Page 12 of Insomnia

“Boo!” I didn’t know there was another boy behind me and this time I do jump, his breath stale warm tobacco on my neck.

I spin around. “Just piss off!” I snap. He’s tall, maybe slightly older than the others, and he backs away a few steps, grabbing at his crotch, laughing at me. “Dried up old cow.”

I’m so tired and irritable my fists clench and I want to launch myself at him, but then the others join him and, whooping, they head off at a half-run, the carts abandoned, toward the McDonald’s next to the petrol station past the car park. I take a couple of deep breaths, watching them go, and then turn back to my cart. Dickheads. My boy won’t grow up to be like that. Not in a million years.

I throw the shopping onto the back seat, before getting in and closing the door, exhausted again. I feel awful. How do people go without sleep? How long until bedtime? Too long.

It’s a warm day and with the teenagers off to harangue the poor burger servers, the heat through the windshield is relaxing. It’s eleven thirty. I actually did the shopping pretty fast. There’s nothing for the freezer in the bags. Maybe I’ll sit here for ten minutes or so. Close my eyes. Kill this first hint of a headache before it really starts. Some me time before family takes over again. I need it. I open the windows a crack for the warm breeze and lean back against the headrest. That feels good. Ten minutes. That’s all.

I startle awake—who am I, where am I—as a screaming baby in a cart goes past, and my head throbs and I’m thirsty. It’s hot in here. Did I fall asleep? I wipe drying dribble from my chin and look at my watch, expecting only a few minutes to have passed, but it’s twelve fifteen. Forty-five minutes. Bloody hell.

I straighten up in my seat and smooth the back of my hair, my ponytail mussed up with static, and try to shake myself awake. In the side door I find a half-drunk bottle of water and although it tastes of warm plastic, I sip some and it brightens me. Forty-five minutes of rest is like a gift from god, and the sleep must have been deep because it felt like only a moment. I’ve got half a chance of getting through the day with my marriage intact now. I feel almost human.

“Where’s the cake?”

“What cake?” We’re putting the shopping away and I have no idea what Robert’s talking about. He must have felt guilty about our row because he’s been to the dump with the cardboard box collection in the garage while I’ve been out.

“Thecake. For Jade? The reason you went out in the first place.”

“Oh god.” Lies breed lies. The reason I went out—the NightNight—is hidden away in my handbag like a lover’s letter, and my face must have fallen at being caught out in my little white lie because Robert smiles.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go back and grab one. I should have gone anyway. It was my job. I’ll take Will for the ride. We can stop at the play park for a bit too.” He wraps his arm around my neck and kisses my forehead. “We do need to talk about me working though, Em. It’s my turn now, surely?”

Stray hairs of my ponytail are caught tight under his arm, so rather than leaning into his chest willingly, I feel trapped there.His turn. That sounds more serious than just getting something part-time. I don’t want a nanny or for Will to be trapped in afterschool clubs every day, but I can’t work shorter days. What he if expects me to step down from my job? There’s no way he could ever cover our monthly expenses and there’s no way I’m giving up my career.I’m catastrophizing, I know, but with the way he’s been recently, I can’t help but wonder if this is part of something bigger.

“I get that you’re not happy,” I say. “And sorry if I was snappy.” All I want to do is find a a show to binge-watch on TV and sink into the sofa. “We can talk about it later.” I take a breath and reset. He maywantto work but he’s not likely to go into something at an executive level and starting at the bottom at forty will put him off, so why argue about something that probably won’t happen?

10.

I’m an episode into some tacky but fun thriller and sunk into the sofa with a cup of tea when the doorbell rings. I almost shout up to Chloe to get it, but she’ll have her headphones in no doubt, blocking the world of her family life out of her teenage one. If it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses again, the language they’re about to hear is not going to be very godly.

In fact, it’s a woman about my age, maybe a couple of years older, long hair efficiently back in a ponytail, in a nurse’s uniform, looking awkward and as tired as I feel. “Um, are you Emma Averell?” she asks. Her badge reads “Caroline.”

“Yes?” Is she a nurse from the hospital? Or the Unit? Is she here abouther? How the hell would she get my address?

“I found this,” she says. “At the big Asda? In the car park?” She holds up a wallet.Mywallet. “By McDonald’s? I was going to hand it in, but your driver’s license had your address on it and I had to come past this way so...” She shrugs, almost apologetically, and my brain finally kicks into gear.

“Oh god, thank you so much.”Those bloody kids. I take it from her and immediately look inside to check my cards. I glance up. “There was forty pounds in here.” My irritation seethes.Those bloody kids indeed.

“I didn’t take it.” Her tone hardens slightly. “Nursing may not pay much, but we don’t tend to top it up by stealing.”

Robert pulls into the drive and I see this woman—Caroline—looking at his car and then mine and our house and I must seem like such a snooty cow.

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting—” My face burns with embarrassment. A stranger brings my wallet back and I’m basically saying to her face that she’s stolen something. “There were these teenagers and—I meanttheymust have taken it. My bag was in my cart and they distracted me. Honestly, I—”

“It’s fine,” she says. “I understand. Anyway, I should go.”

“Let me get you something. As a thank you—I’ve got some money inside. For your trouble.”For your trouble.I sound like a granny. But I don’t want her to go away thinking I’m awful.

“It’s fine. I was coming this way anyway,” she says. She turns quickly, almost colliding with a smiling Robert carrying a cake I don’t need, before apologizing and walking away,hurryingaway, probably wondering why she even bothered.

“Thank you so much!” I call after her and she half-raises a hand as she rounds the corner, but in her head I bet she’s calling me all sorts of names. Still, I think, as I follow Robert and Will inside and close the door, at least I got my wallet back.

The day passes as Sundays tend to, in a drift of active inactivity, Robert watching TV while I got out the pruning shears and clipped back the overgrown roses at the front, and by early evening the catnap I had in the car won’t sustain me anymore and I claim a headache—only a half lie because there’s definitely one brewing—and go upstairs for a lie-down. I take the pile of clean towels in the utility room with me—another job Robert hasn’t done for days—and go to one of the spare room cupboards and stack them withthe rest. The room’s stuffy, even though dusk is falling, so I open a window. My breath catches.

Phoebe is standing in the driveway near my car, staring at the house. At her sides her fists are clenched. Her hair is blocking her face, but the way she’s standing, so still and taut, disturbs me. After a long moment, she turns and strides away. I could call out the window to stop her but I don’t. She’d come back and what then? One of my own hands automatically makes a fist.How did we come to this, my big sister and I?

11.

---