Page 23 of Insomnia

“What is this?” Robert mutters, clearly disturbed. He looks at me. I realize they’re both looking at me, wary and cautious.

“You think this isme?” I half laugh, shocked and appalled. “This isn’t me.”It does look like me.But it’s not me. I know it’s not.But how could he know?

“I know you haven’t been sleeping, Em. You’re never in bed when I wake up. Could you have done something that might have scared him? Accidentally? That he might have messed up in a nightmare?”

“This isn’t me!” I say again, hearing the slight hysteria in my raised voice.

“His teacher presumed it was something from a bad dream,” Mrs. Fincham says, and then pauses and reaches forward. “But then she saw this.” She turns to the next page. There’s no drawing on this one, but one word is printed large.

MUMMY

20.

“Phoebe,” I say, for what feels like the millionth time. “It has to be.”

The sketchbook is open on the island between us, Robert having thrown it down as soon as Will, surprisingly almost his normal perky self, had scuttled off with some juice and an iPad.

“If you’d let me speak to him properly—”

“Like you did with Ben? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t shake Ben.” I take the sketchbook and hold it up, refusing to be shamed by it or afraid of it. “This is not me. This is Phoebe’s doing. She’s put this image into his head.”

“I have no bloody idea what you’re talking about.” He stares at me.

“My mother,” I say. I’m not giving him more than that. He can swing for it. “Phoebe must have been telling him about her.”

“What’s your mother got to do with this?”

“Nothing.” I rub my wrist. I can still feel those bony fingers gripping me. “Well, not quite nothing. Something from when we were little, before she died, something only me and Phoebe—well, it’s private.” I know I’m rambling but itisprivate. I’ve spent my whole lifenotbeing defined by it. “ButPhoebehas everything to do with this. There’s no other explanation. She’s back. She’s been here. She put Will to bed. Must have said something then.”

“It doesn’t feel very like Phoebe,” he says, and I want to laugh.

“Oh, but you think this could be me? What did that teacher say? The scary lady who’s in his room at night? You think that’s me? Seriously?”

He wavers then, no longer so sure of his own narrative. “No, of course not. But I don’t think it sounds like Phoebe either.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” It niggles me when he defends Phoebe. As if maybe he sometimes feels like he chose the wrong sister all those years ago.

“Look, Em... ,” he starts, and then the doorbell rings, three sharp demanding bursts, and we both know who’s going to be on the other side. Michelle. Whatever softening of mood toward me Robert was entertaining vanishes. This one really is my mess.

“I’m so sorry, Michelle.” She hasn’t come in farther than the hall and she’s angry, but not as livid as Robert was expecting. My theory was right. She’s frying bigger fish in her emotional life and this is just one more thing she could have done without, rather than a serious concern. “But I don’t care what that passerby said, I didn’t shake Ben.”

“I know. He told me.” She glares at me. “But you shouldn’t have been telling him off at all. And certainly not without me there.”

“You’re right. I should have come to you. It’s just that Will hasn’t wet himself for years, so it was a shock. I’m sure it was all just a playground prank gone wrong or something but—”

“Ben didn’t make Will wet himself by shaking him,” she cuts in. “Ben shook Willbecausehe was wetting himself.”

I stare at her, momentarily confused.

“What?” Robert says. He’s been loitering behind me, out of the firing line, but now he steps forward.

“Ben said Will was staring into space on the playground whenthe others were calling to him to play. He didn’t move. Wouldn’t look up. Matthew and the others in Will’s class got a bit freaked out and ran away. Ben called over to him but Will didn’t respond and then he saw—well, that Will was wetting himself. He shook him to make him snap out of it. And he did.”

She looks at me and then at Robert and then back at me. “Whatever scared him, it wasn’t Ben.”

As Robert swoops in, apologizing some more and ushering Michelle toward the door, I think back to what Will said in the car.I had an accident.And thenBen shook me.He’d actually told me the truth and I’d drawn a line between the two statements and made up a truth of my own. Oh god.

---