Page 10 of Insomnia

“Why does there have to be a bad guy?” she asks, hard nails tapping into some taxi app. “I was trying to connect with you because our mother—for all her problems—is in the hospital. Maybe dying. And maybe, just maybe, it might do us—doyou—some good to confront that.”

“I understand the past,” I hiss back quietly, even though there’s no chance Robert can hear me. “I don’t need to revisit it. And that doesn’t make me a bad person. And you think you know everything about—”

“Oh, come on,” she cuts in, tone like acid. “Everything worked out fine for you, didn’t it? After everything? Nice foster family, of courseeveryonewanted to foster little Emma—”

“That’s not true—” I want to point out that one family pulling out at the last minute and then one family stepping in is hardlyeveryone,but she’s in full flow and talks right over me.

“And so off you went to university and got your law degree and—thanks to me—met your wonderful, handsome husband and had your wonderful beautiful children, and now live in yoursosterile but expensive house with everything planned and mapped out for the rest of your perfect life and youstilldon’t even have the good grace to look happy about it or acknowledge that maybe I had something to do with it all.”

She places her wineglass down carefully on the table, so carefully it’s almost as if she really wants to smash it.

Crack. Crack. Crack.The ghost in my head whispers a memory and I shake it away.

“You never wanted a life like this,” I snap. “A family. Children.”I refuse to let her make me feel guilty. It’s not my fault we had different foster experiences. And I’ve workedhardfor this life.

“You don’t know what I want,” she says, her turn to be cold. “You never have.”

Her phone beeps and she moves past me, now eager to be gone. Her taxi’s here.

“Phoebe,” I say, and she stops.

“What?”

“They don’t know abouther.You know that. I want it to stay that way.”

“You thought I was here to tell them?” Her expression is unreadable. “It never crossed my mind.” She laughs, hollow. “No wonder you’re so obviously worried about turning out like Mum. Nothing paranoid about you, Emma,” she says, her words dripping with sarcasm. “Nothing at all.”

I don’t think she even says goodbye to Robert, and within seconds it’s as if she hasn’t been here. Unreadable Phoebe. A ghost. She’s my big sister and I love her, but I wish we could like each other more.

8.

How can I still be awake?

I fill the kettle and lean against the kitchen counter, my forehead throbbing with tension and tiredness. Sleep is never normally a problem for me. I go out like a light. I’ve checked the children. There’s nothing wrong in the house. What does that leave? Something wrong with me?No wonder you worry about turning out like Mum. Nothing paranoid about you, Emma. Nothing at all.

How long before that night, her fortieth birthday, did my mother stop sleeping?

I stare through the windows, but in the glare all I see is my own taut face staring back, another me, trapped outside in my reflection. It makes me shiver and I realize that anyone could be out there watching me. I flick the lights off as the kettle starts to bubble and after a moment of blackness my eyes adjust and moonlight casts jagged streaks on the kitchen tiles, the grainy white light fractured on heavy branches outside.

I go up close to the window again and peer out into the garden. This time it’s a vista of black and gray monstrous shadows that fade into the ocean of night on the horizon. My eyes narrow. Is that—was that—a spot of yellow light? I blink and it’s gone. If it was ever there at all. My heart beats a little faster. Is there someone outside?Is it Phoebe? Why would Phoebe be in my garden in the middle of the night? Or is it just a figment of my tired imagination? I blink. Nothing. There’s nothing out there. I let out the breath I’ve been holding, and then look at the back door.

Our mother wasn’t always mad.

I go to the door and grip the handle, turning it up and down. It’s locked. I double-check. Still locked. The oven clock ticks over to 1:13.

No, our mother wasn’t always mad. That’s what Phoebe used to tell me anyway. She was weird, maybe. Mad, no.

The kettle clicks off behind me. Tea. That will make me feel better. Something normal. Tea makes everything better, that’s what they say, whoevertheyare. I’m unsettled after Phoebe’s visit, that’s what it is.

“Good luck with her!”That’s what Phoebe shouted all those years ago when the Thompsons came to foster me.“She’s crazy! That’s what our mum used to say! Emma’s going to go crazy too! She’s got the bad blood like me and your great-auntie Joanie!”She was right. Our mum did used to say that.

I used to try really hard to remember our mother normal, but I could only ever remember her mad.

As I open the fridge to get the milk, the first thing I see is a tray of eggs on the shelf right in front of me and not tucked away on the side where they should be.Crack. Crack. Crack.The memory comes fast: the stench of rotten eggs, her bony fingers digging into my arms, her face lunging down from high above, warm, stale spit hitting my face as she hisses,“I just want to slee—”I slam the door shut. I don’t need milk. I’ll have chamomile.

I wish I could remember her not mad. I wish she’d always been mad. I’m not sure which of these would be better. The twothoughts rub friction between them. Cognitive dissonance. Why is the past always so much more alive at night? Ghosts, spirits, ghouls. Memories.

In the hallway, Chloe’s jacket has slipped from the banister and is sprawled, an emptied torso skin, on the wooden floor. I crouch to pick it up, and as various lipsticks and coins and teenage junk fall out of the inside pocket, I put my mug down to gather it all back up.

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