Page 49 of If I Could Say Goodbye
‘We’ll mention it at the doctor’s. Get you something to help with that.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah, I thought I’d come with you, I need to pick up my dry-cleaning in town anyway.’
‘OK.’
‘We can go to that café with the cinnamon buns first if you fancy it?’
‘Edward Jones, you always say the right words. You had me at cinnamon buns,’ I reply, closing my arms and thinking about all of the things that I should be grateful for.
‘Hello, Jennifer, and this must be Mr Jones, do take a seat.’ Dr Faulkner re-arranges her ballerina bun and pushes her oversized glasses up her nose. She looks as though she’s in her early twenties.
‘So . . . how have you been?’ she asks, smiling briefly at me over the rim of her glasses before returning her focus to the screen in front of her. ‘I see you stopped seeing the grief counsellor after only two sessions?’
I nod.
‘Wasn’t it helping?’
I shake my head. ‘She just kept repeating what I said and following it with “So how does that make you feel?” I just, well, it was hard enough coping without my sister that going to those sessions just felt like something else to add to the things I didn’t want to do.’
‘OK. And have you been sleeping any better? It’s always hard in the early stages of grief, so how is it now?’
‘She doesn’t sleep,’ Ed interjects. ‘Well, obviously, she sleeps, but it’s always in small amounts. She fidgets all night long, as though she’s trying to run a marathon.’
‘I’m not that bad.’ I roll my eyes at the doctor. ‘What is he like?’ my face tries to say, but I can feel that I haven’t quite pulled it off. From the corner of my eye, Kerry is wandering around the room, leaning into the pictures on the walls, and yawning.
‘It’s like sleeping on a trampoline some nights.’
I turn to him, my mouth slightly open. I’m about to defend myself, but then I notice the dark circles beneath his eyes.
‘How is your mood, Jennifer?’
‘My mood? Good thanks, Ed bought me a cinnamon roll in the café before we got here and that’s always a good start to the morning, isn’t it?’ I laugh, then look at her toned arms and skinny thighs. I bet she’s been to a spin class this morning and had something green and liquidised for breakfast.
‘So, no loss of appetite, no mood swings or anything like that?’ I hesitate and ignore Kerry, who is peering over the doctor’s shoulder and reading something on the screen and eating a packet of chocolate buttons.
‘Nope.’ I smile.
‘Lack of libido?’
‘Definitely not.’ I give Ed a sheepish look and the doctor chuckles.
‘That all sounds good. So back to the insomnia, have you ever suffered from it before?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘So, explain to me, if you can, about how it feels when you try to sleep.’
‘I start thinking about the accident, and just lately, well, I keep having these thoughts . . . questions really, you know, why I’m here, and my sister isn’t, you know that kind of stuff, but that’s normal after you’ve lost someone close, isn’t it?’
‘Lost? I’m not lost . . . Hellooo? Earth to Jen.’ She waves her hands above her head.
I don’t let my gaze flicker to Kerry. ‘And it’s normal to be thinking about them, to be thinking about old memories?’
She pauses, sensing that I haven’t finished talking.
‘It’s just that—’ I clear my throat. ‘I think about Kerry a lot and I often find myself . . . daydreaming? Replaying good times with her, that kind of thing.’
