pause. ‘They need it after all that jumping.’
‘You sit here, let me do it.’
I think of closing my eyes and snoozing in the sunshine. It’s a tempting thought, but I push myself up from the chair before it can settle over me. ‘It’s fine. I want to do it,’ I reply, thinking of the anger in Beth’s eyes when she looked at me, and my promise earlier to pay more attention to her, to both of them, which already feels broken beyond repair.
Chapter 19
Sunday, 16 June
Jenna
I sleep for four hours and when I jolt awake my eyes feel sticky and my mouth paper dry. It’s not nearly enough sleep to catch up on what I need, but it’s the most I’ve had in weeks. Stuart is beside me, a lump of duvet. He won’t move now until his alarm chimes at seven a.m. How does he do that? Sleep so easily, so well?
I shouldn’t have drunk the second glass of white wine with dinner.
Thinking of dinner reminds me of Stuart’s joke. Archie asked what the capital of Argentina was and Stuart reached for his phone to look it up just as I said, ‘Buenos Aires.’
‘There you go, Archie, your mother – the human Google.’ He grinned and so did Beth and Archie. ‘If only she could get Google Maps installed too, then she wouldn’t be late collecting you from places.’
Archie howled with laughter and Beth sniggered, and I knew he was joking and so I laughed along, buthis comment stung. It reminded me of the little digs we used to fire at each other.
Stuart didn’t understand why I went to see you. How could he? In all of your emails, it’s always been about me and Beth and Archie. Never Stuart.
I think of the way Sophie looked at you yesterday and try to imagine you as a brother, but the image doesn’t fit. My older brother Nathan is a doctor too. He travels from country to country, offering help where it is most needed, but he would fly straight back here in a heartbeat if I asked him to. You can’t be like that. In my head you’ve always been a deranged member of society, living in the shadows. No friends, no life. You can’t be kind and funny and help your sister anytime she asks, and then do what you’ve been doing to me.
My head starts to spin. Images of the resus bay crowd my thoughts. I swallow back the rising bile. My fingers twitch as though they’re still inside you, holding the pinched chest tube. What would have happened if Diya hadn’t returned?
For the first time in years I think about taking a sleeping tablet, but they never work and I always end up feeling worse the next day. Instead I slip out of bed, shutting the bedroom door behind me and walking quietly down to the living room.
I find an old episode ofGrey’s Anatomyon the TV and watch it for a while, marvelling at the amount of sex the characters seem to have at work. I rarely get time to pee most days.
The characters on the screen blur before my eyes. My mind drifts. I know your name now. Matthew Dover. And I have your phone, I remember suddenly.
