Page 70 of Clever Little Thing

“And that’s a point in your favor?” Of course he didn’t slip up: he’s so good at keeping on top of details while seeing the big picture.

Suddenly I realize something. He put me in the Cottage because he saw the big picture. When it comes to deciding custody, he wants to be able to say, “My wife has been in an inpatient psychiatric facility and is mentally unfit to take care of the children.”

“You want the kids,” I say. “You planned this.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Pete says. “I have to do what’s best for them. I don’t think it’s safe for them to be around you right now.” The expression on his face is so earnest, his eyes so blue, so serious. He actually believes that I am bad for them. I am wrong: putting me in the Cottage wasn’t him playing the long game, at least not consciously. He really has convinced himself that I am mentally ill. In his mind, whatever is convenient forhimbecomes the truth.

Down the hall, Kia is stretching her quads as she waits for the machine to make drinks. I can imagine his conversation with her: “Poor Charlotte. She’s got postpartum psychosis. Paranoid delusions. Hormone issues, like her mother. This same thing happened after she had Stella, there was a disastrous camping trip, she thought I sneaked into someone else’s tent. This Emmy thing is nonsense. Charlotte’s convinced I managed to make out with this random woman, the mother of one of Stella’s friends, while Stella and the other kid were in the house. I barely have time to take a leak when I’m looking after Stella.” And Kia: “Oh, poor Charlotte. She needs help.”

Kia returns from the machine and holds out a cappuccino. “Pete likes oat milk, and it just occurred to me that maybe you do too, so I could go back if you prefer that. Careful, it’s super hot.” She won’t meet my eye, but she still wants everything to be nice, a conscious uncoupling, even though she knows my husband’s coffee preference. But here we are, in a land far beyond niceness, beyond etiquette. There is no “Charlotte Says” for this situation.

“Just tell it like it is,” the trolls always said.

“I don’t want you here,” I say. “I don’t want your coffee. I don’t like you.”

“I understand you have a lot of feelings,” Kia says, in a way that makes it clear she’s spent time in therapy.

“He’ll cheat on you too,” I tell her, feeling something boiling up inside. When I was young, I always let my mother be the one to lose her temper. When she shut me outside in the snow, when she threw flour at me, I stood there and took it. I let my feet get numb, my nose fill with choking particles. I retreated from the edges of mybody and went deep inside myself. But not anymore. “He’s a colossal shit,” I tell Kia.

Pete shakes his head. “You’re not well, Charlotte.”

“Take the coffee, please,” Kia says. “We can talk.” She holds it out, too near my face. Ihateit when people invade my personal space. I stand up and slap the drink away, and it cascades onto Kia’s running tights. She screams, plucking at the fabric. “Fuck, fuck! Pete, help me!”

Pete grabs my shoulders and pushes me away from Kia. Hospital security and yet more nurses appear, and I quickly scream, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” as loud as I can. The security guards decide it is Pete they want to show out, not a hysterical, lactating mother. Kia limps after them.

A kind older nurse takes me to the hospital cafeteria and gets me a cup of tea with sugar. I am shaking. I look at the plastic stirrer she brought me, the single-use plastic Pete hates so much. Pete talked about making plant-based coffee stirrers at some point, but the real solution is to go back to using spoons. Or have your tea and coffee at home. But there’s no profit for entrepreneurs in that.

The tea is terrible, and I remember the tang of lemon peel, the warmth of cinnamon on our honeymoon. I feel a rush of grief.

37.

On the Tube, my phone pings with a text from Irina:Blanka is not happy.My heart lightens: maybe, just maybe, Irina will help me after all. I arrange to meet her at a café in Muswell Hill.

She orders tea but doesn’t drink it. She’s lost the beauty she had yesterday. She looks tired, her face worn. She doesn’t bother with any preamble. “Yesterday, I have many questions for Blanka. ‘What is happening to you, my darling? How is this happening?’ But Blanka will not talk to me. That first time is the only time. No more.” She shakes her head, staring out the café window. “When Blanka is little girl, she goes quiet when angry. Very, very quiet. Is just like that now. She does not like this.” She waves her hands. “This situation. She wants to go.”

I lean forward. “You’ll help me?”

Irina purses her lips. “I help Blanka.”

“OK,” I say, feeling my determination ignite again. I can still save Stella. “We’ll find out what’s made her so angry. Any ideas?”

Irina taps her fingers on the table. “I am thinking about Blanka getting menstruation. Before, I think, why does she want to give up on life when she gets menstruation at last?”

“Right, her menstruation.” I cringed when Irina wanted to discuss Blanka’s period weeks ago. It seemed so inappropriate. But now that I’ve given birth in front of Irina, now she’s seen me splayed and oozing, we can talk about anything.

“Now I think maybe this blood, is not menstruation,” Irina says carefully.

“What else could it be?”

Irina stares at me. “First time sex, you bleed.”

“You think she lost her virginity?” I whisper, my heart aching for her. “Who could it have been? Not your neighbor? Who else did she know?”

“No friends, never had boyfriend in her life,” Irina says. “She goes to work, supermarket, home only. I am asking myself this. Now look.” She pulls out a battered phone—Blanka’s—and taps in a passcode. She pulls up the messages between me and Blanka. They are innocuous messages about what time she was coming and what Stella could have for dinner. Could they be at home by 4:00 p.m. because someone was coming to fix the fridge. Still, I feel something approaching terror as Irina scrolls through the messages. Finally, she shows me one from Blanka:OK if I come to get cheque today.

Sure,I texted.I have a yoga class but Pete will give it to you.Itmade no sense, but I feel a pang for that ignorant time, when I had no idea Pete was betraying me and Blanka was suicidally depressed.

“Same day as blood,” Irina says. “Four days before she die.”

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